SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Global wealth inequality widened last year as billionaires increased their fortunes by $2.5 billion per day, anti-poverty campaigner Oxfam said in a new report.
While the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth dwindle by 11%, billionaires' riches increased by 12%. The mega-wealthy have also become a more concentrated bunch. Last year, the top 26 wealthiest people owned $1.4 trillion, or as much as the 3.8 billion poorest people. The year before, it was the top 43 people.
[...] To address many of these ills, Oxfam advocated raising taxes. It estimated that a 1% wealth tax would be enough to educate 262 million out of school children and to save 3.3 million lives. As of 2015 returns, Oxfam says that only four cents in every tax dollar collected globally came from tariffs on wealth, such as inheritance or property. The report also claims that the rich are hiding $7.6 trillion in offshore accounts
Previously: Only 1% of World's Population Grabbed 82% of all 2017 Wealth
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 22 2019, @03:02PM (5 children)
The problem isn't income, and income tax is never going to solve it. Anybody in the billionaire class can adjust the books to give themselves whatever income they feel like, while their actual wealth keeps accumulating.
You need to tax existing wealth. A flat 1% per year tax on wealth and you could probably dump the income tax.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday January 22 2019, @03:49PM (4 children)
In a general sense, perhaps. During a high inflation high growth rate era, eating 1% off returns is no biggie. Well the implementation would be a nightmare but I'm talking strictly about economic effects.
However at this moment for some decades we've been pushing lower and lower interest and inflation and investment return creating a giant capital bubble because of supply and demand, dollars searching for return and willing to pay crazy multiples. Graham and Dodd was a "cool book" a little less than a century ago, but in our bubble era its meaningless. As such we need a complete economic reboot BEFORE we can knock 1% off total returns as a tax.
I am kinda mystified how it could be implemented anyway... this would mostly result in the price of gold and other untrackable assets (bitcoin?) going thru the roof, I suppose. Everythings inter-related and nothing moves slower than the government, so rather than policy providing a revenue stream for awhile, policy promotes redistribution of assets resulting in middleman profits, economic chaos, and no revenue stream. We could implement a 1% wealth tax but if anything the economic damage would mean to continue to provide services at a constant expense in a declining economy, we'd need to INCREASE income tax rates not lower them.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:41PM (1 child)
France had a wealth tax until very recently.
The point was that you have to invest your millions in something productive, so that you make at least the inflation plus the 1% tax, and having to sell/leverage enough assets to pay that tax prevents that money from freezing in place.
More importantly, it's not actually enough to drive the rich to poverty, it's not even that much money, but it's psychologically important, to keep the poor from reaching for their guillotines. The suppression of that tax (technically, it changed to only apply to real estate) is one of the things France's Gilets Jaunes keep protesting (middle-class asked to pay more taxes, while the rich got rid of the Rich Tax).
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:42PM
So concern about the envionment plus encouraging wasteful spending?
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday January 23 2019, @04:36AM (1 child)
Is it harder to track wealth than to try and track every private transaction so that you can take a percentage of that?
You front up with a form once a year listing assets and values and pay your tax.
Anything you 'forget' to put on the form is subject to confiscation if caught. After all, if you didn't remember it, you won't miss it.
I would support a moderate threshold and limited primary residence exclusions, something like 2 years of national average annual income worth of possessions, and the first $500000 of residence value. At those limits assets are more likely to be personal possessions rather than income generating wealth.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @05:25AM
And just like originally only 1%ers paid income tax, in a decade or so a trailer will cost $500k.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913 [wikipedia.org]