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venusaur ,
@venusaur@lemmy.world avatar

People always argue that the rich would take their business elsewhere with a wealth tax and I don’t believe it.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Massachusetts proved that rich people would rather keep their houses on Cape Cod and their condos in Boston than avoid a wealth tax.

HawlSera ,

They’ll move their businesses to… a country that has even stricter wealth taxes…

thewut ,

Why should we pay taxes at all if we can print money?

SwingingKoala ,
@SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Because inflation is worse than taxation. It hits poor people harder than rich people who have their wealth in non-monetary assets.

lucid ,

Everyone that likes to parrot “tax billionaires gigantic sums of money” seem to miss the obvious counterpoint - if they get taxed too much, they’ll just leave and go to a country with a less gigantic tax burden. Which would be devastating for the US economy if they bring their companies with them. Can’t tax the rich if the rich aren’t here.

To be sure, the wealthy should be taxed more, but it has to be within a range where it won’t motivate them to get up and leave.

danciestlobster ,

I mean you are right they probably would leave but I don’t think pandering to them becomes the right answer. Also, moving themselves is much easier than moving their companies.

aphlamingphoenix ,

And also we would want to kick out people who would complain about having to give back to the society they profit so much from.

starman2112 ,
@starman2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

Ok. They can leave. We do not need Tesla, or Amazon, or Microsoft.

drathvedro ,

On behalf of the Russians, we’ll take the Tesla, thanks. Elon would fit riiight in… until he gets Khodorkovsky’d.

damnedfurry ,

Genius move, now there is less tax revenue than ever. A solution that literally fixed nothing, and made the problem it was meant to solve, worse. Standard fare for ideologues who pretend to love the poor but actually only hate the rich.

Draedron ,

The wealth tax seems to small. Everything above 999 million should be taxed 100%

manefraim ,

Everything above 20 million per year should be taxed 80% and everything below should be untaxed.

Cowbee ,

Capitalism should not exist, period. Democratically direct production.

Manmoth ,

Explain.

SwingingKoala ,
@SwingingKoala@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Planned economy like in the Soviet Union.

Cowbee ,

Which part?

dezmd ,
@dezmd@lemmy.world avatar

I’m perfectly fine with 99% tax over 999 million.

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I’m surprised Bezos is down to that much. Good on that lady for divorcing him. If anyone deserves to be fucked in a divorce, it’s him.

Also, Gates should owe more than that. The things he’s giving “charitable donations” to are mostly very evil groups that want us all to eat bugs and live in coffins.

considine ,

Sounds like he has Nosferatu plans

Gabu , (edited )

Your proposed billionaire tax would still leave them ahead. My proposed tax would leave them a head.

FiniteBanjo , (edited )

I don’t really understand what is being advocated for, here. Are we taking away their stock shares? Because 214.8 Bn is absolutely not the liquid assets of Elon Musk.

You can’t buy a house or car with unrealized gains. Are we going to start taxing everybody’s unrealized gains annually or what is the effective bracket?

Ya’ll gotta be more specific and shit. Let’s just tax realized gains, and any loan collaterals based on the stocks, at exceptionally high rates? Or maybe have a very high bracket to justify taking unrealized gain stocks. That feels like it would be way easier than some vague bullshit that could harm consumers more than billionaires.

dream_weasel ,

You’re mostly right here, except stocks are an asset you can take a loan against with a margin loan or a line of credit. I suggest if you are doing that it SHOULD count as realized gains because you absolutely can use such a loan to buy a house, a car, a yacht, an island in the South Pacific, or an aircraft carrier.

FiniteBanjo ,

Okay but if you take out a loan then you need to repay the loan with income which is taxed, so…

It’s already being taxed…

That said it’s probably being taxed at a lower rate due to the 2016 reform adding tax breaks for said circumstances and being able to have a lower annual income over the duration of the loan, so I definitely advocate for tax reform that undoes the damage by the GOP at least.

dream_weasel ,

Yeah it’s taxed at a much lower rate. Short term capital gains is a real bitch. Long term isn’t so bad unless you’re liquidating a lot… Like enough to buy a house or car or something we are discussing now. Over 450k ish is taxed 20%, but you can get a margin loan for 3 to 12 percent AND it’s tax deductible lol.

Really, if you aren’t rich with stock you are getting F-ed in the A…

FiniteBanjo , (edited )

Edit: I misread, I though it was saying “if you aren’t rich with stock you aren’t going to be F-ed in the A by an unrealized gains tax” but it was actually saying “If you’re not rich with stocks then you’re currently being F-ed in the A by our tax system”

If a hypothetical unrealized gains taxed passed today then there is a chance of poor people getting F-ed in the A, especially people with retirement funds or Vanguard share/portfolios. There is even a chance it hurts the poorer 80% more than the richer 20%.

The 2016 Tax Reform is a great example of that, it got tons of support from poor people and middle class and in the end it fucked them all in the A.

jj4211 ,

Depends on the structure. If it’s 3% on value over 5 million, then the bottom 95% will not even have a dent. If it is paid by even average retirement funds, but funds more expensive Medicaid or your kids college education, you still win. It all depends on the details.

I suppose there might be some sell off to cover the tax bills if the wealthy, but it probably wouldn’t shake the markets too much.

FiniteBanjo ,

Sorry I misread your comment before I responded.

dream_weasel ,

NBD, I saw this first actually.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

You can repay a loan with money from a different loan. And they only just need enough money to cover the interest. For most of them the repayment doesn’t come until they die and even then they pull as many tricks as possible to make it look like their estate is worth less than it is. Either way the amount of money these guys live off of is a tiny percentage of their entire wealth. 100M loan for a new mansion? That’s not even 0.05% of Elon’s wealth. Even $1 billion is a lot of fucking money. I don’t care how illiquid your wealth is, if it’s over $10B you’re just hoarding it and it’s doing fuck all for the economy.

FiniteBanjo ,

Okay but that doesn’t justify taxing all unrealized gains for everyone, does it? Just tax the rich, or add laws against perpetual refinance without income.

Sidenote: If Elon Musk could do such a convoluted scheme then he wouldn’t have sold Billions of Tesla stock a couple of years ago and paid Capital Gains taxes in the billions. I believe with all my heart that Elon is such a POS that he would have absolutely wormed his way out of that sort of requirement if it were so easy.

ohitsbreadley ,

Listen, Jim - how much do you realistically own in unrealized gains? It doesn’t even matter to be honest - since you’re shit posting on the Internet, I wouldn’t put your net worth much higher than $10-20 million - and that’s me being an absolute philanthropist, in terms of how much “benefit of the doubt” I’m willing to afford an Internet shit poster.

Even if you were somehow blessed to have more than that - you still wouldn’t qualify as one who needs to pay this kind of wealth tax.

Where’d you get the idea that it would “tax all unrealized gains”?

FiniteBanjo ,

For just stocks mine is a pretty lowly $6,198 USD right now, National Average according to Federal Reserve Data says $87,000 Median and $333,945 Mean.

You said:

Even if you were somehow blessed to have more than that - you still wouldn’t qualify as one who needs to pay this kind of wealth tax.

But that’s not what the meme says at all. The meme says nothing except that unrealized gains should be taxed. That’s not good enough, you need to be more specific.

The Vast Majority of US Citizens do not have adequate retirement savings, and we’ve got this Meme saying a 2.98% annual unrealized gains tax is a solution to problems? We need to be a lot more specific about when and how this tax works if we want to avoid harm.

damnedfurry ,

I don’t care how illiquid your wealth is, if it’s over $10B you’re just hoarding it and it’s doing fuck all for the economy.

That wealth is primarily invested in businesses that function within the economy, so “doing fuck all for the economy” is literally a lie, and this act is literally the opposite of “hoarding”.

sin_free_for_00_days ,

You, uh, don’t think maybe more of those unrealized gains should go to the actual workers? What the fuck?

damnedfurry ,

Do the “actual workers” also pay up if the business suffers losses, then?

Can’t have it both ways.

sin_free_for_00_days ,

Yeah, they tend to get laid off. That’s having it both ways.

BrianTheeBiscuiteer ,

The business can survive just fine having more owners, each with a smaller piece of the pie. Yes, you lose majority control but boo hoo on still being filthy rich.

jj4211 ,

Okay but if you take out a loan then you need to repay the loan with income which is taxed, so…

Part of the problem is there are shell games around the repayment. I thought this could be handled by any use of the stock as collateral should count as a ‘sale’ for tax purposes, and any taxes on those proceeds that would be “double taxed” as folks are so afraid of can be offset by tax credits if the loan is ‘properly’ repaid in a normal way. So if you loan but repay normally, ok, you gave the government a ‘0% loan’, but you are still “fairly” taxed other than that, and the 0% loan is a small price to pay for access to your wealth.

jj4211 ,

Speaking of that house to buy, I’m getting taxed on my “unrealized gains” in my home value being estimated higher, despite it being where I live and not really primarily intended as an “investment vehicle”.

So if property tax can apply to stuff I’m not using as “money”, then I have a hard time objecting to the same general principle applied to stocks. The same arguments that can be made about stocks can apply to any property tax.

FiniteBanjo ,

Are you asking for reform of Real Estate and Property Taxes or are you asking to Tax all unrealized gains?

BTW property taxes are like 0.32%-2.32% and when you sell your home then you have to pay big boy capital gains taxes unless you’ve listed it as your primary residence for more than 3 years.

I think an unrealized gains tax could work if we set the bar high enough that poor people won’t be negatively affected by it. I would also be fine with taxing only realized gains at a much higher rate and leaving unrealized gains alone.

Obi ,
@Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

In the Netherlands we have wealth tax so if you have more than 50k€ in cash/stock you start getting progressively taxed on it. No capital gains tax though so don’t get taxed for profits on stocks or when selling your house, these profits are all yours.

FiniteBanjo ,

I’m assuming pensioning or retirement have some separate system? Because it would be hard to retire on 50k Euro alone. Actually, I assume they don’t have medical costs, so maybe that would be enough…?

jj4211 ,

I’m saying that we already have the concept of small tax rates against unrealized “gains” for the common folk, so it’s not crazy to think that unrealized gains for the rich folk could be some sort of fair game, on a roughly analogous scale. Mostly the same concerns about unrealized stock value apply to real estate property. The exceptions that I can conceive of would be:

  • Housing already has the typical property tax priced in. So whatever the effects of the wealth tax would be, it would be novel and thus some sort of adjustment would occur.
  • Housing has some intrinsic use and is not just a financial vehicle. People want to be in a house and most don’t even want to think of it as an ‘asset’ if they don’t have to. So one’s desire to reside in a primary residence is not dissuaded if you had reason to think you could “earn more” elsewhere. Stock is a more purely speculative financial instrument, so behaviors could be different. If a 3% tax across the board were levied, suddenly the effect is that investment vehicle is handicapped by 3%. So the average S&P return is 10% today, and thus would be effectively 7%, which might trigger some moves. Or if you say ‘3% over 10m’, then you get a shift where relatively less moneyed investors become an advantaged class, which might be interesting.
FiniteBanjo ,

The small tax rates against unrealized gains are not only for the common folk, rich people own real estate too. Sometimes up to a dozen homes worth dozens of times more than a small family home each.

The unrealized gains tax on investments would also impact the vast majority of “common folk.”

Indiscriminate taxation will not fix our system. We need to tax the rich, not the rich and the poor equally. If anything we should have a negative income tax on the poor.

AA5B ,

small tax rates against unrealized gains are not only for the common folk, rich people own real estate too

Then let me rephrase it.

Common folk are taxed on unrealized gains for their two most valuable properties, their house and car. Why shouldn’t wealthy people pay analogous tax on their most valuable properties, regardless of what those are?

FiniteBanjo ,

They should be, who the fuck said otherwise?

Bjornir ,

They can do what they already do and use their unrealized gains as collateral for a loan and use that to pay the tax of they don’t want to realize the gains. This is already how they spend their money without realizing gains. I don’t see the issue with them doing the same for taxes as they do for their yachts and private jets.

FiniteBanjo ,

You’re late Bjornir, like 5 people in this comment thread have said the same thing.

Got_Bent ,

It’s already a thing and has been for quite some time. It’s called mark to market. Most people and companies use it to enjoy unrealized losses, but unrealized gains are in play. It’s not a new concept. It’s just that it’s an election at the individual level rather than a requirement.

AA5B ,

We manage not tax things like houses and cars on unrealized gains. Why should stock or art, or anything be different?

FiniteBanjo ,

We tax houses with unrealized gains when they sell, also.

UPGRAYEDD ,

Umm… when they sell… they are realized?

Taxing these billionares this way would equate to taxing you for your houses value going up even though your not selling. Just like how proprty tax works in most states.

The more wealthy should be paying higher taxes, but im not sure wealth tax directly is the way to do it. But this isnt my area of expertise, so im not against it either.

FiniteBanjo ,

Yeah sorry, I ended up giving a low effort nonsense reply to an equally nonsensical reply. Perpetual cycle of stupidity over here.

I meant to say we do tax unrealized gains with property but we also tax capital gains upon realization. The user before me said we “manage not tax things like houses and cars”.

UPGRAYEDD ,

Umm. My brain is broken. Somone on the internet just admitted they were wrong.

Faith in humanity +10.

starman2112 ,
@starman2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

If Elon Musk can immediately liquefy $50 billion to buy a social media website, these parasites can liquefy $5 billion to pay for the roads their services rely on

FiniteBanjo ,

Alright but the meme doesn’t say that. The meme just says they have unrealized gains and that we should take them. That’s poorly thought out, the bracket should be clearly defined before we even think about making an unrealized gains tax, because I guarantee you there are some GOP reps who salivate at the idea of taxing grandmothers of their inadequate retirement funds.

Masterblaster420 ,

read the room dude

FiniteBanjo ,

No, I will be semantic and overly technical until the day I die.

bstix ,

You can’t buy a house or car with unrealized gains

Yes you absolutely can.

Go to the bank. Show them your balance sheet. Loan money. Pay for stuff.

PhAzE ,

They lobby and make the rules, so it’ll never happen sadly.

John_McMurray , (edited )

You’re not wrong (in that they’d survive), it’s that it does nothing. I’d be surprised if every penny Musk has can run the American government for a day. Which essentially means you just don’t don’t like their wealth level, which is fine, just say that instead of pretending otherwise.

KairuByte ,

You don’t think 10+ billion a year is a good amount to deduct from the rest of the countries taxes?

John_McMurray ,

I think people dont understand the scale. 10 billion is nothing. Nobody would notice the slightest reduction in their taxes.

KairuByte ,

10 billion for these three individuals. If you taxed all billionaires are a higher tax rate, you’d be talking about hundreds of billions.

And yeah, while most wouldn’t notice a 30 dollar difference in taxes, it’d likely still be nice.

dream_weasel ,

Well, if you take the current US “budget” as $4T per year, it’s a bit over $10B per day. So yeah it runs for more than a day.

Of course, this should be treated the same way as if you were to lose your job: you probably cut your expenses so as not to spend all your money in the first 2 weeks. Maybe the US would finally stop paying for tanks the army doesn’t want?

force ,

More like stop paying for the maintanence of shitty half a century old equipment that the military doesn’t use anymore that was outdated as soon as it was introduced (cough cough A-10 cough)

The military is like “please don’t make us keep this it costs us so much to keep” and congress is just like “BUT BRRRRRRT”

dream_weasel ,

True fact. That said, where I live A10s fly out of Grissom AFB still all the time.

John_McMurray ,

I said every.penny he has, not every dollar if he sold every asset today.

dream_weasel ,

Sorry I guess then I don’t understand the distinction you’re making? It’s not as though stocks are not liquid (or that margin loans are not) or that stocks are all funny money. I suppose if the tax rate was so exorbitant that selling stock would tank the share prices these ultra wealthy folks are holding them I see your point. I don’t think these numbers are that high though.

I agree if you’re saying that the cash-out net worth of these people is lower than their market valuations, but I doubt that it’s so much lower that they are no longer ultra rich. Besides, stocks are still assets to borrow against which is how the game is played at that level, so while the number is “fake” it’s also kinda not.

John_McMurray ,

Jesus bud. That was not a complicated statement. Your type never knows what to do with those.

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Maybe not the whole government, but all of those fuckers mentioned above individually could end homelessness, and could make sure everyone has enough to eat and make sure everyone has the healthcare they need. And they could fix Flint Michigan’s water, and fix all those water supplies around the country that can set their tap water on fire.

John_McMurray ,

No. They can’t. Throw as much money as you want at homelessness, it doesn’t end without locking people in an asylum. You should be mad the literal government with exponentially more money isn’t doing its job instead of worrying someone isn’t doing it for them.

EmperorHenry ,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

You should be mad the literal government with exponentially more money isn’t doing its job instead of worrying someone isn’t doing it for them.

Actually I’m mad about that too. And I wasn’t talking about giving money directly to homeless people, I was talking about building small, bare-bones apartment complexes with just the basic stuff inside them for homeless people to live in for free. Because that would be cheaper than doing what we do now.

TokenBoomer ,

I was thinking about the fact that it is nearly 2025, and we still drive gas powered vehicles. Electric vehicles have been viable since at least 2005, our government just refuses to force the issue— meanwhile, the world burns. Humanity, as a whole, absolutely deserves all the shit that is coming our way.

Pilferjinx ,

For short commuting around town electric cars are perfect for that role. While the tech is still maturing and getting better, you still need an ICE car as your main, at least where I live.

gamermanh ,

Seriously doubt that, honestly, unless you’re VERY rural and/or cannot charge at home

I drive 45 miles each way for commute to work in a 2018 EV that has half the range a modern one does.

I make it home with plenty of charge to still get around town for groceries or what have you, and if I go more than 130-150 miles in a day I can stop at a quick charger for 10/15 minutes and have ~50 miles more range to play with

Pilferjinx ,

I live in the Kootenays Canada. We don’t have charging stations in most of the villages. The very cold winters wreck havok on these machines even without blasting the heater.

KairuByte ,

Electric cars are just becoming viable in the US. Previous to recent years, you could have easily been stuck in a ~n/2 mile radius of your home, if there was no charging station within n miles, where n is the max distance your vehicle can travel in a charge. The infrastructure just wasn’t there, and still isn’t in many places.

elrik ,

It’s not enough.

ILikeBoobies ,

This graphic sucks because wealth tax isn’t a term that means they pay this much

For instance a tax where you hand over all wealth is still a wealth tax

To draw more confusion, their fair share is way more than what is illustrated here

PiratePanPan ,
@PiratePanPan@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

mfw i can’t buy a fifth gold plated private jet because i got taxed a billion dollars

DAMunzy ,

Sounds good but please let us know how this would work.

als ,

any money over $1 billion should be taxed. You can’t earn that in a life without exploiting people and you can’t spend that in your life unless you’re an idiot

ILikeBoobies ,

You can say that about a much lower number

damnedfurry ,

any money over $1 billion should be taxed.

The reason it’s not taxed is because it isn’t money. Net worth is a price tag, not an amount of dollars.

Bezos’s net worth dropped by $57 billion in 2022. Do the rest of us owe money to him as a result? If not, then why does he owe us when his net worth goes up?

You can’t have it both ways.

Theharpyeagle ,

I mean, it’s the same as other progressive taxes. If he is worth less, he pays less.

The issue I have with the “net worth is not liquid money” is that they clearly have access to some kind of money to pay for their extravagant lifestyle. There has to be some fair way of taxing that wealth the way income is taxed.

damnedfurry ,

they clearly have access to some kind of money to pay for their extravagant lifestyle

They borrow money, and then invest it wisely, such that it grows faster than the interest rate of the loan, plus whatever the inflation rate is. If you do that well enough, then you have enough ‘margin’ remaining for the ‘extravagant lifestyle’ stuff, while still being able to pay back the loan.

There’s nothing really nefarious going on in this process. There is a risk being taken that the stuff the funds are invested in do indeed increase in value at a percentage rate higher than the interest rate. Lenders aren’t in the business of hemorrhaging free money to anyone–they are getting repaid, or else they wouldn’t be lending in the first place.

Putting your wages in a retirement index fund is essentially the same overall process (you’re also betting on the index fund, over the long term, growing faster than the rate of inflation), just at a lower scale.

There has to be some fair way of taxing that wealth the way income is taxed.

If you buy something for $5 and it becomes worth $100 without you doing anything (e.g. you buy a rookie baseball card, then the player has an amazing season or something, highly increasing demand for your card), wealth was created. Your net worth went up $95. Should you owe any of that $95 to the government, though? I mean, the $5 you spent to buy the card in the first place is income that was already taxed, in the paycheck of the job that paid it to you.

The thing that makes it very hard for a “fair wealth tax” to exist, is the fact that until you sell your asset(s) to someone else, their ‘worth’ is only hypothetical. If that was the last $5 you had that you spent on that card (silly example, I know, but just for the sake of argument), and now there was a wealth tax you had to pay, you would have no way of paying it without losing the card. The notion of having to sell off stuff you own to pay taxes assessed based on the estimated value of said stuff, is what makes it unfair, I’d say.

John_McMurray ,

(Taxing it doesn’t stop.the exploitation you’re apparently concerned about)

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