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The Supreme Court Takes On Yet Another Made-Up Controversy (www.theatlantic.com)

submitted 2 years ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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The Supreme Court rarely hears tax cases, and tax cases rarely threaten to affect the public at large. Moore v. United States, to be argued tomorrow, is that rare exception. The case raises an issue at once beguilingly simple and oddly difficult: What does income mean?

This is a question with ramifications for virtually every area of American taxation; depending on how the Court answers it, Moore could produce a chaotic ruling that casts constitutional doubt on huge swaths of the tax system. But it’s also a question that the Court doesn’t need to answer, and one that it shouldn’t.

The issue teed up in Moore may be so intellectually stimulating that nobody seems to have noticed that the case has been fundamentally misframed.

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[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Income is when you have money coming in. Next!

Clarification: including "capital gains", inheritances and whatever other (primarily) rich people revenue sources are taxed less because they have more expensive lobbying and lawyers.

[-] quindraco@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

You're agreeing with the rich people in this case when you say that. They got none of those things in this case. They're being taxed on money they could theoretically get.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

They're being taxed on money they could theoretically get.

I'm guessing you're talking about "unrealised gains" but that's still not accurate.

You pay property taxes for your physical properties that you haven't sold, like your house. Why should intangible assets be valuable in the same way but not taxed in the same way?

[-] TCGM@lemmy.world 21 points 2 years ago

Anybody got a TL:DR?

[+] voracitude@lemmy.world 87 points 2 years ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

[deleted]

[-] NightAuthor@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

Regressive tax ftw!

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 13 points 2 years ago

Which they already can do anyway. This just paves the way to do it legally and in the open.

[-] BossDj@lemm.ee 9 points 2 years ago

More literally, in Trump's such people tax break, there was added a tax on money invested overseas. The Moore's invested money overseas, but hadn't gotten a return on it yet, so they're saying that money isn't "income" which is what is taxable according to the 16th amendment.

So 100% rich people trying to protect their tax havens

[-] Deconceptualist@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Good summary, but that's a stupid argument (by the people making it). We already have all kinds of taxes that exist as fees for moving goods (tariffs) and even for moving money (e.g. a tax penalty if I withdraw early from my 401k).

It seems perfectly valid to have a tax/fee on moving money overseas to invest it. One might argue that's not "fair" for some reason (e.g. if the money is taxed in the other direction too), but it's certainly something the government has the power to do.

[-] BossDj@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

Our current Supreme Court isn't exactly respecting precedent in their judgements

this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023

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