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Comment by charlesdm | Hacker News Reader

It was, but it would be in place regardless of whether you succeeded or not. Maybe not historically, but today, whether I personally succeed or not doesn't matter to the budget/deficit. Those who carry the taxable base are the middle class; the employees who can't restructure their affairs.

Paying back / forward is great, but (imo) it has a limit. Unless you inherited your wealth, most people who are self made will have paid a significant amount of tax before they tax optimise their structures. So, if you’re a success, you will have paid back your “debt” to society (and then some).

There needs to be a limit somewhere. Some countries are more aggressive (i.e. the US) in collecting their tax dollars than others (i.e. the UK).

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"people who are self made".

There is no such thing.

A single child raised to finish college costs the taxpayer in Germany 300'000 Euro in subsidized nursery, free school, and free college.

Additionally, each person costs a lot for roads, public transit, etc.

And then you have to add in that for every person who gets to become a billionaire, you have hundredthousands who won’t become billionaires, but still cost you equally much. There’s no way to find out who is going to become a self-made millionaire, and who isn’t.

And society already tries to provide many programs only to those kids with high potential, to save money. Programs like this [1] are already exclusive.

If you want to give the generation of your kids the same chances at becoming self-made millionaires, you have to provide all of them with this high quality service.

Which means you have to accept nominal tax rates of 48%+.

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[1] http://www.enrichment.lernnetz.de/content/information.php

> Which means you have to accept nominal tax rates of 48%+.

Except, you actually don’t. You are always free to move to a country with a lower (or a higher) tax rate, for whatever reason.

If someone wants to go live in Monaco, and not pay anything, that’s his/her right. There is never a debt, in the true sense of the word.

Well, nice for quoting half of my sentence.

If you want that the next generation has the same opportunities, then you need those taxes.

Without them, you won’t be able to provide intelligent and engaged children (no matter their family’s wealth) with quality education.

Yes, absolutely. I totally agree we need taxes for the next generation. I just don't believe 48%+ taxes are ever paid by the truly wealthy, only the middle class.

Most wealthy people (people with net worths in the tens of millions and up) pay rates closer to zero, by using every trick in the book. Or well, their advisors do it for them. At most, they will pay the capital gains tax rate.

> Without them, you won’t be able to provide intelligent and engaged children (no matter their family’s wealth) with quality education.

Wealth does give you the freedom to send your children to the best schools in the world, regardless of the country you live in. But obviously, that's an extremely selfish view.

> Which means you have to accept nominal tax rates of 48%+.

Nonsense. I won't speak for Germany, but our government spends about $500 billion annually on things that can plausibly be called public goods (I exclude defense). This is a mere 4% of total US personal income.

Well, we spend lots of money on bullshit, too.

We spent 200 billion saving the greek economy.

We build the Berlin Airport BER, the S21 train station, and the Elbphilharmonie.

All projects that waste money.

But the public services we get are still worth the tax. I wouldn’t want to pay less tax and lose our libraries, or free university access, or quality education. I wouldn’t give up just for a bit more money the public transit, which cuts down my commute times, or the services financed by the government.

Yes, the government invests broadly to get money back – from companies like T-Mobile and DHL to VW, all of which end up paying dividends to the federal budget, because the government owns a lot of shares in them – but we still need taxes.

And I’m okay with that.

The life here isn’t perfect, but it’s okay. One can live with it, without ever worrying about stuff.

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