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Wealth is not money. There's nothing to tax.
This is a very true statement.
Stocks won't get taxed unless they get actioned on. That is where the majority of their preceeded wealth is.
The US government is sovereign, it can very much either take ownership of the stock, or estimate its value and construct a loan that the company owners needs to pay back because they owe this tax. Or probably 100s of more clever solutions as well.
It can definitely decide to tax wealth if it wanted to, it could also break up large companies to at least spread the wealth of these institutions wider. It mostly just doesn't "want" to.
This argument is so unnecessary defeatist pretending the most militarised and police ridden country in the world has no power to enforce laws it could write.
Opposite to that notion I think if the US had any interest in fairness in taxation, especially on a more global scale, it could easily get all the common tax havens/financial secrecy jurisdictions, to fold to essentially whatever demands if has. But again it seems like the US government strangely doesn't really want that either.
Which is still the central issue the US government is more captured by the billionaire class than a lot of people like to think they are, and it's never just the dem or just the reps, it's large portions of both parties that are essentially captured in this way, or just fall into it because preserving the status quo is easy.
If US government decides to take over private stocks or tax them, US companies will exit US and American economy will die instantly. You can't tax wealth, it's impossible and doesn't make any sense.
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No you can't tax wealth, it does not make any fucking sense. If I own a peice of land that, for some wild reason, is valued 1 billion, why the fuck would I pay taxes on 1 billion ??? especially if I just work at the starbuck for minimum wage. Like, it's only gonna make the wealthy even wealthier. Only rich people are gonna be able to pay taxes on nice things.
What do make sense is to pay taxes when I'm gonna sell that land 1 billion. That is sound. You pay tax on income, not on wealth. Maybe pay taxes on transactions.
If you wanna tax the rich, start by reforming how capital gains are taxed.
Funny that you should pick land, considering that property tax exists and is based on a valuation of your land. There's a very simple solution if you can't afford the tax on your wealth, which is to sell that wealth. If you can't afford the tax then you can't afford the wealth.
Then take a company that is highly valued ? You understand the point and won't engage with it. That is funny.
To expand on that, you should also pay tax on unrealized gains used as collateral for a loan.
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And as soon as that happens, those companies will start generating massive profits and paying their pittance (still in the billions btw) to other countries. It will also destroy the American job market and leave millions of people destitute.
As much as it sucks, these billion (now trillion) dollar companies produce the lion’s share of America’s wealth. If they take their profits elsewhere, you can say ‘goodbye’ to the world order that the US is almost solely propping up.
they take their profits elsewhere, you can say ‘goodbye’ to the world order that the US is almost solely propping up.
I'm fairly sure in some way that's what most of this sub should want explicitly, but while you imagine that necessarily as a slide backwards, I'm fairly convinced if the US ever gets to a wealth Tax their world order is already collapsing, and we are collectively transitioning to a better one. A world order based on actual global democratic decisions, instead of US Neo-imperialist domination perhaps.
You assume that most of these companies wouldn't just move to a single destination that wouldn't do the same shit that America did, which is to cater to rich people so that they can generate massive wealth for themselves and the governments of that nation. Unless the entire population of the world decides on a system that's not like this one, it won't happen; period. It'll just shift elsewhere.
And no matter how bad America is, I can imagine worse alternatives (hint: China)
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...are you fucking serious right now? Do you really think that offshoring your manufacturing means 'moving out of America', or that it's done to 'avoid paying taxes'? Do you not understand that the vast majority of a company's value isn't created in the sweatshops where laborers are paid nickels and dimes, but in the boardrooms of megacorps where marketing departments put thousand-dollar labels on smartphones that cost a hundred dollars to make?
Yes how about trying to imagine better alternatives instead of assuming everything impossible then.
If the US led world order collapses that might be bad temporarily for US residents and it would be a great win for almost everyone else, almost by necessity. Again many winners few losers, much like the wealth tax. And not everyone needs to actually take up a better system, this is completely true in our current system already.
That's such a narrow take. It won't just be 'bad temporarily for US citizens' if the only country that's a counter to China ceases to be a pre-eminent world player.
You know the world has other places than China and the US right. And that the us can still be a very powerful country without being the current hegemon. Certainly a welath tax wouldn't achieve such impressive collapse in less than a few decades. The only real problem with a complete downfall of us hegemony might actually be the Taiwan situation.
But literally all of africa and south America would be in a much better situation if the US wouldn't continue to have the power to protect some of its more historic foreign assets large parts of SEA and the middle east would also have much to celebrate.
You seem strangely scared of china while having little empathy towards anyone that might be suffering under US aligned rule. My take isn't narrow but your view of the world might be. If you are at least from the US I might understand somewhat, if not then yikes.
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Please don't tell me you actually believe any of that. How does a company like Apple, which essentially vacuums up consumer money around the globe, converts it into American profit, and then directly injects it into the American economy through high-value employment in software/marketing/sales etc to pump up the values of American stock exchanges through its stock valuation (stocks that, btw, make up the bulk of 401k's of American citizens) not generate wealth for the US? Do you not know how this whole chain works?
Also, these companies do pay billions in taxes annually. Sure, they use loopholes to not pay their fair share, but they do pay taxes that they otherwise wouldn't need to pay if they weren't operating within America.
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Yeah, either lick boots or keep hoping for the downfall of America! No middle ground here, no sir!
Why do countries have wealth taxes and completely reasonable economies when it's supposedly impossible. I'm not saying let me design a US wealth tax I'm saying wealth taxes do make sense, do exist and at least do something and the US could certainly implement them given sufficient political will.
Two of the 5 OECD countries that have wealth taxes are neighboring countries to mine, they do have industry, services etc. certainly not dead places.
Also I've never seen any (proposed) wealth tax start at anywhere lower than 1M in assets and with higher than 1% taxation so I just don't see how any of the opposition is genuine. Why would there be such opposition to a topic that only impacts a few percent of the countries population. And that at the same time is actually properly understood by even fewer people.
Also have you ever moved country with a several billion dollar company, with the US federal government after you for taxes, I don't imagine it'd be particularly easy or cheap, the US has many massive subsidies for local companies, and some otherwise tax favorable conditions in some of it's states, I doubt it would be an easy decision for many of these owners.
Countries were trying to tax wealth since Ancient Rome times and it NEVER worked. 12 OECD countries had some kind of wealth tax. As of 2021 only 5 have it. I bet you that in 20 years none will.
The thing is that asset value is not money. It's just a number someone got out of their ass. And this value is volatile, it can change in any direction any day. And you have pretty much zero control over it. Here's an example from UK where I live. A lot of people bought homes to live in London in 1990-s for tens of thousands pounds. Today these houses are valued at over a million. You want to target those who have over 1M in assets? Well, most of London is now fucked for no reason and without any wrongdoing. How do you expect a nurse in retirement to pay such tax?
OK, you put a limit higher to target Bezos. But Bezos doesn't have cash to pay 1% from his billions. He will have to sell shares. That will tank Amazon share prices and potentially destroy the business. And who would want to buy shares and invest with taxes like that?
By the way, the five countries are Colombia, France, Norway, Spain and Switzerland. France is already abandoning this stupid tax, Norway started to think about it. Economies of Colombia and Spain are in ruins partially thanks to this tax. And Switzerland... Well, Swiss are gonna Swiss. Their economy is very non-standard.
Yes I've read the Wikipedia article as well thank you very much but you still don't seem to accept that taxes can and should be used to regulate the economy. That's the entire point frankly. Some business should be destroyed because it's bad for the people at large. Some people should need to get rid of one of their houses so that it doesn't remain empty half the year. That's the point.
And even if Norway and France abandon this policy and Spain and Columbia are supposedly in ruin couldn't their collective healt and happiness not be better even despite a smaller economy. Is it impossible for you to imagine a world where a smaller economy is better for it's people than a larger one.
And on the other side of the coin wouldn't you think not being sovereign over the world reserve currency and the largest economy in the world make it a lot harder to protect yourself effectively from capital flight.
It's also real money, otherwise Musk couldn't have bought Twitter for $44 billion. He sure didn't have that amount on his bank account but he still bought it all the same, thus giving him a substantial soft power through information.
True, but that would mean to tax billionaires by taking money from their lenders?
I don't know, it just feels very convenient that wealth is considered money whenever is useful to the rich, and turns back into "wealth" a second later.
What I find unacceptable is the double standard. I'll keep the Musk example: a few banks and a few private companies made loans (which need to be reimbursed with real money) for Musk buying Twitter. A part of the exchange money came from the value of his own shares of Twitter (deducted from the 44b). Before that he has sold lots of Tesla shares which apparently gave him $20b in cash
Why do we accept that this not-money money can be turned into real money whenever convenient, but cannot be taxed the rest of the time?
There's a problem with how we accept to think of financial money. If it can't be taxed, then out shouldn't be defined as being an equivalent of real-economy money. Or maybe it should be evaluated in a more realistic way?
Not saying I have easy answers, but there's clearly a problem IMO.
Details of how they go about paying it is not really any of my business as long as it gets paid.
"Sorry grandma, you have to eat cat food now because Elon was forced to sell his majority stake in Tesla crashing your pension plan."
Elon would have triggered a taxable event using his wealth to buy Twitter.
And now Twitter is down to $4b. Because wealth is not money.
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No.
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Services are not taxed.
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Houses are not taxed.
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Cars are not taxed.
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Labour is not taxed.
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I think you meant to say “wealth is not income”. That’s the whole point of it being a “wealth tax”. That said, there’s pretty sound law arguing that wealth taxes are unconstitutional. There are far better ways to effect similar change, such as capital gains tax reform, and closing transfer tax exemption loopholes.
No, I said what I meant. Wealth is not money. Even if we try to express wealth in a monetary value, it's not money. And there's nothing to tax.
The IRS doesn’t care if you’re paid in money or not. Taxes are levied on things of value, i.e. wealth. That’s why non-monetary compensation like free lunch or other perks are still taxed using an equivalence value. It’s also why compensation in the form of stock options are still taxed as income. If only “money” proper were taxable, everyone would be paid in gift cards or precious metals.
Well, your IRS is insane. Here in the UK gifts are not taxed, that's why companies often buy cars and bicycles for employees - this way both company and worker save shit loads of money in taxes.
Here in the UK gifts are not taxed
Yes they are, however there is an annual exemption of £3000. Amounts above this are subject to taxation. There is a similar exemption in the US - $17,000 as of 2023.
that's why companies often buy cars … for employees
I believe you’re talking out of your ass.
Bikes - https://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/
Cars - https://comcar.co.uk/
Yes they are, however there is an annual exemption of £3000
No, they are not. This exemption is for inheritance tax. Gifts are tax free no matter the value. The way this works is that all gifts made during 7 years before death count as your inheritance estate https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax/gifts
Basically if you're not planning to die in 7 years, you can gift a billion in one transaction and pay zero taxes
That’s not how it works. Gifts over £3000 are always taxed. Additionally, gifts given within 7 years prior to death are subject to inheritance tax.
Bikes … Cars …
A company car is not compensation to an employee. They might be permitted to use it for personal use, but employers are supposed to report this fractional use which is then taxed. Whether that’s enforced or not, I don’t know, but the law is that personal use of a company-provided car is supposed to be taxed. The employee also doesn’t own the car - if they leave the company, the company keeps the car.
Bicycle tax savings is a separate thing entirely. Many benefits that promote healthy lifestyles receive special tax treatment; it’s not taxed that way just because it’s not cash.
Mate, I sent you proof links. If you don't have anything to support your argument - just shut it, ok? You're talking out of your arse.