As of this point every wealth tax that has been implemented ends up getting abandoned because if how inefficient they are. It’s like rent control, it sounds great on paper bu historically never works out like it was planned.
How would this be implemented? I don’t think the market would appreciate if all billionaires were suddenly forced to sell off billions worth of their shares. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to fight back against these tyrants, but not if it crashes the economy and makes the lives of workers worse.
I hate the stock market as much as the next guy. Glorified gambling.
But, the stock market is tied directly to the economy
What do you think most people’s retirement accounts are tied to?
According to a quick Google, 61% of adults in US own stock. Which means more than half the population has an interest in the stock market not crashing.
Yes the 1% probably owns the majority of stocks. Quick Google says 54% of all stocks.
US Dollar is a fiat currency. It’s only backed by the faith of the people behind it.
It can absolutely crash and while the 1% will suffer, we will all suffer at least a little bit.
The stock prices wouldn’t be affected except in the short term. The fundamentals of the companies wouldn’t change and so the price would recover quickly. Any dip is due to a temporary imbalance of buyers and sellers.
These stock sales would likely be spread over longer durations so as not to crash the price which would also be bad for the billionaires because they would have to sell more stock to cover the tax.
I agree we should have a more progressive tax. The problem is fair is a relative term. When is fair fair enough? The fact is the underlying problem is overspending and no amount of “fair” increases to the tax rate is going to solve that problem.
At this point I’d be happy if they would just stop CUTTING the taxes for the rich. Somehow even with massive deficits, that continues to be one of the primary policy positions of the Republican party.
And the rest of us know how well ignoring the problem or sanguinely accepting them works out. We also know what DID work, and wealth taxes were indeed part of thar solution.
Remember how good the economy was in the 50’s and 60’s? Wanna guess what the tax rate on the wealthy was? It was 91%. This was the “golden age of American capitalism”, and that tax revenue kicked off a slew of public works projects that boosted the economy.
What semantics game? I asked for a source supporting the claim regarding wealth taxes. You have not provided one and a different account, not you, demonstrated they don’t know the difference between wealth and income taxes. They were confused whereas you haven’t backed your claim.
I dunno man, everything in the Wiki seems to suppirt everything I’ve said, from wealth hoarding damaging the economy to wealth taxes not leading to investment drain. It seems like those who oppose the tax don’t understand how investment economics work, nor do they understand the psychology is the VC class. They’re literally just poor people pretending they’d know what to do if they were rich.
According to an OECD study on wealth taxes, it is “difficult to firmly argue that wealth taxes would have negative effects on entrepreneurship. The magnitude of the effects of wealth taxes on entrepreneurship is also unclear”.[8]
A wealth tax serves as a negative reinforcer (“use it or lose it”), which incentivizes the productive use of assets (rather than letting assets accumulate without being used). According to University of Pennsylvania Law School professors David Shakow and Reed Shuldiner, “a wealth tax also taxes capital that is not productively employed. Thus, a wealth tax can be viewed as a tax on potential income from capital.”[60] Net wealth taxes can complement rather than replace gift taxes, capital gains taxes, and inheritance taxes to increase administrability and the effectiveness of enforcement efforts.
Your first source states that it does not impact entrepreneurship which is not a point I addressed but does not support or refute your claim.
Your second source are non-experts as lawyers are not economists and this is a question of economics not law.
So again what is going on is that you do not have the level of understanding you think you do. Rather than recognizing that lack of understanding and taking a chance to learn you have decided to double down on the idea that you are correct when you have made it abundantly clear that you have no education in macroeconomics.
As long as your solution remains “everything is fine, do what the wealth hoarders say or they will punish you!” I stand confident that my position is far superior to yours, especially having watched the process from it’s inception.
My solution is higher marginal tax rates and estate taxes because those do work.
Your confidence is misplaced because you clearly demonstrate that you have no idea what you are talking about. You can change that if you want to appear like you have a valid opinion.
Those are income taxes not wealth taxes. Income is the money you are making in x amount if time. Wealth is the total summation of everything you have.
If you don’t know the difference between them you shouldn’t be talking about economics at all. It would be like not knowing what a baseball is versus a baseball bat and then maintaining your take on the infield fly rule is correct.
But that is a stupid distinction. The entire issue is that the defenders keep saying “but they dont have an income therefore they shouldn’t pay taxes!” So the “income” claim is moot. It’s not working. It’s why the wealth tax is being proposed, and this is why every objection you’ve put forth makes you sound like the economically illiterate one, not me.
That is not a stupid distinction. It is vastly easier to assess income than wealth.
If you have enough wealth to be covered by a wealth tax you have an income. Wealth at high levels generates a passive income so anyone covered by a wealth tax would be covered by income taxes.
I don’t mean to be harsh but you honestly don’t know enough to be part of an informed conversation on any economic or financial topic if you cannot understand the differences between wealth and income.
Better than that I am self-employed and have been all my life…or most of it anyway. Most of my clients are wealthy. I know the difference between wealth and income. I also know how income gets disguised as wealth so ut doesnt get taxed. You are not making a very good case.
Ok so if you are old enough to hold a job then you should address the colossal gap in knowledge about finances unless you are immanently terminal.
Im not being snarky if you don’t know the difference between wealth and income you likely need to learn a bunch about finance so that retirement isn’t just a mythical dream for you.
I dont know how many times I have to say it: I know the difference. Taxing income isnt working. We offered the progressive marginal system to be reinstated and everyone lost their goddamn minds over it. Taxing wealth is the next thing to do, at least until such time as wealth is properly defined as income (“the Company gave me a car, house and a yacht, but I only have an income of $1.00/year!”) and then is taxed as income.
Now go ahead, ignore the entire issue by spouting arrogant semantics about the definition of “income” again. That will totally work this time.
I think you're wrong on both points. I've heard plenty of rich people say they believe their tax rate should be higher including some of the ones on that list. You're also wrong when you say it works. It works for who? If you don't attack the spending problem it's just more money to be wasted. Let's face it the political system is outstanding and finding some need to spend every cent they can possibly get their hands on. It won't matter if they spend it on your priorities or someone else's they will always find the need to spend it. In our current inflation based economy they don't even need to spend what they take in it's easier to just print more and that's exactly what they're doing.
None of these guys has income anywhere near a billion in yearly income. They have stock and other assets that are worth billions but it is not income per se. If anything they go to extreme lengths to minimize their income.
See? that’s another thing. Why is some income not considered income?
People who actually have to work ALWAYS have to pay taxes, but the parasites that gamble in the stock market get to keep all that money they won, and if they lose they get a bailout from the taxpayers.
There are billionaires out there that have become so narcissistic that they just say it outright. “I’m going to privatize the profits and socialize the losses”
You have a basic rate for income below the 20th percentile of all incomes
Multiply that by 1.5 for income between that and the 40th percentile
Multiply that by 1.25 for income between that and the 60th percentile
Multiply that by 1.125 for income between that and the 80th percentile
Multiply that by 1.0625 for income between that and the 95th percentile
Multiply that by 1.03125 for income between that and the 99th percentile
Multiply that by 1.015625 for all income above the 99th percentile, with the additional caveat that people who top this bracket even once cannot hold public office, donate to political campaigns, or hire lobbyists and lobbying firms for ten years following them topping out.
Imagine something similar for taxes on units of housing owned, dividends earned, and so on and so forth.
The idea being that the highest rate can’t be adjusted without significantly reducing the tax burden of the poorest, basically erasing the only way conservatives have been able to balance the books whenever they try that shit.
I may be dumb here, but how a real version of this tax would work? This example is basically pocket change and they’d pay cash (numbers on a computer} through some form of credit (against equity, etc}.
But if the tax left them with 1 million remaining for example, I assume that it’d basically be impossible to pay without changing the underlying ownership / means of production, no? The boring liquidity thing people say would actually apply because there wouldn’t be enough cash (even as computer numbers) to pay the tax. So the gov would have to “print” the money for it. And then the rich would get a loan from the fed to pay the tax,(?) which seems circuitous, but also it seems circuitous even if they got a loan from a normal bank. The super-rich would essentially then just be constantly building this really large debt that would exceed the total amount of money. Because no underlying ownership or production would change, it would basically be the same as now, right? literally just numbers on a computer? Taking debt forever with unlimited credit to pay the people who gave you the money?
I’m sorta falling into a weird spot where:
Taxes seem to not really be about funding government in the sense that the gov controls the money supply (unless that’s not true actually?), so, uh, are taxes a very dull game that everyone has to play? Is this what people are talking about when they say “providing base demand for the currency”?
All of these numbers seem much larger than they need to be…? In that you could only really buy ‘investments’ with them. Mostly being further means of production or scams. I get that there are markets for really expensive things (yachts come to mind), but honestly comparatively those don’t really seem expensive. Is there some other use for money that I’m too poor to understand?
Money does seem kinda fake as well tbh.
So am I being uncharitable and there is a way for a tax to actually un-rich billionaires? Would they have to sell shares/debt to the state eventually building state ownership? It all seems a bit difficult and roundabout, but maybe that’s just my lack of understanding. Also please don’t respond with something from an econ class.
Money is not static. There is plenty of money coming in constantly. The choice is either taxing them (which is a good thing) or not taxing them (which we have been doing and is a bad thing).
The libertarian argument of “but but it’s THEIR money!” is expected to ensue, and it will continue to be utter bullshit
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