Who?
and when Andrew Yang is the most sane guy on your stage...
Democrats don’t want to hear talk of capitalism and free markets.
As for Yang? Er... bye!
The French 2017 wealth tax form is online.
It’s possible to get around the constitutional capitation proportionality limitation by setting higher wealth tax rates for poorer states and then allowing a full income tax credit for the higher wealth tax rate amounts.
Mississippi rich folks would pay a higher wealth tax rate on April 14th and have the excess (and maybe a bit more) credited to their April 15th income tax amount.
“– The logistical issues of inventorying everyone’s wealth every year”
We had a Florida intangibles tax for about 70 years starting in 1931.
People would look in an S&P Stock Guide to find out their share prices.
so basically he wants everyone in the world to emigrate here. 12 grand a year plus welfare and healthcare.
Aside from the fact that rich people got rich by knowing how to get & stay rich...
There’s also the question of what will constitute “wealth”.
Brings to mind a scene from some ‘80-’90s TV show, where our hero asks the mob boss where all his wealth is, as said bad guy appears to live very humbly. “Take this for example...” and picks up an odd & old looking walking cane “...looks like nothin’, right? This is Charlie Chaplin’s signature cane, the real thing, and it’s worth a huge amount.” Is the gov’t actually going to literally inventory & value every book & bauble in one’s home? I’ve heard a father of prospective college students note that when time comes, he’ll liquidate all his enumerable assets and (for example) buy a top-end Ferrari - making himself look as poor as possible on paper, opening doors to all kinds of financial grants & scholarships (if that’s the system imposed on us, he has no problem [ab]using it); I expect The Rich to do likewise in the face of a “wealth tax”. Need cash? sell a few things of high intrinsic value which no legal inventory of assets would pick up on; still get hit with income tax (maybe, or maybe under the table), but at least avoid a “wealth tax”.
Appreciate the goose laying golden eggs. Rich people do a great deal for society/economy, and do much of it better/cheaper than gov’t can.
Real question for progressives: why do they insist (at gunpoint) _all_ “charity” come from/thru government?
Gov’t isn’t a god, it’s other people who, on the whole, do things less effectively than private individuals & businesses.
“Compliance problems, since wealthy people will have zero interest in having their wealth inventoried and then being sent a massive bill”
They might be required to pay an estimated wealth tax quarterly.
The tax would start with stocks with market values, rental real estate with tax assessor valuations, bonds, CDs and maybe even more.
Art might be taxed on certain items:
1. paintings by Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Rembrandt and any other artist who created a painting sold for over $100,000 at public auction as identified by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue prior to the start of the tax year
2. sculptures by Rodin...
FWIW the idea of “UBI” for Universal Basic Income is not new.
It was proposed decades ago by Milton Friedman, and Charles Murray.
A tax on real property doesn't require the selling of the property to pay the tax. The linked article refers to this, discussing how the Supreme Court said that taxes on the income derived from real property is really a direct tax on the property.
My concern about "wealth" is when retirement savings are invested in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds. Is this wealth? Will this be taxed solely for its existence, as well as the incomed derived from the investments? An income on the dividends and appreciation of the portfolio still leaves the portfolio intact; a tax on the value of the portfolio reduces the portfolio by paying the tax.
It is seizure of the portfolio, hiding as a "wealth tax."
-PJ
It is waiting.
Rich folks need to learn a phrase like this:
I’m very concerned about the Communistic direction the Democratic Party is taking. As long as such nonsense continues, I will not be making any contribution to any Democratic Party candidate or entity.
Says the man who wants to give everyone a thousand dollars a month.
This bodes very well for President Trump's re-election.
I'd never have predicted it. After Trump's victory in 2016, I was certain that the Democrats would go middle-of-the-road and choose a respectable candidate to head the ticket in 2020.
But I was wrong. They went even FURTHER to the left.
“Central to Yang’s campaign is the proposal of a monthly $1,000 “Freedom Dividend” to all U.S. citizens over the age of 18 (a form of universal basic income, or UBI)....
“Yang proposes a value-added tax to finance the dividend”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Yang
Let’s see...
250m+ adults x $1000/Mon == $250 BILLION / month
$3 TRILLION / YR
These people can’t even do basic math
The lack of a serious wealth tax proposal is the number one reason elite billionaires like Warren Buffet feel totally comfortable supporting Democrats and “socialism”. They don’t need income to get rich. They are already rich. Income taxes are not taxes on the rich; they are taxes on people trying to get rich.
A wealth tax is actually a tax on the rich and I hope it becomes the most basic plank in the Democrat platform, so all those comfortable virtue-signalling billionaires can rethink their conclusion that socialism only hurts the little guys.
Then again, I wouldn't put it past the courts, when it comes to stealing money from the population and increasing the power of the government.
Mark