Forgejo is changing its license to a Copyleft license. This blog post will try to bring clarity about the impact to you, explain the motivation behind this change and answer some questions you might have.

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Developers who choose to publish their work under a copyleft license are excluded from participating in software that is published under a permissive license. That is at the opposite of the core values of the Forgejo project and in June 2023 it was decided to also accept copylefted contributions. A year later, in August 2024, the first pull request to take advantage of this opportunity was proposed and merged.

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Forgejo versions starting from v9.0 are now released under the GPL v3+ and earlier Forgejo versions, including v8.0 and v7.0 patch releases remain under the MIT license.

  • @LemoineFairclough@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    -7•4 months ago

    Wealth Tax

    I am against any wealth tax. The revenue services for many governments are very focused on not blocking economic growth, and then periodically taking a reasonable amount of wealth.

    In the end, only wealth can be taxed (things that aren’t physical can’t be seized and auctioned). However, I don’t want to be forced to let someone into my house to calculate how much stuff I have.

    In general, I think it’s more reasonable to monitor wealth moving (and more so if wealth moves between people) rather than to force people to cooperate with monitoring wealth staying in the same place. I don’t want someone checking up on whether I own the same stock certificates or gold bars each year; that seems like an insult to my dignity.

    Enforcement Complications

    Distribution

    The top 10% as a whole pays 71.22%, while the bottom 50% of taxpayers account for only 2.89% of all income taxes.

    I don’t think that focusing on people who already pay a disproportionate amount of tax will be very helpful. Rapidly changing what is taxed (wealth vs income) would probably be harmful, as people will probably have trouble adapting to significantly different policies. For example, we’d probably hear about people who happen to have inherited expensive houses being unable to pay thousands of dollars for tax bills, after thinking that they wouldn’t be affected by policy changes.

    Avoidance

    If there was a wealth tax and I was rich enough to spend a lot of time managing my money, I would just create a “charitable organization” that I and my family completely control, then have it pay people to do things I would want them to do anyway, and maybe even try to let the charity pay a high wage to its managers (such that I could be a manager and get the charity to pay for my yearly living expenses, directly or indirectly). I also might be able to get away with using a trust or charitable remainder trust to avoid being affected by a wealth tax.

    I don’t know the degree to which tax exempt organizations affect my life, but I do know that trusts have a relevant affect on my life, since they are often used to own land, specifically by landlords of housing and by people who own land that is worth a lot of money. How they are dealt with would probably have to significantly change in order to accommodate a wealth tax.

    Inheritance Tax

    I’m not sure I’m against inheritance tax, but it might be an unnecessary complication. Treating inheritance like a gift from one person to another at the moment of their death might make things easier for everyone. The policies regarding gifts are relatively clear: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/gift-tax https://www.irs.gov/faqs/capital-gains-losses-and-sale-of-home/property-basis-sale-of-home-etc/property-basis-sale-of-home-etc

    However, having separate inheritance law might also make things less painful for some people. If my assets suddenly gained or lost a large amount of value just before I died, I wouldn’t want that to justify taking more wealth from my heirs. Having a special way to value assets gained due to someone dying might be more reasonable than treating each receipt as a gift.

    • @Urist@lemmy.mlEnglish
      3•4 months ago
      1. Wealth tax does not block economic growth, rather the opposite, because it forces wealth to be reinvested to not lose too much value.
      2. You clearly need a lesson in proportional taxation if you think people would have their personal property appropriated.
      3. I do not give a fuck about you placing your dignity in ownership of material assets, that is a you problem.
      4. The top 10% pay less income taxes as a fraction of their income than the bottom 10%.
      5. Really, we should remove the capitalist class because they will fight back to the detriment of everyone else.
      6. I do not give a fuck about the IRS. I am not an American. My country actually has a wealth tax.
      7. You are repeating misinformation and capitalist propaganda with little understanding of what you are saying. Have you even reflected on what “the economy” really is? If you are a trickle-down Reaganomics-follower, you might want to get your brain checked.
      • @iopq@lemmy.world
        2•4 months ago

        I would give up my US citizenship if it were passed. It’s enough I live abroad and still pay taxes for my dividends. If you start taxing my investments directly, I’ll have to get a different passport

      • @LemoineFairclough@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        -1•4 months ago

        Wealth tax does not block economic growth, rather the opposite, because it forces wealth to be reinvested to not lose too much value.

        Do you have a source for this? I see that “wealth taxes have failed in Europe”, and it seems that places with a wealth tax were mostly in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264290303-4-en

        One example that caught my attention is Belgium, which introduced an “annual tax on securities accounts”, which suggests that they were taxing resources that were invested already.

        I can imagine that it’s possible for government spending to produce more economic growth than would have happened without taxation, but the entire point of money is to have a multitude of people working towards prosperity in ways that can’t be predicted by state authorities, so if there are more taxes it seems likely that economic growth will be reduced.

        Of course, an analysis would have to account for things like using resources from a wealth tax to make cheap/free healthcare available, which might then make people vastly more productive such that any negative effects of a wealth tax are neutralized. Also, providing an obviously higher quality of life might be worth some cost.

        You clearly need a lesson in proportional taxation if you think people would have their personal property appropriated.

        Is a car or shirt or house personal property? It seems things like that are seized in response to people not paying revenue services: https://home.treasury.gov/services/treasury-auctions https://www.treasury.gov/auctions/treasury/gp/index.html https://www.cwsmarketing.com/?p=36139 https://auctions.cwsmarketing.com/auctions/1-9DDP42/gp-dayton-nj-live-wsimulcast-august-21 https://auctions.cwsmarketing.com/lots/view/1-9DE12Y/wearing-apparel-riverside-ca

        I do see that items had bids much higher than I’d expect, and they were being auctioned at the same time watches and jewellery and electric motorcycles and trailers, so I suspect any clothing was “luxury” in some way, or the auction was for more clothing than is documented with pictures.

        I do not give a fuck about you placing your dignity in ownership of material assets, that is a you problem.

        I reference “dignity” because it’s part of “the unshakeable foundation of the Republic of Poland”, and thinking about dignity seems like a good way to tell if something is a bad idea, and I probably wouldn’t feel like I had more dignity than 1 month ago if I was having my car or house seized because I hadn’t paid as much taxes as a revenue service thought I should. I expect that you will have more trouble implementing policies you like if you express that you’re disregarding dignity.

        The top 10% pay less income taxes as a fraction of their income than the bottom 10%.

        I expect that this is true.

        Really, we should remove the capitalist class because they will fight back to the detriment of everyone else.

        I’m certainly for social change, and people with entrenched interests will probably try to hamper it. However, other people might not want to cooperate with you if you remind them of the Soviet Union, and I expect that saying “we should remove the capitalist class” will do that.

        I do not give a fuck about the IRS. I am not an American. My country actually has a wealth tax.

        If you don’t care about the IRS, why are you talking about a wealth tax using English? I suspect that that the majority of people who speak English as well as you do are U.S. citizens, so I’d assume you were interested in speaking to U.S. citizens. Are you trying to talk to people in Europe / worldwide in a common language?

        Who is the target audience for your messages? I’m interested in where/how you’re focusing your efforts.

        You are repeating misinformation and capitalist propaganda with little understanding of what you are saying. Have you even reflected on what “the economy” really is? If you are a trickle-down Reaganomics-follower, you might want to get your brain checked.

        What misinformation am I repeating? I wouldn’t have written a statement that I don’t think is true, so I suggest you point out anything you think is incorrect and explain your perspective, and maybe share a URL for some more interesting sources.

        Note: I originally pressed “Reply” too early by mistake, so I edited this text. Originally I had only written “Is a car or shirt or house personal property?” and one URL.

        • @bane_killgrind@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2•4 months ago

          The top 10% as a whole pays 71.22%, while the bottom 50% of taxpayers account for only 2.89% of all income taxes.

          This is misinformation, because it paints a picture of the rich being hard done by.

          The bottom 50% pays an actual tax rate that is a higher percentage of their earnings than the top 50%. The richer you are, the more opportunity you have to reduce your tax burden. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-much-poor-actually-pay-taxes-probably-think

          Your own numbers are an indicator of massive income disparity.

          • @LemoineFairclough@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            1•4 months ago

            I think the tax system in the USA is designed to reward people who form corporations and then get people employed. People who are employed don’t have as much time to work on reforming institutions, so giving a tax break for employing people makes powerful people’s lives easier. In order to keep this process revenue neutral, earned income is taxed instead of taxing business as much. After extracting money from people’s labor (since labor is clearly necessary in order to create wealth), the remainder of budget needs is made up from whatever resources are easily available (which is currently the assets of rich people, since they have been given a lot of money to get people employed).

            • @bane_killgrind@slrpnk.netEnglish
              2•4 months ago

              Yeah dude. The value of these corporations in inflated or neutral at best. Corporations pop up that are solely created to shelter or exploit to expand wealth.

            • @bane_killgrind@slrpnk.netEnglish
              2•4 months ago

              That doesn’t take into account non federal tax.

              https://itep.org/who-pays-taxes-in-america-in-2024/

              This says it more explicitly.

              using a more realistic definition of income that includes unrealized capital gains, they found that the same 25 Americans paid just 3.4 percent of their income in taxes during that period. If unrealized capital gains were included in these estimates, ITEP, too, would calculate a much lower effective tax rate for the rich

              • @Urist@lemmy.mlEnglish
                1•4 months ago

                Also, reported income is not the same for regular people and the top 1%. Tax evasion techniques makes it seem as if they have way less income than they really have.

                EDIT: I do realize some of this could be incorporated into the statement of your quote above.

        • @Urist@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2•4 months ago

          The (then) right-wing Norwegian government (left-wing by US standards ordered a study because they wanted to claim this. The results (source in Norwegian, use a translator) were the opposite of what they wanted.

          For example: “the businesses used more money on their workers when the stock owners were subjected to higher wealth tax” (paraphrasing here).

          Is a car or shirt or house personal property?

          Yes.

          I reference “dignity” because it’s part of “the unshakeable foundation of the Republic of Poland”

          Yea, not sure I care about the right-wingers in Poland either.

          cooperate with you if you remind them of the Soviet Union, and I expect that saying “we should remove the capitalist class” will do that.

          Well, I think we should be honest about our intentions, unlike the capitalist class that tell you “brown people” or “the economy” is the reason they pay you slave wages.

          What misinformation am I repeating? I wouldn’t have written a statement that I don’t think is true, so I suggest you point out anything you think is incorrect and explain your perspective, and maybe share a URL for some more interesting sources.

          The part about seizing personal property to pay taxes, for instance. A progressive tax system can have bottom tiers paying no taxes. The right are those who impose high tax rates on the middle class and poor, in order to make them hate taxes.

        • @bane_killgrind@slrpnk.netEnglish
          2•4 months ago

          Nah

          Question is, do you know how much the tax revenue is in your area

          Is that tax revenue transaction based or wealth based

          Would taxing in your paradigm be reasonable or sustainable in the context of the government expenditures in your area?

    • @LemoineFairclough@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0•4 months ago

      FYI, I think that focusing on proportional representation electoral reform is the best way to increase respect to the inherent dignity of the person, and that to “choose a defining fight” is better than trying to focus on more than one thing.

      I happen to be interested in tax policy, but I would prefer for the electoral system to improve before tax policies change.

      See also !fairvote@lemmy.ca / https://sh.itjust.works/comment/12708609