The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

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bobevenson
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by bobevenson »

FlashDangerpants wrote:A buyer and a seller negotiating a price that suits each party is merely fair market value.
That's the same as intrinsic market value, my friend.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Ok, fine. So when you write 'intrinsic market value', everyone has to ignore that and substitute a meaningful value, for which we shall use FMV going forward.

And why exactly is it despotic to tax value adds such as income earned by increasing the value of a property?
Why is repeatedly making people re-pay tax for stuff they already paid tax on last month less despotic?

Have you though about the effect such a tax would actually have on the FMV of objects suddenly subject to exorbitant taxation?

You're pointing your tax at the accumulated wealth of the nation. The money you need to raise is equivalent to 35% of every American's total annual income.
Those who own stuff but have low incomes are therefore desperate to sell everything. But nobody else wants to actually own stuff because of the tax implications.

What kind of idiot would own a farm if you were in charge?
Obvious Leo
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by Obvious Leo »

FlashDangerpants wrote:Ok, fine. So when you write 'intrinsic market value', everyone has to ignore that and substitute a meaningful value, for which we shall use FMV going forward.

And why exactly is it despotic to tax value adds such as income earned by increasing the value of a property?
Why is repeatedly making people re-pay tax for stuff they already paid tax on last month less despotic?

Have you though about the effect such a tax would actually have on the FMV of objects suddenly subject to exorbitant taxation?

You're pointing your tax at the accumulated wealth of the nation. The money you need to raise is equivalent to 35% of every American's total annual income.
Those who own stuff but have low incomes are therefore desperate to sell everything. But nobody else wants to actually own stuff because of the tax implications.

What kind of idiot would own a farm if you were in charge?
I tried to make this argument to Bob some time ago but my case fell on deaf ears. Nobody would bother to own a taxable asset and thus the "Intrinsic market value" ( whatever the fuck that means ) of such assets would fall to zero. The economy would collapse overnight.
bobevenson
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by bobevenson »

Again, only property with intrinsic market value can be properly taxed. Any other form of taxation is bogus shadow-and-mirror taxation, and therefore improper.
Obvious Leo
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by Obvious Leo »

bobevenson wrote:Again, only property with intrinsic market value can be properly taxed. Any other form of taxation is bogus shadow-and-mirror taxation, and therefore improper.
Would somebody please give the record player a kick. The needle appears to be stuck.
bobevenson
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by bobevenson »

Obvious Leo wrote:"Intrinsic market value" ( whatever the fuck that means )
Let me try to explain it again in a way you might understand. Things like currency or stocks and bonds have value, but not intrinsic value. While the government could at any time say "these documents are hereby worthless," it would not be possible to say the same thing for the stuff these documents actually represent.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by FlashDangerpants »

bobevenson wrote: Let me try to explain it again in a way you might understand. Things like currency or stocks and bonds have value, but not intrinsic value. While the government could at any time say "these documents are hereby worthless," it would not be possible to say the same thing for the stuff these documents actually represent.
Are you back to market value again, or are you shifting to another definition of value this time?
Or did you never actually mean market value, and what actually meant all along was some form of impossible to calculate intrinsic value, which as we have mentioned, is not market value?

Why is it tyranny to tax wealth in contractual and monetary form, but not objects?
If the government could declare money worthless on a whim, it could equally declare that you have no right to own your car and take that away too instead of taxing you new money for it every month.
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by bobevenson »

Unfortunately, you don't see the big picture, and are getting confused by the terminology. You have things that have intrinsic market value like cars, and you have things that represent intrinsic market value like money. Taxation is required to support government activities, but the only real source of value to tax or sell for taxes are cars, not money.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by FlashDangerpants »

But shares and bonds represent contracts with market value. Which you already said makes it intrinsic value. So shares and bonds are taxable as property?
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by bobevenson »

FlashDangerpants wrote:But shares and bonds represent contracts with market value. Which you already said makes it intrinsic value. So shares and bonds are taxable as property?
They represent market value, but not much intrinsic value, since their only intrinsic value is the paper and ink they're written on.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by FlashDangerpants »

bobevenson wrote:
FlashDangerpants wrote:A buyer and a seller negotiating a price that suits each party is merely fair market value.
That's the same as intrinsic market value, my friend.
bobevenson wrote:
FlashDangerpants wrote:But shares and bonds represent contracts with market value. Which you already said makes it intrinsic value. So shares and bonds are taxable as property?
They represent market value, but not much intrinsic value, since their only intrinsic value is the paper and ink they're written on.
You haven't thought your theory through and you need to define what the term you made up "Intrinsic Market Value" actually means, and then take another go to be honest.

Please try to take into account that market value is by definition extrinsic.
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by bobevenson »

The concept is as simple as 1+1=2. An object can have intrinsic value like a baseball bat that I have an urge to use, or legal value like a dollar bill.
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henry quirk
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Post by henry quirk »

Bob,

What you're talkin' about, I'd call 'fair market value' rather than 'intrinsic'.

Value - in the broad sense, and the more narrow economic sense - is highly subjective and can fluctuate wildly if not enforced (through cultural pressure in the wide sense, and through government intervention in the narrow).

A gallon of milk, if the price is not artificially restrained, can cost anything, depending on a number of factors (falling under 'supply') and the appetite of consumers ('demand').

Bottom line: your idea has merit but 'intrinsic' is - in the least - an awkward descriptor. Why give the anti-Bobs any more ammo by dickin' around over one word? Demand a critique of the idea, not the vocabulary.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: The Most Despotic Taxes Known to Mankind

Post by FlashDangerpants »

bobevenson wrote:The concept is as simple as 1+1=2. An object can have intrinsic value like a baseball bat that I have an urge to use, or legal value like a dollar bill.
And the the baseball bat has higher value when you are feeling your urges?
If somebody floods the market with cheap baseball bats, the one you own loses value on that market?
That's market value.

If the baseball bat has exactly the same value no matter what the demand, or how many people have these urges of yours, and no matter how many other baseball bats are for sale today, its value would be intrinsic, not market.

Why is this so hard for you?

You should really take Henry's advice and move on, just using FMV as your yardstick.

Although I imagine we would next have to look at the market value of a contract to fulfil an obligation, which will of course turn out to be much more than 'ink on paper'. It would also cover the value of real estate - if we can suppose that the government might make currency and bonds valueless with just the strike of a pen, they could equally seize all property rights and make land valueless in the process.

If you obstinately stick to the whole 'Intrinsic' thing, I can therefore just argue that it is a myth because the government can take away any market it deems fit under your own explanation. That includes markets in physical stuff as much as in currencies. Your only way out would be to accept that contracts are inherently enforceable and thus grant that your 'Intrinsic' value applies as much to currency, bonds and shares as it does to land, cars and baseball bats.
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Post by bobevenson »

henry quirk wrote:Bob, what you're talkin' about, I'd call 'fair market value' rather than 'intrinsic'.
No, Henry, there's a world of difference between fair market value and intrinsic market value. Stocks and bonds have a fair market value, the last price shown on the stock exchange, but they have zero intrinsic market value since they only represent actual things that in fact do have intrinsic market value.
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