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Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

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Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#211

Post by throw0101a »

simonh wrote: post #152
bwestergard wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It does not help much to take wealth in terms of equity paper money away from people who know how to invest it efficiently and distribute it." This assumes what needs to be proven. Namely, the degree to which the wealth of billionaries under the status quo regulatory, financial, and tax regime reflects their outsized contributions to welfare. If we make a number of assumptions (e.g. perfect information, perfect comp…

>This assumes what needs to be proven. I think it has been, dramatically, over the last 120 years. Plenty of countries have tried radical appropriation and redistribution, and it failed spectacularly every time. Meanwhile a prominent Marxist country, China, turned to capitalism and within a generation has raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into urban middle class lives. Meanwhile Cuba, Venezuela…

> I think it has been, dramatically, over the last 120 years. Plenty of countries have tried radical appropriation and redistribution, and it failed spectacularly every time.

How about non-radical redistribution?

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Piketty puts forward the idea of a (net) wealth tax on the order of something like:

* 0-10M net worth: 0%

* 10-100M: 0.1%

* 100M-1000M: 1%

* >1000M: 2%

This would allow two things: first the documentation of people's assets (and liabilities) to find their net worth for the tax regime, and second the skimming off the top of a not ridiculous amount of the assets of those that have a lot.

So if you have a $1B portfolio, and manage to grow it 8% in a year, then you end up with "only" 6% growth. This still allows for incentives for people to acquire wealth, but tamps down on some of the compounding that the largest estates end up getting (there's often only so much that can be spend, so a lot of the previous year's gains just end up sitting and accumulating).

The key would be for the US to get onside: by some measures it is one of the largest tax havens out there.

* https://fsi.taxjustice.net/en/introduction/fsi-results

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_Secrecy_Index

It has global reach which would probably change a lot of international behaviour. Just look at FACTA:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#212

Post by david927 »

_greim_ wrote: post #201
jayjader wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, Elon Musk would be forced to sell all but a minuscule sliver of his shares in Tesla, SpaceX, etc and give the proceeds to the tax man. He'd be out on his arse and replaced by an executive hired by whoever bought the shares. It would be the death of Tesla and SpaceX as we know them. The point is that Musk would/should never have gotten to such an oversized amount of control in the first place, and thus…

> The point is that Musk would/should never have gotten to such an oversized amount of control in the first place There would never have been anything for people to be in control of without Musk. It isn't as if companies like SpaceX or Tesla just spontaneously "occur" from time to time, for whoever's standing nearby to claim as their own.

Elon Musk didn't start Tesla.

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#213

Post by jonfw »

libertine wrote: post #188
jonfw wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say I start a Saas company and it does really well. Somebody offers to invest at a valuation of 25$ million bucks. By most standards of evaluation net worth- I'm worth $25 million bucks now. who seizes ownership of my company? What's to stop me from offering you $10 bucks for .0001% of your company and making you illegally rich? Taxes on net worth won't work because net worth is abstract

>Taxes on net worth won't work because net worth is abstract If it's abstract why can you use it as collateral? You have to make up your mind, it's funny money or real money?

I can also use my word as collateral, should I be taxed on that?

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#214

Post by [deleted] »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #202
arrosenberg wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally take that as an empty threat for the following reasons: (1) Strongly suspect based on what? There's 0 precedent for the scenario you suggested, but plenty of examples of right-wingers using this idea to scaremonger. (2) Where are you actually going to go? European countries already take higher taxes, and most other countries have higher inequality and lower general standards of living than the US. I don't…

1. There's 0 precedent for taxes that are "only for the rich" being applied to everybody? Seriously? Start with the US income tax. 2. If I understand correctly, this proposal is not an income tax, it is a wealth tax. I know of no European country that has such a thing. 3. See 1.

[deleted]

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#215

Post by throw0101a »

dcolkitt wrote: post #65
yayr wrote: post #45

This may be unpopular, but the hard thing in this discussion is to differentiate between consumption and investment. It does not help much to take wealth in terms of equity paper money away from people who know how to invest it efficiently and distribute it. On the other hand, there are minimum basic needs for consumption of food, health services, shelter, education etc. I agree that the system to finance those servi…

Along the points you bring up, John Cochrane had a fantastic series about why wealth taxes are such a terribly economic inefficient mechanism to raise revenue and why virtually no economists support them. https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/01/wealth-and-taxes-...

> […] and why virtually no economists support them.

You mean besides Piketty, Stiglitz (Nobel), and Krugman (Nobel)?

* https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/17/economists-stiglitz-and-pike...

* https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1088529094478872578

While I'm sure he's good in his specialty, it seems like Cochrane does not understand macroeconomics and how debt-financed government spending works:

* http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/a-dark-age-of-ma...

* http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/brad-delongs-foo...

Further, I'm curious to know if he did a survey of economists to substantiate his claim of "no economists". Besides the three prominent ones mentioned above, there seems to be ongoing research on the subject and so it is hardly a settled matter:

* https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/09/05/estimatin...

* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/us/politics/the-liberal-e...

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#216

Post by throw0101a »

curun1r wrote: post #119

The problem, as always, is implementation. Millionaires, especially those on the low end of that spectrum, tend to be fairly easy to tax. Their income sources are mostly regular and standard forms of income tax work pretty well. Billionaires are a very different animal. They have armies of lawyers and financial managers that help them navigate the movement of wealth through the global system to avoid taxation. They a…

> Billionaires are a very different animal.

You don't go after the billionaires, but after the banks and such that the billionaires use. FACTA and the long arm of the IRS caused a lot of behaviour changes in the banking and finance industry:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#217

Post by arrosenberg »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #202
arrosenberg wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally take that as an empty threat for the following reasons: (1) Strongly suspect based on what? There's 0 precedent for the scenario you suggested, but plenty of examples of right-wingers using this idea to scaremonger. (2) Where are you actually going to go? European countries already take higher taxes, and most other countries have higher inequality and lower general standards of living than the US. I don't…

1. There's 0 precedent for taxes that are "only for the rich" being applied to everybody? Seriously? Start with the US income tax. 2. If I understand correctly, this proposal is not an income tax, it is a wealth tax. I know of no European country that has such a thing. 3. See 1.

> 1. There's 0 precedent for taxes that are "only for the rich" being applied to everybody? Seriously? Start with the US income tax.

I guess that's somewhat true, yet the upper middle class only got stronger and stronger, which seems strange if they were all fleeing the jurisdiction because of high tax rates. It seems much stronger evidence that it's not a real threat that should concern the country - most high income Americans are reasonable and understand that we need to pay to maintain all this modern stuff we have, and hopefully improve upon it. It wouldn't seem to be a major concern if a small, selfish minority decided to pay the exit tax and go somewhere else.

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#218

Post by rvnx »

Yoofie wrote: post #93
throwaway739 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you need a $20 million house to feel like you live in a "nice house"? Can you explain to me why your logic is less "weird" than the one you are replying to?

The point is not the exact dollar figure that makes one happy. The problem is the "crabs in the bucket" mentality.

Nice! Didn't know the name of it. I appreciate you sharing it. Learnt something cool.

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#219

Post by jppope »

IgorPartola wrote: post #95
jppope wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "the hard thing in this discussion is to differentiate between consumption and investment" Indeed. Even harder is to acknowledge our government already has enough tax money, and further tax revenue will not be used prudently, in the best interest of our country.

Citation needed.

Note: This was 5min of google search and reading abstracts/ overviews. Unfortunately I can't commit the amount of time necessary to provide a full rebuttal right now.

From Representatives:

  - https://posey.house.gov/wasteful-spending/
  - https://www.paul.senate.gov/wastereport
  - https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-114shrg95798/html/CHRG-114shrg95798.htm
From the Media:

  - https://www.rd.com/list/wasteful-government-spending/
  - https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2020/09/30/wheres-the-pork-us-taxpayers-funded-a-lot-of-wasteful-spending-2017-2019/?sh=4563d5523dc0
  - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-rein-in-inflated-military-budgets/
  - https://www.nationalreview.com/news/rand-paul-outlines-54-billion-in-outlandish-government-waste-in-annual-festivus-report/
From Acadamia

  - https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305865
  - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S003043871200004X

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#220

Post by libertine »

jonfw wrote: post #213
libertine wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Taxes on net worth won't work because net worth is abstract If it's abstract why can you use it as collateral? You have to make up your mind, it's funny money or real money?

I can also use my word as collateral, should I be taxed on that?

Do you think your word has the same millage has 25 million net worth.

Because that's what we're talking about here.

I don't know how the banking system works in the US but I doubt you'll be able to buy much money with your word alone.

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