Posted on 08/01/2018 12:06:00 PM PDT by Brian Griffin
To pay off the ~$21 trillion dollar federal debt, which amounts to about $60,000 per American, it is probably necessary to have annual federal wealth taxation.
It is best to introduce the federal wealth tax when asset values are high, so a smaller percentage of rich people's assets have to get taxed to pay off the national debt.
The tax might be levied upon the total of net personal property financial holdings and the equity in real property.
The rates might be:
1% on the equity in real property habitually resided in by the filer(s),
2% on the equity in agricultural land, less .05% for each year owned & habitually worked personally, up to 20,
2% on the equity in other real property not habitually resided in by the filer(s),
2% on the net worth in personal property financial holdings, other than common stock, and
4% on the net worth in common stock.
The rate is higher on common stock because most of modern great wealth is in the form of common stock.
Joint returns might be permitted that include children, parents, and the spouse/domestic partner of one specified filer. Joint returns would reduce the artificial shuffling of assets between related persons to reduce taxation.
There might be exemptions, from the tax due, of $100 for each year of a filer's age up to age 65, less $100 for each year of a filer's age above age 65, as of January 1 of the tax year. Age-based exemption amounts adjust moderately well for adult wealth accumulation and old age spending.
Example 1:
Mary, age 62, and Bob, age 63, own a $700,000 personal residence outright and $100,000 in common stock.
The tax on the residence would be $7,000 and the tax on their common stock $4,000,
with an exemption of $6,200 for Mary and $6,300 for Bob,
so they would not owe any federal wealth tax.
Example 2:
Jean, age 56, and Jim, age 58, own a $450,000 personal residence and a $150,000 rental apartment outright.
The tax on the residence would be $4,500 and the tax on the rental apartment $3,000,
with an exemption of $5,600 for Jean and $5,800 for Jim,
so they would not owe any federal wealth tax.
Example 3:
Anne, age 42, and Peter, age 45, own a $1,000,000 personal residence outright and $200,000 in common stock.
They had no children and Peter's parents are dead.
Anne's mother, age 63, and father, age 69, own a $300,000 house outright and $150,000 in common stock.
Anne and Peter would file a joint return with her parents.
The tax on the residences would be $13,000 and the tax on the common stock $14,000,
and after their exemptions of $4,200, $4,500, $6,300, and $6,100 for a total exemption of $20,100,
they would owe a federal wealth tax of $6,900.
Example 4:
Terry, age 50, and Paul, age 49, own $300,000 personal residence together with a $100,000 mortgage.
Terry has a teacher pension right worth $700,000.
Paul has a city police pension right worth $800,000.
Terry and Paul would file separate returns, with their respective parents.
Terry's mother, age 73, and father, age 75, own their $200,000 house outright and $20,000 in Treasury bonds.
Paul's mother, age 70, and father, age 71, own their $250,000 house outright and $50,000 in common stock.
Terry and Paul have two children, Patty, aged 26, and Debbie, age 28, each with $2,000 saving accounts.
Paul's return would take the children since his side is better off financially.
Terry's and her parents' return would have a tax on her housing equity of $1,000, on her pension right of $14,000, on her parent's house of $2,000, on her parents' Treasury bonds of $400, for a total of $17,400,
with exemptions for Terry and her parents of $5,000, $5,700 and $5,500 for a total exemption of $16,200,
so Terry and her parents would owe a federal wealth tax of $1,200.
Paul's and his parents' and children's return would have a tax on his housing equity of $1,000, on his pension right of $16,000, on his parent's house of $2,500, on his parents' common stock of $400, on his children’s saving accounts of $80, for a total of $19,980,
with exemptions for Paul and his parents and his children of $4,900, $6,000, $5,900, $2,600 and $2,800 for a total exemption of $21,200,
so Paul and his parents and children would not owe a federal wealth tax.
Example 5:
Mark Sugarhill, age 38, owns $10 billion in common stock and a $16 million mansion outright. He bought and gave multi-million mansions to all his direct relatives years ago.
The tax on Mark's stock would be $400,000,000 and the tax on his mansion would be $160,000,
and after his exemption of $3,800, Mark would owe a federal wealth tax of $400,156,200.
I'm calling BS...on every post you have made here.
I have stock accounts....and I don't pay anything..until I sell it........
Moron...
Now...that...I could go for!!!!
here's the problem: THAT DOESN'T MATTER.
It is morally and financially unjust, and is in repudiation of everything this forum stands for.
Let me guess, next you'll come up with a Reasonable Idea About Restricting Semiautomatic Firearms.
Tell you what...if you're really concerned about the deficit, all of you're liberal buddies can write a check to the US Treasury to help pay off the debt.
Not if the spending stops dead.
Wealth is not a crime. Wealth is usually a result of several generations working their butts off to build opportunities for their descendants. Why do you want to rob them of generational effort?
Assets are relative and so is wealth. A $700K home in suburbia NY or LA is not equivalent to a $700K home in rural Alabama. So how is your tax scale equitable?
Why are you worried about tax revenues when we have 4% unemployment, that will naturally generate more tax revenues?
Why do you want to aggregate more money for the government instead of cutting government?
Under your rob-the-rich plan, nobody has an incentive to be anything other than lobster-foodstamps-surferdude - working just enough to afford couch surfing while sucking off the public teet.
Fail.
It could go to 100% of the wealthy and still not put a dent in the debt.
There are some other posts on other threads that seem to support your thesis.
I will ping you.
“Why should anyone that did not cause the issue (debt) be forced to fix it?”
A few years back conservatives actually came close to taming the beast.
However, NY financiers undermined their efforts.
Why, because really rich people don’t pay much tax as a percentage of their worth.
Rich people are often leftist because an expansion of government power can add millions and even billions in untaxed stock value gains to their wealth.
Warren Buffett may have paid less than $1 billion in total taxes personally in his entire life, yet he has a worth that might be around $75 billion.
If something like PPACA reinsurance coverage can make him an extra $1 billion a year in greater net worth, then he’ll be for the expansion of government power.
Remember, stock billionaires like Bezos, Buffett, Gates and Zuckerberg only pay income tax on stock sales and dividends.
Their net worth can increase by $10 billion in a year, but if they only sell $1 million in stock and get $20 million in dividends in that year, their federal tax liability is based on that $21 million, not that $10 billion in untaxed stock appreciation.
And 1% would be 10% in no time — and 99% of would officially be serfs before we knew what hit us.
bad idea.
One good tax idea would be to tax political contributions to a PAC or lobby group (above the personal limit) at about 33% , then tax the PAC expenditures at 33%. raise money and reduce corruption at the same time.
> I have stock accounts....and I don’t pay anything..until I sell it........ <
I lived for awhile in a Democrat-run county that did something like what the original poster suggested. They put a 1% tax on stock holdings. Not a 1% tax on your sale profits, but a 1% tax on all your holdings.
I just ignored that line on the county tax form. Left it blank. Never heard from them one way or the other.
But if this were done at the federal level, you can bet I’d hear from them.
“As long as the debt service is a manageable percent of the GDP there is no good reason to pay it off.”
This is a boom economy. All booms go bust.
The interest on the debt may take over 50% of individual income tax during a weak economy.
“Investors like the guaranteed return on Treasury paper, which is what the national debt is composed of.”
People like me buy that indirectly through the banks.
We are getting tired of the low returns and are running down our bank balances.
My money and your cheap debt financing are disappearing.
.
We have no legitimate purpose in a wealth tax.
What we need is a realistic poll tax.
.
.
Correctamundo!
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- William Paterson, Founder of the Bank of England in 1694
- Henry Ford
You seem to have a whole lot of free time on your hands.
Maybe if you did soemthign productive with it rather than dreaming up schemes you’d be a little less eager to tax everyone’s wealth
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