The Brazilian government has an ambitious proposal – for an annual global tax levied at 2% on the wealth of the world’s billionaires. The French economist Gabriel Zucman has been asked to draw up a detailed plan for how a billionaire wealth tax would work ready for a meeting of G20 finance ministers in July.
"We are witnessing a historic process -- Russians are leaving for the first time in two centuries," independent Azerbaijani analyst Elhan Shahinoglu told AFP.
#EU senior diplomats meeting on Wednesday agreed a compromise on using the estimated €4.4bn #WindfallProfits to aid #Ukraine, smoothing over a dispute about #Taxation and #ManagementCosts in #Belgium, the country where most of the frozen assets are held.
The EU deal opens the door to a broader discussion in the #G7 about using #Russia’s frozen billions of assets,
"My focus on those with wealth – as opposed to those who depend on their labour to get by – is not by chance. These groups are seriously undertaxed in the UK at present"
Prof Richard Murphy
For those if you with an interest in transnational activism (and prepared to delve through academic research), here's an interesting piece exploring how Tax Justice Network have become a significant player in global tax affairs.
Len Seabrooke & Duncan Wigan suggest TJN began by using 'identity switching' to build others' confidence in their work/analysis before then moving to 'identity fixing' to consolidate that reputation, once built, over time.
Maybe the saddest place we visited was Grand Cayman.
It's a tax exile land where there are no direct taxes.
Infrastructure seems to be paid for from a levy on new businesses as far as I could gather.
The local government imposes length of stay restrictions on non-residents, even so - I asked a tour guide why people ever left such a paradise?
She said that the locals are treated as a minority by the (white) temporary residents and the predominant financial industry means that there are few jobs and that the cost of living is phenomenal.
It seems that tax avoidance has a cost to everyone - who would have guessed?
But I still think the best anti-monopoly approach would be a progressive profit tax linked to market share. The path to higher retained earnings would be to divide the monopoly into competing companies.
What is wrong with that idea? I'm too stupid to spot the problem.
By the way, detection of monopolies would mostly involve asking customers how many real choices they have. But wannabe competitors' complaints should also be considered.
Talking to a (well-informed) friend about the juxtaposition of historically high rates of #taxation, high #publicdebt & failing social provsion(s) & she made this crucial point:
#austerity has reduced the low-level social provision that used to nip many social problems for individuals in the bud... now, those problems get worse & require crisis/critical attention, which by its very nature is more expensive, making a narrow band of social care more expensive that the previously wider provision.
As the #localgovernment crisis continues to get worse, here are four reforms that might help reverse the problems & restore some semblance of local (accountable) #democracy:
reform the needs assessment system to reflect actual local needs;
Link 1. to equitable funding - allocated for need (and redistributed if required);
A standing commission to represent local government interests & negotiate with central Govt.
Although prepared for last Autumn's budget, this briefing from the Women's Budget Group on #gender & #taxation remains apposite as the #Tories contemplate more destruction & hobbling of #publicservices:
'Because of structural gender inequalities in the labour market and society – and because women are more likely to be unpaid carers - women rely particularly on public services. Cuts in public services therefore have a disproportionately detrimental impact on women'!
'We are told on repeat that public services are unaffordable. Really, there are plenty of ways to fund them – it is just that a populist press & most politicians do not deem it legitimate'!
"San Diego is short around 90,000 homes…. We're not going to overcome this deficit anytime soon just building single-family housing."
I see comments from residents pushing back on multi-family housing and ADUs, and it frustrates me a great deal. “Preserving neighborhood character” is a lost cause. San Diego as we’ve known it is gone—the question now is what will replace it? I don’t see a desirable alternative to massive multi-family housing and public transit.
@mitchw This is the result of American tax policy, believe it or not, combined with a national real estate bubble. The tax break for homeowners combined with undertaxed inheritance means that many families put most or all of their generational wealth into a house. That means they cannot allow housing prices ("value") in their neighborhood to drop--that would be as if someone just took 15% or something out of your 401(k). Thus NIMBY and BANANA. #Taxation#NIMBY