It’s worth flagging the obvious solution of supporting raising taxes on billionaires while allowing them to donate instead thanks to the charitable tax deduction. (I mention this in the comments to my post on Billionaire Philanthropy, which Dylan Matthews cites and draws upon for the “Given that the billionaires do exist, what else would you rather they spend money on?” argument.)
P.S. Speaking as a New Zealander, I’m pretty confident that most of my compatriots believe that American billionaires should pay more taxes!
Although donating and tax-deducting $100 only allows them to reduce their taxable income by $100, right? Which reduces their tax by $40, if their marginal tax rate is 40%. It would be better if charitable donations were actually counted as tax contributions (equivalently, if they were subtracted from tax owed).
Edit: this would mean some tax-evaders trying to donate to charities and then recapturing/embezzling back the funds, but still might be worth it.
In order to make this even remotely plausible, the rules for tax deductible charities would need to be far more stringent. And then you get a situation like we currently have in Austria, where not a single EA-aligned charity is tax-deductible at all.
Maybe you could do 70% with some intermediate level of stringentness. And plenty of EA charities are tax-deductible in the US, which is where much more of the wealth is.
Risking an understatement, I don’t think giving people a way to entirely circumvent any democratic process on the decision of what to do with their tax money is a good idea.
But if the government is giving them the way out of paying taxes, that isn’t circumventing the democratic process.
If I’m not wrong, in the UK some companies can invest some potential tax money into R&D instead, but since the government allows them to do this I don’t think it counts as circumventing the democratic process.
This is technically correct. I’ll rephrase to “I think it would be a bad democratic decision to let billionaires spend their tax money themselves without oversight”.
That is a very good solution which I would support!
I’d expect New Zealanders to largely want American billionaires to pay more taxes, but do you think the same would be true for New Zealanders who are into EA (and so are more dedicated to impartiality than most New Zealanders?)
It’s worth flagging the obvious solution of supporting raising taxes on billionaires while allowing them to donate instead thanks to the charitable tax deduction. (I mention this in the comments to my post on Billionaire Philanthropy, which Dylan Matthews cites and draws upon for the “Given that the billionaires do exist, what else would you rather they spend money on?” argument.)
P.S. Speaking as a New Zealander, I’m pretty confident that most of my compatriots believe that American billionaires should pay more taxes!
Although donating and tax-deducting $100 only allows them to reduce their taxable income by $100, right? Which reduces their tax by $40, if their marginal tax rate is 40%. It would be better if charitable donations were actually counted as tax contributions (equivalently, if they were subtracted from tax owed).
Edit: this would mean some tax-evaders trying to donate to charities and then recapturing/embezzling back the funds, but still might be worth it.
In order to make this even remotely plausible, the rules for tax deductible charities would need to be far more stringent. And then you get a situation like we currently have in Austria, where not a single EA-aligned charity is tax-deductible at all.
Maybe you could do 70% with some intermediate level of stringentness. And plenty of EA charities are tax-deductible in the US, which is where much more of the wealth is.
Risking an understatement, I don’t think giving people a way to entirely circumvent any democratic process on the decision of what to do with their tax money is a good idea.
But if the government is giving them the way out of paying taxes, that isn’t circumventing the democratic process.
If I’m not wrong, in the UK some companies can invest some potential tax money into R&D instead, but since the government allows them to do this I don’t think it counts as circumventing the democratic process.
This is technically correct. I’ll rephrase to “I think it would be a bad democratic decision to let billionaires spend their tax money themselves without oversight”.
That is a very good solution which I would support!
I’d expect New Zealanders to largely want American billionaires to pay more taxes, but do you think the same would be true for New Zealanders who are into EA (and so are more dedicated to impartiality than most New Zealanders?)