this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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Do you have a source for this? I see that "wealth taxes have failed in Europe", and it seems that places with a wealth tax were mostly in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264290303-4-en
One example that caught my attention is Belgium, which introduced an "annual tax on securities accounts", which suggests that they were taxing resources that were invested already.
I can imagine that it's possible for government spending to produce more economic growth than would have happened without taxation, but the entire point of money is to have a multitude of people working towards prosperity in ways that can't be predicted by state authorities, so if there are more taxes it seems likely that economic growth will be reduced.
Of course, an analysis would have to account for things like using resources from a wealth tax to make cheap/free healthcare available, which might then make people vastly more productive such that any negative effects of a wealth tax are neutralized. Also, providing an obviously higher quality of life might be worth some cost.
Is a car or shirt or house personal property? It seems things like that are seized in response to people not paying revenue services: https://home.treasury.gov/services/treasury-auctions https://www.treasury.gov/auctions/treasury/gp/index.html https://www.cwsmarketing.com/?p=36139 https://auctions.cwsmarketing.com/auctions/1-9DDP42/gp-dayton-nj-live-wsimulcast-august-21 https://auctions.cwsmarketing.com/lots/view/1-9DE12Y/wearing-apparel-riverside-ca
I do see that items had bids much higher than I'd expect, and they were being auctioned at the same time watches and jewellery and electric motorcycles and trailers, so I suspect any clothing was "luxury" in some way, or the auction was for more clothing than is documented with pictures.
I reference "dignity" because it's part of "the unshakeable foundation of the Republic of Poland", and thinking about dignity seems like a good way to tell if something is a bad idea, and I probably wouldn't feel like I had more dignity than 1 month ago if I was having my car or house seized because I hadn't paid as much taxes as a revenue service thought I should. I expect that you will have more trouble implementing policies you like if you express that you're disregarding dignity.
I expect that this is true.
I'm certainly for social change, and people with entrenched interests will probably try to hamper it. However, other people might not want to cooperate with you if you remind them of the Soviet Union, and I expect that saying "we should remove the capitalist class" will do that.
If you don't care about the IRS, why are you talking about a wealth tax using English? I suspect that that the majority of people who speak English as well as you do are U.S. citizens, so I'd assume you were interested in speaking to U.S. citizens. Are you trying to talk to people in Europe / worldwide in a common language?
Who is the target audience for your messages? I'm interested in where/how you're focusing your efforts.
What misinformation am I repeating? I wouldn't have written a statement that I don't think is true, so I suggest you point out anything you think is incorrect and explain your perspective, and maybe share a URL for some more interesting sources.
Note: I originally pressed "Reply" too early by mistake, so I edited this text. Originally I had only written "Is a car or shirt or house personal property?" and one URL.
This is misinformation, because it paints a picture of the rich being hard done by.
The bottom 50% pays an actual tax rate that is a higher percentage of their earnings than the top 50%. The richer you are, the more opportunity you have to reduce your tax burden. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-much-poor-actually-pay-taxes-probably-think
Your own numbers are an indicator of massive income disparity.
I think the tax system in the USA is designed to reward people who form corporations and then get people employed. People who are employed don't have as much time to work on reforming institutions, so giving a tax break for employing people makes powerful people's lives easier. In order to keep this process revenue neutral, earned income is taxed instead of taxing business as much. After extracting money from people's labor (since labor is clearly necessary in order to create wealth), the remainder of budget needs is made up from whatever resources are easily available (which is currently the assets of rich people, since they have been given a lot of money to get people employed).
Yeah dude. The value of these corporations in inflated or neutral at best. Corporations pop up that are solely created to shelter or exploit to expand wealth.