cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/7812500
PARIS, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Governments should open a new front in the international clampdown on tax evasion with a global minimum tax on billionaires, which could raise $250 billion annually, the EU Tax Observatory said on Monday.
If levied, the sum would be equivalent to only 2% of the nearly $13 trillion in wealth owned by the 2,700 billionaires globally, the research group hosted at the Paris School of Economics said.
That’s honestly pretty pathetic. Even a 5% tax on their $13 trillion (per the article) would yield $650 billion, and that doesn’t even come close to the annual proportion the average person pays. It’s time we stop treating the rich a special sunflowers and make them pay their fair share like the rest of us, and close the loopholes that allow them to exploit us.
Edit: should’ve said taxing income not wealth, these numbers don’t really apply
I agree, but the problem is that the rich have all the best fiscal experts, lawyers and politicians on their payroll.
And the rest of us are fighting amongst ourselves on which bathrooms transgender people should take or whatever symbolic pro or anti-immigration policy the politicians should implement.
As the majority, we have all the power, in theory. But until we have solidarity amongst the working class, we will not be able to yield that power effectively.
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You’re not paranoid if they really are after you.
This is why the Fediverse is so important.
If we want to be free people, we must own our own free communication technologies
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That was only possible in reddit because the admins have all the power.
In the Fediverse, they might take over the most popular instances, but a new instance can pop up anywhere.
Decentralization is extremely powerful. Just look at the resilience of piracy, darknets and crypto. They can’t be controlled and neither can the Fediverse.
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Don’t you think this is a little but unrealistic? Do you really think some corporate elite is going to risk exposing their secret agenda by bribing mods to sabotage some irrelevant niche social media platform?
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The wealthy aren’t paying their fair share and that is something that needs to be corrected. The arguments in favor of progressive tax systems are countless.
It’s important to note that taxing wealth isn’t the same as taxing income. But you can do both and the US has a very well established system for doing so: income when earned and wealth when transferred to the next generation. Unfortunately, both of these systems have been gutted.
I’d love to see these both get their teeth back. Pretty simple really: (1) make progressive income tax rates apply to all income sources and decrease income exclusions/deductions and (2) lower the wealth tax exemptions and clamp down on tactics used to skirt around the exclusion amount (primarily family partnerships). This is basically just returning to policies the US had from about 1950 to 1970, which also was a time of exceptional middle class growth. It’s really not breaking new ground and it’s a proven, sound way to generate widespread economic success while also battling greed and inequality.
We could go a step beyond and do a value-added tax system too, which effectively taxes consumption, but that’s another topic entirely.
There is a very real logistical problem with directly taxing net worth. It’s extremely difficult to actually assess, especially when you’re targeting people with extremely expensive lawyers. They also very directly encourage wealth flight, which has happened in other countries that have tried them. They can also be avoided by accounting trickery, shell companies, and all kinds of bullshit. It’s not me that owns $1 billion in Amazon stock, it’s a shell company in the Cayman Islands that happened to buy a yacht. Sure, you can unwind all that, but enforcement takes a lot of time and resources.
There are other much more efficient tax schemes out there focusing on consumption that can’t be easily escaped.
Bribes should be taxed at least 15%!
(The actual point being that billionaires don’t necessarily spend their money on things normal people would consider consumption.)