Wealth Transfer: The Irreconcilable Double Standards of Hostility and Envy
Hostility: Emotional Grounds For Transfer Taxes I have to disclose first that I, throughout personal backgrounds, have a deep-rooted hostility toward the rich or idea of transferring wealth within wealthy people. Thus, my thought is thoroughly biased for the taxation that can limit the transfer of wealth. Oddly, however, I have always envied and admired the rich and their power with a naïve hope that I might be rich someday like them. Thus, I disagree with the taxation, which would be equivalent or amount to the near confiscation of property at death as suggested by Ascher. It is my personal belief that many, if not most, people would have similar irreconcilable thoughts
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The transfer tax system can be substantially changed to raise more revenue with less cost, weakening the opponent’s argument. Further, even if the transfer tax is the fraction of the total revenue, it must not be the reason to repeal the transfer tax, because the government would ultimately have to find another source of revenue to compensate the same amount of …show more content…
As suggested by Ruddick, the accessions taxes seems to be relatively more close to the goals of transfer taxes and are less vulnerable to the danger of abuse than the way of incorporating into income tax system or adopting inheritance tax based on annual return, because the aggregated transferred wealth on one’s life is taxed under consistent tax level. Since the transferred wealth, even if incremental, is also accumulated within the recipient’s asset portfolio, it is more direct and intuitive tax based on the aggregated amount of tax renewing annually the total amount. Like the current tax bracket, reasonable bracket with higher marginal rate would successfully achieve the goals of social equality and raising more revenue, as long as the administration difficulty would not hinder such
According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that we equally reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer, and that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation's wealth, and sixty percent of America's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some huge differences that exist between the classes of America, especially the wealthy and the poor. After
Sixteenth Amendment- Authorization of an Income Tax – Progressives thought this would slow down the rising wealth of the richest Americans by using a sliding or progressive scale where the wealthier would pay more into the system. In 1907, Roosevelt supported the tax but it took two years until his Successor, Taft endorsed the constitutional amendment for the tax. The Sixteenth Amendment was finally ratified by the states in 1913. The origin of the income tax came William J Bryan in 1894 to help redistribute wealth and then from Roosevelt and his dedication to reform of corporations. I agree with an income tax to pay for all of our government systems and departments, but I believe there was a misfire with “redistributing wealth.” The redistribution is seen in welfare systems whereby individuals receive money to live. This is meant to be a temporary assistance, but sadly, most that are in the system are stuck due to lack of assistance in learning how to escape poverty. There are a lot of government funded programs, but there is no general help system to help lift people up and stay up, so there continues a cycle of
The rich tycoons of their society refused to share their money with the poor. Andrew Carnegie and Samuel Gompers both wrote their essays towards the wealthy with hopes to make a difference for the poor workers and unemployed. Rich tycoons would do anything to keep it for themselves, if it meant leaving it as inheritance
The current system, although bringing in over $3 trillion, taxes income multiple times, and includes the taxing of estate, labor, savings, and investments (National Priorities Project, 2013). The system itself is complex with over 20,000 pages of regulations, requiring a massive filing system, which is set up and maintained by an even larger IRS, requiring over $225 billion in compliance costs (Hall, 2001). One can be hard pressed to find an advantage in the current system, other than the fact that it provides the government with an enormous amount of funds, and it has been road-tested.... ... middle of paper ... ...
A. First and foremost it would shift the burden of taxes from the rich to the middle-class
Society today is split in many different ways: the smart and the dumb, the pretty and the ugly, the popular and the awkward, and of course the rich and the poor. This key difference has led to many areas of conflict among the population. The rich and the poor often have different views on issues, and have different problems within their lives. Moral decay and materialism are two issues prevalent among the wealthy, while things such as socio-economic class conflict and the American dream may be more important to those without money. Ethics and responsibilities are an area of thought for both classes, with noblesse oblige leaning more towards the wealthy.
Divisions within the social stratum is a characteristic of societies in various cultures and has been present throughout history. During the middle ages, the medieval feudal system prevailed, characterized by kings and queens reigning over the peasantry. Similarly, in today’s society, corporate feudalism, otherwise known as Capitalism, consists of wealthy elites dominating over the working poor. Class divisions became most evident during America’s Gilded Age and Progressive era, a period in time in which the rich became richer via exploitation of the fruits of labor that the poor persistently toiled to earn. As a result, many Americans grew compelled to ask the question on everyone’s mind: what do the rich owe the poor? According to wealthy
Everyone has his or her own ideas of how wealth should be distributed properly. Some people believe wealth should be left to family, left for public services, or become the property of others. Others believe that people should not have excess wealth, resulting in non-existent class distinctions. An alternative view is that wealth is not distributed; instead, the wealthy continue to grow wealthier while those in poverty can not escape it and fall further into a life of poverty. The beliefs discussed above come from three different writers. Those writers include Andrew Carnegie, Karl Marx, and Robert B. Reich. These writers all have different opinions on how wealth should be distributed properly.
This idea is represented in fictional works as well, such as in the play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” written by Edmund Rostand. Social classes play a major role in the book, specifically as the main character Cyrano is faced with the chance to rise to power with ease. He rejected this opportunity, because he preferred to be “Blessed with an eye for looking at/ things as they really are,…go[ing] along any road under [his] moon, /careless of glory, indifferent to the boon/or bane of fortune, without hope, without fear” (Rostand 70). The fact that Cyrano was entirely capable of rising to aristocracy and still turned down the offer demonstrates that, even in an age where social classes were more strongly emphasized than today, becoming rich did not guarantee that life would be a walk in the park. He hoped to be indifferent to the “bane of fortune” and the burdens it causes, which portrays the concept of riches in a negative light. Living a life of minimal luxuries means living without hope and fear, because it eliminates the need to obsessively worry about losing the wealth and position of power that has been attained. The simplicity of this kind of lifestyle allows for more freedom of decision and opportunity. It could be claimed that the daily struggles of the poor make their lives the more demanding ones, but the struggle to make it through each day is
Taxation has always been a major controversy. Just like any major corporation, the government is constantly looking to raise revenue. The easiest and fairest way to do this is by taxing the people. However, how the people will be taxed is always an issue.
...heir obsession with materials and wealth. However, though each class tries to rise higher than those below, the fact is that each class is crucial in the survival of the others.
Income inequality continues to increase in today’s world, especially in the United States. Income inequality means the unequal distribution between individuals’ assets, wealth, or income. In the Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes, a liberal journalist, states the inequality gap between the rich and the poor are increasing widening, and there need to have things done - tax the rich, provide better education - in order to shortening the inequality gap. America is a meritocratic country, which means that everybody has equal opportunity to be successful regardless of their class privileges or wealth. However, equality of opportunity does not equal equality of outcomes. People are having more opportunities to find a better job, but their incomes are a lot less compared to the top ten percent rich people. In this way, the poor people will never climb up the ladder to high status and become millionaires. Therefore, the government needs to increase all the tax rates on rich people in order to reduce income inequality.
Money is an essential part of life where every people can satisfy whatever they need and every person in America has a chance to find a job. However, some of the people in the country wanted to go on with their life freely by being a part of a welfare. Furthermore, distribution of wealth is a huge demand of every citizen. Everyone today is trying to look down for every people in the lower class, as they did not give any benefit to the country, waiting for the benefits that they will receive from the government. For instance, when most lower class people have gone through a financial crisis due to overspending, insufficient fund or pay for their work to support themselves and/or their family. The example shows that lower class people made the economy of the country unstable, however, the middle class and the higher class is at fault as well. Furthermore, even though the benefit of that the lower class received is from the middle class, the middle class as well benefits from the higher class. To sum up, every class is at fault towards giving the country’s economy a positive
Rich people are the selfish people that only care about their wealth and about their
In conclusion, If this wealth tax is done fairly and logically then it would be a incredibly good solution to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor as well as creating a climate for social reconciliation and substantive equality.