There's nothing unethical about a wealth tax. Billionaires made their fortunates on the backs of society and have only maintained that power and wealth through corruption and bribery. They should have never had that money to begin with.
To tax people's wealth on top of the standard tax is plain evil, and will end up driving all the wealthiest people out of the country...
In absolute terms maybe (though there are some glaring exceptions -- Amazon famous literally pays $0 in taxes), but not relative to how much they make.
> To tax people's wealth on top of the standard tax is plain evil,
I don't see any reason why taxing net worth is at all less sensible than income. If anything I think it makes more sense; why should someone who's had a lucky break but is still not rich have to pay taxes like they are?
> will end up driving all the wealthiest people out of the country...
I don't take seriously the idea that any of them are going to give up living in the US over a couple percent of their income (which is what the wealth taxes folks have been talking about would take, at most).
because they took every penny and reinvested it and lost money for a long time because of such heavy investment.
just a few months ago everybody was complaining about companies not investing enough and returning money to shareholders - there was even legislation floated to force more investment.
companies cant win with people like you - invest and get assulted for tax reasons, don't invest and get yelled at for that.
you have this Utopian view of how you want everything to work, and don't even realize it isn't even possible most of the time.
if you want to tax them on those losses that they rolled forward, you would basically have far less investment.
make up your mind - do you want them to invest and take losses or not invest and pay taxes - you can't do both.
Also, regardless of what breaks are available for what activities, their baseline tax burden ought to be much higher. We should be drawing funding from people who can afford it and use it to lift the burden on people who can't.
Are you fucking kidding me? They get capital construction break like every other company gets. If you don't see that as the literal definition of investment you don't deserve to have an opinion on this.
No, my understanding from press reporting is that the heavy reinvestment was to avoid taxes in the first place
Unfortunately people don't like to help each other in many capitalist countries, and laws are designed to not be easily changed, resulting in a great majority of the population either not heard or reluctant to voice their opinions.
The money is just one scoreboard among billionaires and not great one. Murdoch would be far more self-impressed with his power he weilds through media than someone with an additionall couple of hundred million.
Gates is more interested in being the great philanthropist. It seems his scoreboard is how much positive effect on the world he can have. It sounds ideal and I don't like to be cynical about it.
Koch Brother(s), Soros also can't spend their money on more houses, cars and private jets. More money is only useful to get more power. Do you like the way either or both weild it? Do you think they should have a bigger say than you purely by virtue of cash rather than making a convincing case?
Regarding the argument about companies, I'm sure the French king also employed a lot of people, we still got right of the system of absolutism.
> The current system is also a redistribution of wealth, just from the bottom to the top.
I think that capitalism/free markets has been the biggest driver in bringing people out of poverty.
> That's what a wealth tax is supposed to change.
This is also hugely immoral. Property is a fundamental human right. There is no "right" in having as much money as someone else. In the US at least, there is supposed to be equal protection of your rights. Taking money from one person and giving to another is immoral. Besides, wealthy people are also people that donate enormous amounts of money. Let them figure out how they want to give it away.
> Regarding the argument about companies, I'm sure the French king also employed a lot of people, we still got right of the system of absolutism.
You will have to provide me some more evidence on how these are connected.
I don't understand this argument. I've seen it so many times among a certain crowd of people, but I still don't get it. Yes, we, mere mortal humans have to form our systems of government using a patchwork of heuristics as we try to approach a more perfect system.
Sure, an omnipotent being that knew all outcomes in advance could set a perfect single-tax rate for each person's individual circumstance that only affected their income. Is this somehow more valid than trying to approximate this same outcome by taxing wealth as a correction on top of what income-tax and other taxes were supposed to accomplish?
>I don't understand this argument. I've seen it so many times among a certain crowd of people, but I still don't get it.
Wealth tax makes no sense because if you earned that money, then you have already paid taxes on it. Taxing assets/stocks makes no sense because the value is constantly changing. One day you could have millions and the next you could be broke. Plus, if you had zero cash on hand, you would have to liquidate an asset just to pay the taxes on it?
> Sure, an omnipotent being that knew all outcomes in advance could set a perfect single-tax rate for each person's individual circumstance that only affected their income.
A flat tax would work fine too, and be the most "fair".
> taxing wealth as a correction
I don't think the main purpose of taxation is redistribution. Who says there needs to be a correction in the first place? I don't think people really care about equality, because no one cares about the inequality of the rich vs. the super rich. They care about the lowest end, and if they have at least enough to support themselves. Which if you're making under a certain amount and have kids you pay basically zero taxes. In fact, you may even get money from the government.
Basically every society in the world does this, how is it immoral? I think it is immoral not to do that, considering that there is no way that any society can guarantee absolute equality of opportunity for all citizens.
The difference is taxes should be paying for public goods, to which everyone is equally entitled and able to use. Taking money from one person to give directly to another person is stealing, how is that not immoral?
> considering that there is no way that any society can guarantee absolute equality of opportunity for all citizens.
It's impossible to guarantee that. Some people are born rich, some are born poor. What can be guaranteed is equal protection of your rights and your individual freedoms. There is no right to equality in the economic sense, because it requires infringing on the rights of others.
>(1) Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.
>(2) The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a state to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.
As I mentioned, taxes for public goods makes sense. If they are just going directly to someone else's pocket then it's not exactly for the "public" at that point.
The ECHR is missing the freedom of speech, so I wouldn't look to that as a leader in individual rights.
> By contrast, while people with adjusted gross incomes below $50,000 filed 62% of all individual returns in 2014, they paid only 5.7% of total taxes collected at an average tax rate of 4.3% per person.
Source: https://www.thoughtco.com/who-pays-the-most-us-income-tax-33...
- If those with AGI above $250k paid 51.6% of all individual income taxes, what did they each pay per year in individual income tax?
- What did those with AGI above $2,500k pay? What percentage of annual revenue is that compared with someone on a decent professional wage, or on minimum wage?
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-tax/macron-fights-...
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/17/opinions/wealth-tax-is-bad-id...
It is unethical to allow billionaires to thrive while people die from poverty.
Do you really think they made it on the "backs of society" through "corruption and bribery" rather than building a company that provides value to those willing to pay for it?
So, yes, quite obviously, they made it on the “backs of society.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/16/us-now-ta...
What I want is for the value workers create to be returned to them, not hoovered up by the wealthy in some distortive, unjustifiable scheme that prizes Capital ownership over everything else, including the lives and well-being of the majority of citizens.
But tax rates are meaningless otherwise. The top 1% pay as much as the bottom 90% combined, and the bottom 40% pay nothing at all.
Yes
>Do you want to limit wealth?
Absolutely
Any wealth inequality that exists in capitalism is only magnified in communism where an even smaller group of people have both political and monetary power.