Comment on Gary Stevenson: 'Tax wealth or we'll return to the feudal age'
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 2 days agoThe idea that billionaires would leave the economy that made them billions, the services and amenities that make being a billionaire worthwhille, and all their rich friends, all for a little tax break is pretty ridiculous. They already choose to live in California, New York, and London - expensive places with high taxes - rather than Cayman Islands or South Dakota.
They’re definitely not uprooting the whole corporate campus, moving it away from the skilled workforce it needs, the housing that they need, and the good schools that they want.
Billionaires’ personal wealth isn’t generating any taxable income, anyway, so there’s no income tax to lose if they do leave.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Avoiding a “wealth tax” isn’t just a “little tax break”.
Most wealth is on paper. Billionaires don’t just have a billion dollars of cash. I’m technically a multi-millionaire, but if I suddenly got hit with a 5% wealth tax I’d have too sell my house and be homeless to pay it. That’s not right or fair.
Is basically a tax on unrealised gains, and I shouldn’t have to explain to you how that is terrible.
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
no one’s talking about a 5% wealth tax, and few people are even talking about applying it to people with fortunes as paltry as $10,000,000.
Us middle-class shlubs are already paying 1-2% wealth tax on our biggest asset, and that asset doesn’t even generate income. Why should billionaire stock portfolios be exempt?
Asset taxes, whether real estate or equity, encourage those assets to be put to productive use. If you can’t figure out how to extract 1% economic value out of your $100,000,000 company to pay the wealth tax, then maybe you should sell that company to someone who can run it right.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Missed the point of the example.
Unrealised gains should never be counted or taxed because of their very nature. So you even understand the difference between realised and unrealised gains?
Just because someone has more money than you it doesn’t mean they should be unfairly charged with extra taxes. That’s pathetic.
What 1-2% wealth tax are us shlubs already paying? Why are billionaires exempt from this?
You fundamentally don’t understand the difference between the value of a company and the cash on hand of that company.
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
You’re honestly lecturing me about unrealized gains and you don’t even know about Property Tax?!? Primary residence is the closest most people get to an investment portfolio, and they get taxed on its full value, not just the equity fraction they own.
crapwittyname@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Billionaires make money on those unrealised gains. Therefore they are an asset, and must be taxed.