Higher taxes for the rich

Well we can save billions already by rooting out and aggresively prosecuting corruption and bribery.
 
noxibox said:
Only if they're incredibly foolish. Most recognise the huge opportunity, tax or no tax.
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Like the miners that have been shunning SA for a decade now (we completely lost out on the commodity boom). The smart money is not coming here.
 
noxibox said:
Haven't we heard similar statements from government officials before, everyone got their panties twisted and then nothing happened. There's no detail. They do need to move away from trying to bring in quick fixes. They're as bad as the commentators who foolishly thought it would only take a generation or less to make a dent in the problems left from the past.


I mean where are they going to go with their business? Maybe Estonia.


In the UK the busses were almost always late. Trains typically on time. Both cost a bloody fortune to use (regular users can bring the cost down, but it still isn't cheap). Electricity only went off on one day, about five times. It's not cheap either. And prices are escalating. Petrol costs about 50% more than South Africa, but the cars are reasonably priced. UK police don't often shoot people, but they have been involved in a few murders and they got away with it every time. Who knows if the politicians are taking bribes, they're usually quite good at not getting caught. Luggage was never broken into there or here, ever. My car's never been broken into in South Africa. Plenty of shady things go on in government tenders in the UK and Europe. People do buy private healthcare in the UK and there are regular stories of the problems with the public system. University is in the region of £6000 per year and up. Are they getting value for their tax money? Hard to say.
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I wasn't talking about the UK, no offense but that's a ****hole compared to Germany. And yes, politicians are crooked everywhere, I never said otherwise. They get caught, same as here. Difference is, they get properly dealt with and can never hold a public office again. They don't get "re-deployed" or promoted or give themselves pardons. I was talking about traffic cops taking bribes, not politicians. Try bribing a German speed cop... And again, Germany != UK. The UK is basically like South Africa just more expensive and crappier food and weather.
 
AstroTurf said:
Just increase VAT.
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You mean increase VAT on 'high-end' goods.. then again that leads to a whole lot of paper work and effort defining what goods are considered for the 'high-end' and then people will just not buy it. The only way to make wealth distributed better is to remove the greed factor in SA which is like getting breathing naturally in space. I see no value in unskilled people earning less than a livable wage albeit they uneducated.. it just doesn't leave them with much way of improving themselves and continues an endless cycle of state dependency. Yah i know people will be up in arms now when a garbage man makes a decent salary but then.. will we have strikes still and will unions have much of a backbone to stand on? I think countries where by people earn a decent living by just wanting to work is awesome.
 
A simple analogy for those who agree with taxing "the rich" exorbitantly...

Suppose everyday, 10 men go to dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If it were paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four men would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

The 10 men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.” Now dinner for the 10 only costs $80.

The first four are unaffected. They still eat for free. Can you figure out how to divvy up the $20 savings among the remaining six so that everyone gets his fair share? The men realize that $20 divided by 6 is $3.33, but if they subtract that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.

The restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so the fifth man paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of $59. Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man pointing to the tenth, “and he got $7!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got seven times more than me!” “That’s true,” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks.” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor.”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night he didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They were $52 short!

And that, boys and girls and politicians, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore...
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joelus said:
What does a person who earns millions of Rands in salaries and bonuses do with all that money? Why does any single person need so much money? It's greed, pure and simple. In order for one person to be super wealthy, many others have to be really poor.
I don't know if taxing the rich is a good idea or not but when I see how much money a few people have and how little so many have it makes me very despondent for the future, not to mention disgusted at the greed.
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How do you get to that conclusion? In the public sector salaries are more often than not based on performance. If you put Joe bloggs in charge of say vodacom but you only pay him R10 000 per month with no bonus there is no way he will be driven as much as the guys currently running it. He also won't take any risks to make the business better because there is no point to it. Large salaries are there to get people to improve things or at least strive for it.(please note in none now examples have I at any time used government. There is a reason to be discussed at another time and date).

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warchylde said:
How do you get to that conclusion? In the public sector salaries are more often than not based on performance. If you put Joe bloggs in charge of say vodacom but you only pay him R10 000 per month with no bonus there is no way he will be driven as much as the guys currently running it. He also won't take any risks to make the business better because there is no point to it. Large salaries are there to get people to improve things or at least strive for it.(please note in none now examples have I at any time used government. There is a reason to be discussed at another time and date).
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Agree with you. You can see the difference in replies between folks that have been working for years and those who have not (or have not even started working yet).

The best way to motivate staff to increase productivity or efficiency is to reward them appropriately and in monetary terms. This crap about loyalty, job satisfaction and job pride does not put food on the table. If you want loyalty buy a dog.
 
MickeyD said:
Agree with you. You can see the difference in replies between folks that have been working for years and those who have not (or have not even started working yet).

The best way to motivate staff to increase productivity or efficiency is to reward them appropriately and in monetary terms. This crap about loyalty, job satisfaction and job pride does not put food on the table. If you want loyalty buy a dog.
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Exactly. By the same argument used above somewhere (wanting more money is greed) then we have a buttload of greedy strikers causing a lot of harm at the moment no?
 
WilD_CaT said:
By any standard that looks at the entire state from a holistic POV, all those countries are some of the most free-market orientated countries in the world. They have always had the welfare side or socialist side but they have not always been wealthy or better off. They only started becoming wealthy due to pro-market measures.
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Yes, I know. The point I was trying to make is that socialism isn't the opposite of democracy, the opposite of democracy is autocracy. Anyway our country is just to poor to have a system in place like Sweden or Denmark.
 
phoneJunky said:
Yes, I know. The point I was trying to make is that socialism isn't the opposite of democracy, the opposite of democracy is autocracy. Anyway our country is just to poor to have a system in place like Sweden or Denmark.
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and the point we are making is that the government is claiming that they want to let our democracy flourish but with every new bill they propose it's obvious what governmental/political structure they are aiming for.
 
warchylde said:
and the point we are making is that the government is claiming that they want to let our democracy flourish but with every new bill they propose it's obvious what governmental/political structure they are aiming for.
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Democracy can flourish even if we are taxed 80%. The point you are trying to make is that you want free trade to flourish, but government/political structures aren't aiming for it.
 
phoneJunky said:
Democracy can flourish even if we are taxed 80%. The point you are trying to make is that you want free trade to flourish, but government/political structures aren't aiming for it.
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I wasn't just referring to the threat of a tax hike. I was talking about all the other verbal "slips" that continously happen as well as the information bill etc... there is a visible strategy with everything that they are doing (ok fine if you want to slap me with a tinfoil hat go ahead.... just saying where there is smoke.....)
 
warchylde said:
I wasn't just referring to the threat of a tax hike. I was talking about all the other verbal "slips" that continously happen as well as the information bill etc... there is a visible strategy with everything that they are doing (ok fine if you want to slap me with a tinfoil hat go ahead.... just saying where there is smoke.....)
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No, I was just posting in context to the first post. I don't think you are paranoid.
 
phoneJunky said:
Democracy can flourish even if we are taxed 80%. The point you are trying to make is that you want free trade to flourish, but government/political structures aren't aiming for it.
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Economies that do the best are those that have the broadest tax base, not the ones that tax the crap out of everyone.

Now, it may come as a surprise to the government, but there are a few million people who provide domestic services and are paid with after tax rands. Raising raxes will impact upon the employment of those people.
 
I agree, when we here of government doing things it isn't an effort to move in a more freedom orientated direction, the move is often in the opposite direction.

- NHI > Less Freedom
- Nationalisation of Banks/Mines > Less Freedom
- Take land without compensation > Less Freedom
- Increase taxes > Less Freedom
- Information bill > Less Freedom


That is not to say there aren't improvements in some areas, but a lot of the prominent stuff seem to go in the opposite direction. The New Companies Act seems from a holistic view to be more freedom orientated but it is far from perfect.
 
Regarding the OP:

OMG, this people just don't have a clue, do they?
Do they realy think that by taking from the rich and giving to the poor the poverty and ineqauality in SA is going to lessen?

We have to call a spade a spade, and realise that poverty and ineqauality is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

"Give a man a fish, and he's got food for one day - Teach a man to fish, and he's got food for life."
The ONLY way to address those issues is to EDUCATE. Unfortunately there is no shortcut.

Now regarding the taxation:
I fear this is only goint to benefit the corrupt in power. Nothing new I know. I just wish the poor voting masses will one day wake up and realise WTF is going on. But then again, an uneducated man is more likely to fall for the manipulation, control and enslavement of their masters.

./sigh
 
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LithIX said:
"Give a man a fish, and he's got food for one day - Teach a man to fish, and he's got food for life."
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"They say if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish.... then he's gotta get a fishing license, but he doesn't have any money. So he's got to get a job and get into the Social Security system and pay taxes, and now you're gonna audit the poor cocksucker, 'cause he's not really good with math. So he'll pull the IRS van up to your house, and he'll take all your ****. He'll take your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush, and your penis pump, and that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to carry the one, 'cause you were just worried about eating a ****ing fish, and you couldn't even cook the fish 'cause you needed a permit for an open flame. Then the Health Department is going to start asking you a lot of questions about where are you going to dump the scales and the guts. 'This is not a sanitary environment', and ladies and gentlemen if you get sick of it all at the end of the day... not even legal to kill yourself in this country."

- Doug Stanhope.
 
Gushesh said:
How will they decide who is "rich" and should be taxed more?
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If you own a car, a house and have 3 meals a day, you are ‘rich’.

Will everyone that is "rich" be subject to these higher taxes or only a select few that dont have friends in government.
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A select few that don’t have friends in government of course.
 
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