Would an 80% income tax be reasonable?

John-K_3

GreatApe wrote: »

Why with such skill and dedication wouldn't you just move over to starting your own company to produce something new useful and innovative where I would only tax you 0% ? You don't need to run away we just want you to be more innovative.

This is getting ridiculous now, with the pejorative “run away”.

Grow up, eh?

zagubov

Only a small proportion of the world's population is able to make the best use of their talents. Got to wonder how many potential Einsteins and Pasteurs are starving or being mown down in civil wars.

I'm not so sure land speculators deserve rewards. That's not the kind of "risk-taking" the country needs.

GreatApe

John-K wrote: »

This is getting ridiculous now, with the pejorative “run away”.

Grow up, eh?

I was only teasing surely as grown ups that is OK in general conversation

GreatApe

zagubov wrote: »

Only a small proportion of the world's population is able to make the best use of their talents. Got to wonder how many potential Einsteins and Pasteurs are starving or being mown down in civil wars.

I'm not so sure land speculators deserve rewards. That's not the kind of "risk-taking" the country needs.

People need to be free. If people want to speculate on land that should be upto them

The main problem is the belief mostly be lefties that house prices or land prices always go up so it should be very heavily taxed or only the domain of the state

But that is false you can buy a terrace house in Birmingham for below build cost.
That means its value has fallen from 100 years ago from when it was built
When it was built it was worth build cost. One hundred years later it is worth below build cost.

So the idea that it is a one way bet so only the state should be able to do it is just factually wrong.
Of course this won't stop the lefties who's real aim is total domination of the individual

westernpromise

GreatApe wrote: »

Why with such skill and dedication wouldn't you just move over to starting your own company to produce something new useful and innovative where I would only tax you 0% ? You don't need to run away we just want you to be more innovative.

Many reasons. For example, a bank's global head of compliance would make north of £500k but couldn't become self-employed because it's not allowed to outsource a regulatory function, hence that person has to be an employee.

A bank trader who makes £5 million a year probably gets to keep a couple, but he makes it using £100 million of the bank's capital. If self-employed he wouldn't have that capital. If he didn't exist he'd be replaced not by someone who'd make £4.5 million, but possibly by someone who'd lose a billion.

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

Many reasons. For example, a bank's global head of compliance would make north of £500k but couldn't become self-employed because it's not allowed to outsource a regulatory function, hence that person has to be an employee.

A bank trader who makes £5 million a year probably gets to keep a couple, but he makes it using £100 million of the bank's capital. If self-employed he wouldn't have that capital. If he didn't exist he'd be replaced not by someone who'd make £4.5 million, but possibly by someone who'd lose a billion.

Don't count these people short. They likely have IQ in the 150+ range and a drive in the top 2% they would be successful in many many fields

There are definitely employee jobs that are very important and add a lot of value to the company so I'm not suggesting all highly paid employees are wasting their talents and abilities but many surely are

Didn't you say you were highly paid but don't do much that most your pay is becuaee of the responsibility? Isn't that a waste of a capable individual? I'm not saying I would do any differently or that you should do differently just as a statement of fact don't you think you could promote someone under you to do your job and you go out and create new things? Like i said before I'm not suggesting you become the next bill gates but there are hundreds of thousands of businessmen imoroving productivity or creating new goods and services in their corner of the economic world

Once again don't take this as me insulting you or your job or your choices it isn't meant that way

economic

GreatApe wrote: »

Don't count these people short. They likely have IQ in the 150+ range and a drive in the top 2% they would be successful in many many fields

There are definitely employee jobs that are very important and add a lot of value to the company so I'm not suggesting all highly paid employees are wasting their talents and abilities but many surely are

Didn't you say you were highly paid but don't do much that most your pay is becuaee of the responsibility? Isn't that a waste of a capable individual? I'm not saying I would do any differently or that you should do differently just as a statement of fact don't you think you could promote someone under you to do your job and you go out and create new things? Like i said before I'm not suggesting you become the next bill gates but there are hundreds of thousands of businessmen imoroving productivity or creating new goods and services in their corner of the economic world

Once again don't take this as me insulting you or your job or your choices it isn't meant that way

Very high IQ isn't necessary to be a successful businessman or innovator or entrepreneur. And very high IQ doesn!!!8217;t mean you will be good at these things either.

PasturesNew

MobileSaver wrote: »

Ah, so geographic luck is only valid within your own country's borders? Why is cross-border the defining line? Why not counties for example? It sounds like you are defining luck to your own specific meaning just to support your argument.

No. Geographic luck is part of the issue, but you can't compare across-borders else everything ends up about starving people in Africa, which gets nobody anywhere.

MobileSaver wrote: »

So there are no successful women?

That is not what was said, as well you know it.
There are fewer, that's a fact.

MobileSaver wrote: »

Pure speculation on your part. I guess you've never heard of a singer called Tom Jones? Son of a coal miner in a Welsh village but now has a net worth of around £150 million... looks like cracks are starting to appear in your 'luck theory.'

Tom Jones was lucky he could continue singing after he'd got married -and- that he was living in the South of Wales when a London-based promoter (Mills) who came from South Wales happened to see him singing one night. He had actually lost his audience/popularity very early on and would've been an "also sang" except his manager reinvented him, so it was his manager's experience/foresight/determination that got him into the big game.

MobileSaver wrote: »

And yet with all that lack of luck she still won the X Factor, became very successful and now has a net worth of over £20 million. I think you've just blown your own theory completely out of the water!

But she had luck in the end was the point I was making.
She wasn't trying to be rich/famous or a top/international singer.... she just got lucky. Yes, she could sing well,

Note: I do not have the skill/ability to "discuss/debate" subjects, especially when they veer off and especially on forums... so I'll probably not reply after this, not because I've "lost a perceived 'argument'" but because I wasn't lucky enough to have the skill of keeping up/responding without tying myself in knots

Andy_L

zagubov wrote: »

The US demands its citizens pay tax based on citizenship rather than residency, so moving abroad to earn doesn't remove tax liability.

Wonder why the UK never adopted a similar system.

becasue the details of the US system mean its outcome much the same as the UK one. eg if you break US residency then your foreign earnings aren't subject to US income tax, just like the UK.

westernpromise

GreatApe wrote: »

Don't count these people short. They likely have IQ in the 150+ range and a drive in the top 2% they would be successful in many many fields

There are definitely employee jobs that are very important and add a lot of value to the company so I'm not suggesting all highly paid employees are wasting their talents and abilities but many surely are

Didn't you say you were highly paid but don't do much that most your pay is becuaee of the responsibility? Isn't that a waste of a capable individual? I'm not saying I would do any differently or that you should do differently just as a statement of fact don't you think you could promote someone under you to do your job and you go out and create new things? Like i said before I'm not suggesting you become the next bill gates but there are hundreds of thousands of businessmen imoroving productivity or creating new goods and services in their corner of the economic world

Once again don't take this as me insulting you or your job or your choices it isn't meant that way

I've tried being self employed but didn't like it. I don't really like selling and being self employed and doing what I do would entail that.

The general goal of my job is to eliminate nasty surprises of a certain character. I have delivered this by identifying and describing the risks to what we do, and then formulating procedures to make sure they never happen in a way that damages us.

There's an inaccurate but helpful perception that I must do a lot of work to make things look this smooth, but it's not really true. Setting the structure up was the hard part; having the "my way or the highway" conversations with people who didn't get with the programme. Now it all pretty much runs itself.

I'm perceived as a key man who's hard to replace, hence compensated well. But if there's anything I've missed, forgotten or undermanaged, it's my fault and clearly I'm not valuable any more. And the more I'm paid the easier it gets to replace me.

If I wanted to move on from here I could probably make more money but I'd take that risk on explicitly, which I'm not up for. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.

I think I'm a combination of intelligent, lazy, and risk averse. A lazy person who's given a lot of work to do will try to find an easy way of doing it but will, being risk averse, reliably do it the hard way if there's no other. Risk averse militates against ever taking the kind of risks that would make me rich. I know a couple of guys from school who were pretty thick but are now decidedly rich essentially because not having much of a career to lose they risked nothing by chucking their job in and setting up their own business.