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The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

warren.senate.gov

21–30 of 139 posts

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#21
post #3

> In 2018, Warren Buffett had a net worth of $84 billion. The effective tax rate on his mountain of wealth? 0.006%—orders of magnitude lower than the tax rates paid by most middle-class families. What tax rate do middle-class families pay on their net worth? 0% I believe, since we don't have wealth taxes?

If Buffet earned an average 1% return across his net assets, then he paid 0.6% tax on his returns.

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#22
post #5

Sigh... Wealth taxes don't work. Almost every single European country that had a wealth tax repealed theirs. The fact that Senator Warren is continuing to try to push a wealth tax shows how poor her policies are.

Why don't wealth taxes work? Which countries repealed?

I guess they only work if everyone uses them, otherwise the danger is that a billionaire takes their business elsewhere.

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#23
post #5

Sigh... Wealth taxes don't work. Almost every single European country that had a wealth tax repealed theirs. The fact that Senator Warren is continuing to try to push a wealth tax shows how poor her policies are.

Why don't wealth taxes work? Which countries repealed?

For example, that well known bastion of fascist right-wing policies, France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_tax_on_wealth

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#24

Sigh... Wealth taxes don't work. Almost every single European country that had a wealth tax repealed theirs. The fact that Senator Warren is continuing to try to push a wealth tax shows how poor her policies are.

Yeah, not taxing the rich also does not work. See the trillion Dollar tax break Pres. Trump and the GOP implemented. The savings were supposed to somehow trickle down to the "lower decks", but this has proven not to happen. Meanwhile the ultra rich are getting ultra richer and the rest is getting poorer. So lets globally coordinated tax the rich for a while in a way that they can not evade their net wealth to some ot…

The rich already pay almost all of the taxes anyway. The government just needs to do less to balance the budget.

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#25

Sigh... Wealth taxes don't work. Almost every single European country that had a wealth tax repealed theirs. The fact that Senator Warren is continuing to try to push a wealth tax shows how poor her policies are.

Except Switzerland?

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#26
post #5

Sigh... Wealth taxes don't work. Almost every single European country that had a wealth tax repealed theirs. The fact that Senator Warren is continuing to try to push a wealth tax shows how poor her policies are.

Why don't wealth taxes work? Which countries repealed?

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/01/699261950/why-a-wealth-tax-di...

> ROSALSKY: In 1990, there were 12 countries in Europe that had a wealth tax. Today there are only three. Perret says they didn't work for a lot of reasons. Among other things, it costs a lot to enforce. It pushed rich people out of the country, and the wealth taxes didn't raise a lot of revenue.

But

> ROSALSKY: But Warren says that her proposal, which has no exemptions, will play out differently in the United States. Greg Rosalsky, NPR News.

Unfortunately, nothing in her proposal justifies that. Why can't companies and people just move out of the US to avoid this? Singapore or other countries will readily welcome them.

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#27
post #3

> In 2018, Warren Buffett had a net worth of $84 billion. The effective tax rate on his mountain of wealth? 0.006%—orders of magnitude lower than the tax rates paid by most middle-class families. What tax rate do middle-class families pay on their net worth? 0% I believe, since we don't have wealth taxes?

It should have said: the effective tax rate on the revenue he derived from his mountain of wealth.

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#29
post #12
post #3

> In 2018, Warren Buffett had a net worth of $84 billion. The effective tax rate on his mountain of wealth? 0.006%—orders of magnitude lower than the tax rates paid by most middle-class families. What tax rate do middle-class families pay on their net worth? 0% I believe, since we don't have wealth taxes?

To be fair though, we do have property taxes, and many middle-class families have a substantial fraction of their net worth tied up in their house and other real property.

I would even go so far as to say the typical middle-class family has real property in an amount that exceeds their net-worth.

Re: The Big Escape: How the Ultra-Wealthy Avoid Paying Taxes and How to Fix It [pdf]

#30
Most of the “ultra-wealthy” have their wealth in the form of stock in public companies. This is certainly true for the examples she lists. If they’re all going to have to sell 2% of their holdings each year to pay for this wealth tax, who are they going to sell to and where is the money going to come from?

It seems like this is a recipe to generate some temporary funding for the US government by selling off our national assets (e.g. ownership of major US companies) to foreign investors.

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