Who am I to tell a billionaire what s/he should spend his/her money on? Regardless of the dollar amount, would you want someone else telling you what to do with your money? This is a question grounded in principle.
It already happens. We're only talking about how much not if.
As long as there are states, governments and nations, there will never be a situation where you pay no taxes. So it is bit moot to talk about the 'what if'. And I am not going to discuss the necessity of taxes and why it's important to have a good infrastrcuture and public service, like a jurisdiction, police, firefighters, education and so on.
It's none of my business. If they see the value in a church then who am I to tell them 'no that's a waste of money.' You're certainly free to lament their decision, though.
It's the business of the state which is actually meant to represent the people. We all benefit from the infrastructure, what ever if we're rich or poor. People that own large companies need the infrastrucutre even more, however people with low and small incomes have to depend more on it, as they can't afford the alternatives to public transport systems, schools, health care you name it. So the more you earn, the higher should your taxes be. That simple. This benefits all, since well, no one who's wealthy moves to Somalia, a state with pretty much no taxation and infrastructure.
The larger the gab between the rich and poor becomes, the more money do they have to spend on security and keeping them self shielded from the poor. Poverty, is one of the most expensive issues a modern society has. It comes with serious costs to the society and economy. So any money that's spend here to lower the gab, is like an investment.
Most arguments for reducing poverty in the U.S., especially among children, rest on a moral case for doing so—one that emphasizes the unfairness of child poverty, and how it runs counter to our national creed of equal opportunity for all.
But there is also an economic case for reducing child poverty. When children grow up in poverty, they are somewhat more likely than non-poor children to have low earnings as adults, which in turn reflects lower workforce productivity. They are also somewhat more likely to engage in crime (though that’s not the case for the vast majority) and to have poor health later in life. Their reduced productive activity generates a direct loss of goods and services to the U.S. economy.
https://www.americanprogress.org/is...007/01/24/2450/the-economic-costs-of-poverty/
On top of it, a large chunk of the wealth, is actually inherited. The numbers say, 20% of the millionairs actually inherited their wealth. And we can also observe a growing concentration of wealth and money - which also brings a lot of power, in the hands of fewer individuals, which is a severe problem for a democracy.
The fear of Piketty and others is that rising income inequality over the last four decades will eventually lead to greater wealth inequality as the “haves” are able to sock away larger amounts of savings, while the “have-nots” increasingly struggle to do so. With greater concentrations of wealth will come bigger inheritances, as the richest Americans pass on fortunes to their children. Intergenerational social mobility could decline, as inherited wealth grows in importance relative to self-made wealth.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/soci...01/30/wealth-inheritance-and-social-mobility/
And we havn't even talked about the methods of how very large wealth is actually generated. When you go and invest a million in Hedgefonts and receive 100 of Millions in interests, it's only possible because someone somewhere out there is actually working for those interest. Be it by owning large portions of land, a company that's growing, selling more goods, developing and manufacturing new technologies, or due to rising prices and so on. And a large part of it, is created by explotation of labour and the environment as someone somewhere has to pay for those grow rates. In other words, the inequality is growing. Particularly as money has the tendency to flow up, rather than down.
So as you can see, it indirectly is your business, if you're not a billionair as you're also participiating in this society and should have a keen interest on keeping the social stability and good infrastructure which contributes to the economy and the improvement of it.
