The richest 1% in the Netherlands pay relatively less tax than everyone else and their incomes have risen more sharply, according to new calculations by the government’s macro-economic forecasting agency CPB. Earlier research, based on figures from 2016, showed that people on the highest incomes pay less tax and the new figures, based on the period 2011 to 2019, paint a similar picture. The very richest, or 0.01% of the population, paid a tax rate of some 28%, well below the 40% paid by people with average incomes...
Looks like they play the same game there as they do in the US. Get most of their income from investment vs actual salary, and of course the investment is taxed less than regular income.
Super late to the party but every comment in response to yours is incorrect or not the full reason for capital gains being taxed less than income tax. The economic justification for a lower tax rate on capital gains relative to ordinary income is threefold: it is not indexed for inflation, it is a double tax, and it encourages present consumption over future consumption. The biggest being the last point, the gov’t wants people investing, borrowing and spending so the lower tax is an incentive to keep your money in the .arket and not in a savings account or under your mattress.
I shouldn’t have started by saying the other comments are wrong, but they all seemed to miss the actual reason you were asking about.
For the same reason my transportation costs to go to work and my housing costs are not tax deductible.
We’re not tge protagonists of the story, so, fuck us.
So the real / original answer to this was the idea that we should avoid double taxation. If you were taxed on income already, and then invested that income which is now post tax, that capital gains then should be less taxed (or some argue not taxed) because you already paid taxes on it.
I’m of the opinion that I think taxes should be based on any income you make, based on the wealth you have. Source of income for the wealthiest should be irrelevant (and yes this includes in my mind realizing gains from stocks by borrowing against them).
Well they’d argue that the money they put in is taxed, presumably because it was income and subject to income tax. So any income used to assess tax, they’d argue is taxed.
I’d just argue any income (including from capital gains) should be taxed according to your wealth. I don’t care if it has already been assessed for tax. If it’s income, and you already have excessive wealth, you should be paying a hefty tax. The point of taxes is redistribution of wealth and communal improvement (eg infrastructure) so I really don’t care if something is taxed once twice or more times, I care that wealth is taxed and used for public good.
Capital gains taxes are only levied against the profit earned from investment, not the gross value returned to the stakeholder.
If someone buys a stock for $100, then later sells it for $150, only $50 is taxed. So the money that was “already taxed” by income taxes isn’t being double taxed at all, regardless of the rate of the capital gains tax.
Unless, of course, you count the fact that it was taxed as income by the person who gave it to you, in which case all money has been taxed numerous times before and the argument is that taxes in general are bad.
Yeah, I think in general people come up with veiled reasons for lower taxes but fundamentally it’s just because they don’t want to pay taxes at all.
I like taxes. I like having roads (though I want more public transportation), I like having firefighters and public parks and protected green spaces and…
Don’t get me wrong, I’d be glad for more money in my take-home, but in general I’m in favor of the things taxes pay for. I’d prefer to just be paid better.
I agree with you. I would rather see the money back in the community instead of making rich people richer.
At one point in the US history, the highest marginal tax rate was 90%. It makes sense. If you don’t want to get taxed, just recirculate the money.
But at one point, the rich captured the politicians and different state machines and lowered their tax, created a bunch of loopholes, and just fucked everyone over.
So I’m for a wealth tax. And one fucking thing that should change is that a cash loan backed by assets should be taxed as income.
If it applied to your primary residence, then your prospects to afford to move would be pretty slim. Of course, for most people this won’t matter, since primary residence is exempt for a good amount every two years.
I could also imagine a capital gains offset to account for inflation. If you have 5% gains with 9% inflation, you get to pay taxes despite in real terms losing money.
there’s a special 100% exemption for sale of a primary residence you lived in for 3 of the last 5 years in the US so it has little to do with fhe rationale for the low capital gains of everything else.
The inflation argument would be fair if there were automatic adjustments for inflation in wages including minimum wage. You get to pay taxes while losing money on your salary so you might as well lose them on capital gains. This is not the bucket of crabs argument, it’s just fairness as i’m absolutely in favor of taxes.
Because the people who own for a living make the laws.
Don’t get me wrong, they’ll tell you any BS they think you’ll beleive to try and justify it. Things like “encourages investment”, as if they would suddenly decide they dont want money for doing no work, or “tax is theft”, as if the only difference between what they do and what a state does with taxes (charging people for using their things) is the fact that one of them is a state and the other isn’t, are all just lies told by the rich to bring down their tax bill.
They tell these appalling lies because they’re either an idiot who doesn’t know any better or they think that you are.
I hate to admit it but it seems that way. Our social systems, transport, healthcare, etc. were severely degraded by rightwing policies, and now many people voted for an even more rightwing party, as if they are gonna clean up the mess. Fucking idiots.
It’s the plan of defunding many public services so they can’t work efficiently then point to that inefficiency as proof that government is bad. Then they promote the “extremely efficient” private sector as the savior to all the bad government problems. And it just happens that these representatives own businesses that can supply all these goods and services at a modest profit of course.
Looks like they play the same game there as they do in the US. Get most of their income from investment vs actual salary, and of course the investment is taxed less than regular income.
Super late to the party but every comment in response to yours is incorrect or not the full reason for capital gains being taxed less than income tax. The economic justification for a lower tax rate on capital gains relative to ordinary income is threefold: it is not indexed for inflation, it is a double tax, and it encourages present consumption over future consumption. The biggest being the last point, the gov’t wants people investing, borrowing and spending so the lower tax is an incentive to keep your money in the .arket and not in a savings account or under your mattress.
I shouldn’t have started by saying the other comments are wrong, but they all seemed to miss the actual reason you were asking about.
I will never understand why capital gains should be taxed less than income. It’s in itself a statement against the working class.
For the same reason my transportation costs to go to work and my housing costs are not tax deductible. We’re not tge protagonists of the story, so, fuck us.
AFAIK Biden has plans to change the long-term capital gains rate to match the ordinary income rate, but I’m not sure of the current status of that.
For what it’s worth, people with low incomes (less than $47k) aren’t taxed on long-term capital gains at all.
So the real / original answer to this was the idea that we should avoid double taxation. If you were taxed on income already, and then invested that income which is now post tax, that capital gains then should be less taxed (or some argue not taxed) because you already paid taxes on it.
I’m of the opinion that I think taxes should be based on any income you make, based on the wealth you have. Source of income for the wealthiest should be irrelevant (and yes this includes in my mind realizing gains from stocks by borrowing against them).
The double tax argument is dumb because the money you’ve put in is not taxed, thus the capital gain.
So there is no double tax because only the portion that wasn’t taxed is.
Well they’d argue that the money they put in is taxed, presumably because it was income and subject to income tax. So any income used to assess tax, they’d argue is taxed.
I’d just argue any income (including from capital gains) should be taxed according to your wealth. I don’t care if it has already been assessed for tax. If it’s income, and you already have excessive wealth, you should be paying a hefty tax. The point of taxes is redistribution of wealth and communal improvement (eg infrastructure) so I really don’t care if something is taxed once twice or more times, I care that wealth is taxed and used for public good.
Capital gains taxes are only levied against the profit earned from investment, not the gross value returned to the stakeholder.
If someone buys a stock for $100, then later sells it for $150, only $50 is taxed. So the money that was “already taxed” by income taxes isn’t being double taxed at all, regardless of the rate of the capital gains tax.
Unless, of course, you count the fact that it was taxed as income by the person who gave it to you, in which case all money has been taxed numerous times before and the argument is that taxes in general are bad.
Yeah, I think in general people come up with veiled reasons for lower taxes but fundamentally it’s just because they don’t want to pay taxes at all.
I like taxes. I like having roads (though I want more public transportation), I like having firefighters and public parks and protected green spaces and…
Yup.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d be glad for more money in my take-home, but in general I’m in favor of the things taxes pay for. I’d prefer to just be paid better.
I agree with you. I would rather see the money back in the community instead of making rich people richer.
At one point in the US history, the highest marginal tax rate was 90%. It makes sense. If you don’t want to get taxed, just recirculate the money.
But at one point, the rich captured the politicians and different state machines and lowered their tax, created a bunch of loopholes, and just fucked everyone over.
So I’m for a wealth tax. And one fucking thing that should change is that a cash loan backed by assets should be taxed as income.
In an economy without inflation I agree.
Parking money in a bank so that interest covers inflation shouldn’t be reduced by tax.
Depends on the capital.
If it applied to your primary residence, then your prospects to afford to move would be pretty slim. Of course, for most people this won’t matter, since primary residence is exempt for a good amount every two years.
I could also imagine a capital gains offset to account for inflation. If you have 5% gains with 9% inflation, you get to pay taxes despite in real terms losing money.
there’s a special 100% exemption for sale of a primary residence you lived in for 3 of the last 5 years in the US so it has little to do with fhe rationale for the low capital gains of everything else.
The inflation argument would be fair if there were automatic adjustments for inflation in wages including minimum wage. You get to pay taxes while losing money on your salary so you might as well lose them on capital gains. This is not the bucket of crabs argument, it’s just fairness as i’m absolutely in favor of taxes.
Because the people who own for a living make the laws.
Don’t get me wrong, they’ll tell you any BS they think you’ll beleive to try and justify it. Things like “encourages investment”, as if they would suddenly decide they dont want money for doing no work, or “tax is theft”, as if the only difference between what they do and what a state does with taxes (charging people for using their things) is the fact that one of them is a state and the other isn’t, are all just lies told by the rich to bring down their tax bill.
They tell these appalling lies because they’re either an idiot who doesn’t know any better or they think that you are.
I hate to admit it but it seems that way. Our social systems, transport, healthcare, etc. were severely degraded by rightwing policies, and now many people voted for an even more rightwing party, as if they are gonna clean up the mess. Fucking idiots.
It’s the plan of defunding many public services so they can’t work efficiently then point to that inefficiency as proof that government is bad. Then they promote the “extremely efficient” private sector as the savior to all the bad government problems. And it just happens that these representatives own businesses that can supply all these goods and services at a modest profit of course.