Hot take: If I was super rich I'd rather put my money in my own charities where I can control how the money is managed and where it goes. If I hand it over to the Federal government, a lot of it will probably go to programs I fundamentally opposed.
Not to say that the super-rich shouldn't pay any more in taxes, I'm not really qualified to say. But these populistic initializes are mostly smoke and mirrors. They aren't going to work, and if they did work they aren't going to make as much difference as people hope.
Great. The super rich can and should donate their after tax money to the charities of their choosing. The rest of us should work on creating efficient and effective government programs so that tax dollars go to where we vote them to.
I'm curious but why do you think you're not qualified to say the rich shouldn't pay more, but still feel qualified to say these programs are diversions that won't do any good?
> If I was super rich I'd rather put my money in my own charities where I can control how the money is managed and where it goes
spoiler alert: this is already what is happening. You don't get and remain rich by putting your money in taxable accounts.
> They aren't going to work and if they did work they aren't going to make as much difference as people hope.
Considering how many people live paycheck to paycheck, can't properly house themselves, or just enjoy one week off in the year, considering how crappy the train infrastructure in the US is, considering the mountain of problems around, I fail to see how a better redistribution of riches doesn't do anything.
What is worse is that if you dig deep into current government spending the money has a strange way of ending back up in super-rich people's pockets anyway, just with extra steps.
This hot take is unnecessarily defeatist and smacks of the rote defense for maintaining the current power structure, namely "the world is too complicated maybe we shouldn't try".
I'd like to mention that we had significantly higher corporate, inheritance and income taxes in the 40s to 70s and it absolutely did moderate growth of billionaire wealth.
If such a thing is implemented in some form by all, or even most, major global national entities it could have a very positive impact on future global development. It won't be perfect but we only need to work to improve. And currently having billionaires control trillions leaves much to improve upon.
I guess it comes down to how one answers the question - do taxes exist to support the country and its means, or enforce economic distribution with the benefit to social welfare?
As someone not super rich, this is already a problem and is fundamental to the operation of a functional democracy.
If everyone could allocate their tax dollars as they saw fit, then we would not see funding for issues that don't affect the largest contributors - like universal healthcare, subsidised female sanitary products, public education and transport.
For better or for worse, a subscription to a balanced well-managed democratic system requires financial contribution AND political participation.
For instance, if you're ultra wealthy and believe in the right for women to seek abortion, vote that way and convince others to do so as well.
Charities are often a hidden form of tax evasion rather than a means to allocate funds to causes an individual believes in (though there are certainly exceptions).
That said, if we are talking about the USA, that's not an great example of a well functioning democratic system - it's rated internationally as a "flawed democracy" (sharing that rating with South Africa, India, Malaysia).
If a super rich US citizen wanted to improve the allocation of their tax contributions, best bang-for-their-buck would be campaigning for electoral reform.
... or just change their tax residency to a country that offers a lower tax rate
As someone who isn't super-rich but is relatively wealthy I already do this.
Taxation in my country is almost entirely focused on redistribution of wealth (mostly to cronies, occasionally to proles) whilst the actually meaningful roles of government (as opposed to anarchy) like law and order, defence, border controls etc are neglected.
There's always some pet project. Lower in the thread someone is going on about subsidising female sanitary products, a complete boondoggle. Not only is it a trivial expense, the average man eats 10-20% more food so you could just net out the costs and just not move the money.
Even having a committee research that sort of thing is a waste, but it's just all over the place.
I know this is controversial, but here's my take: self made rich people live in reality. Whatever ideas they have about reality will be tested relentlessly, otherwise they wouldn't have succeeded at business. Government bureaucrats however do not live in reality. They live in lala-land where they spend other people's money. Who knows how they got to the point where they can make the choice of how money and resources are spent, but whatever it is, the actions they take is never really checked against reality. There is no competition between government agencies where badly run ones are allowed to fail. For that reason alone, self made rich people are on average much better at spending money wisely, as we've seen with for example the Gates foundation.
Not to say that the super-rich shouldn't pay any more in taxes, I'm not really qualified to say. But these populistic initializes are mostly smoke and mirrors. They aren't going to work, and if they did work they aren't going to make as much difference as people hope.