If this millionaire is not creating jobs, are they not free to pay more taxes than the government sets as minimum to pay?
Go ahead, donate it, make it more useful. Don't let the minimum stop you.
I suppose they prefer the government decide where it should be spent. Why not donate to the gov program they prefer themselves? Or Donate to the efficient programs, or donate to the one with ornery staff, if you like. No one will stop them.
It is a big mistake to think that merely paying taxes is a sufficient substitute for donations. Governments are like the biggest of big companies: they tend to be very conservative about what they'll fund. Individual donors and small foundations play a crucial role in funding the sort of risky outliers that new ideas come from.
Government economists say the government needs more tax money. Very convincing.
Instead of making people dependent on social welfare systems, and funneling money to useless bureaucracies, how about we force the billionaires to put that money to use in the markets? Not just stocks and bonds. Most certainly not NGOs/non-profits (they siphon enough public money). Venture capital, urban renewal projects, interests that promote science + discovery.
That is a question that should be asked directly to those that will be providing the money to be spent.
But luckily we live in a democracy and those who don't contribute a dime get to choose how much I should contribute to this. Less work for me. Less money too. But at least government employees get a nice pension so it's all worth it. Plus if we didn't do it this way then there's no other way at all - it's the government's way or the highway.
“The government” isn’t a fixed entity. It is what people want to be funded. Wealthy Americans donate enormous amounts of money to entities that would be publicly funded in many other countries: universities, hospitals, concert halls…
Everybody wants to give money to something where they get their name on a wall and the envy of their rich peers. Meanwhile projects that could be more beneficial to society but don’t have the prestige factor languish. An inheritance tax would level the playing field.
If people can improve their economic performance so much with just a small cash grant then, why haven't businesses jumped in on this apparently incredible opportunity? Seems like a great chance for businesses to make some money in tandem with people reaching their potential.
Naturally it would be much better for businesses to do this than the government. Businesses have much higher motivations to use their money wisely (i.e. give the right amount to the right people and create the right incentives to ensure people are motivated to use the funds wisely, go bankrupt or get sued by investors if they spend poorly) than a government (which just gets to shrug or inflate the currency or embark on a fresh round of vilifying productive citizens).
Oh wait, don't we already have that? Bank loans or something, I don't know, lol.
Wouldn't it be great if some smart, driven, altruistic people used a small ratio of our tax money to create something qualitatively new, with a potential of providing a better future to all of us?
That puts the decision on where to put public good will and non-profitable money sinks solely into the machine of government bureaucracy, which I don't think would be very effective.
Currently we incentivize private individual donations, and that lets a lot of things happen quickly and without the requirement of soliciting the permission of a bottlenecked council for anything to happen.
I've wanted for a while a way of taking a small % of your taxes and allowing you the government agencies (or NGOs?) that you prefer. Maybe even a small % would be a useful thing to compete over - for instance NASA / NIH / NSF might get huge funding boosts if a certain segment of the population might give 1% of their taxes to such causes.
When you throw millions at something, there is always something that works. The question being, is it better than not taking this tax money at all so citizen could revitalize their economy themselves.
We can do what we want with our own money, we don't have wait for politicians to allocate it. Give directly to causes that help people. People have the money (power)! Tax yourself! Fund social programs that replace this function of policing directly. If government does not work we can route around it. Create Kickstarters for good causes.
The closest you have to that is making charity donations and offsetting that against tax. In that case you are diverting money away from central government and putting it elsewhere.
Many government projects require a certain level of investment over a number of years or even decades. It wouldn't be efficient to start say a fighter jet development program if you might have to ditch it half way through because public opinion changed.
Uhh, that's not how it actually works. Now, if you want to limit the tax break to some set of things the government actually does anyway then I think you would be hard pressed to find donors unless they did more than the government. At which point your only limiting it to the same kinds of things (ex: new roads) not the exact same things.
But what is the alternative? You need a generic way of deciding who gets how much money and I don't see another way except for the whole project application process. The only alternative is someone gives money to things he likes... Companies can afford that but the public sector cannot because it is ripe for corruption.
I'm more interested in who is funding the remaining 31%. If it's anything like PBS, that non government coin is heavily liberal leaning foundations and think tanks, many of which receive government funding on some level.
An ideal solution would be to let citizens choose on their taxes where they would like their non essential tax dollars to go. For example, if someone doesn't want their non essential tax dollars going to the Foundation For Wayward Girls which also gives money to a particular TV station to sell the sizzle on their business, they could choose to give it to the Foundation For Youth Gun Hunting or just keep their money for a rainy day.
Go ahead, donate it, make it more useful. Don't let the minimum stop you. I suppose they prefer the government decide where it should be spent. Why not donate to the gov program they prefer themselves? Or Donate to the efficient programs, or donate to the one with ornery staff, if you like. No one will stop them.
reply