Comment on just temporarily embarrassed billionaires, one good idea or lottery ticket from making it rich

• gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  yeah this is income tax. what about wealth tax?

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  • Steve@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The US doesn’t have a wealth tax… Yet

    The point is, not taxing leaving people who live outside the country, or aren’t even citizens, isn’t a fixed law of the universe like the speed of light. It’s a policy choice. Different choices can be made. There’s no reason tax law can’t be written to account for it.

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    • gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      But property tax is a thing. And property tax is a wealth tax on a specific form of wealth.

      en.wikipedia.org/…/Property_tax_in_the_United_Sta…

      This tax may be imposed on real estate or personal property. The tax is nearly always computed as the fair market value of the property, multiplied by an assessment ratio, multiplied by a tax rate.

      ok i’m currently reading up on property tax in the US. it’s actually much more interesting topic than i thought. here’s an interesting infographic:

      Image

      i’m still interpreting what this means. so the US does have a wealth tax but it mostly affects non-movable property (as i said in my original comment) and that is why billionaires don’t actually pay x% of their total wealth under it.

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      also:

      Local officials determine values [of houses] and may be disputed by property owners.

      The question is, how do you assess the total wealth of a person, once they have moved their stuff abroad? How do you even begin to measure it? If there’s no local cooperation from the local government to actually check and estimate the total wealth, is there any way to even find out about it?

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      • Steve@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        so to introduce a “wealth tax” would mean to create a new category (“Federal Wealth Tax”) that taxes all net wealth except real estate (which is already taxed on the state level), am i seeing this correctly?

        The details haven’t been worked out. It may or not include locally taxed properties. California’s one time billionaire tax I don’t think cares if it’s been taxed or not already.

        how do you assess the total wealth of a person, once they have moved their stuff abroad?

        They can’t move a lot of it. It’s mostly shares in companies, bonds, commodities, all traded on public markets. Some is in private markets. But that’s still all managed by banks. Banks all around the world started sharing data in 2016. So governments now have access to people’s international holdings.

        Things like cars, boats, paintings, various high value sundries, they have insurance values that could be used.

        In short, very carefully. Some things may be missed, but the vast majority of their wealth can be found and calculated.

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    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      China is 2nd place for number of billionaires so if they do it isn’t universal or just doesn’t work.

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      • gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        iirc china does have a wealth tax (and it is effective), just that it isn’t 100% thorough, so some people still become billionaires.

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  • VOwOxel@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    US citizens pay US wealth tax… I don’t get what the difference might be.

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    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They pay property taxes, but Bezos’ wealth is in stock and bonds so no he doesn’t currently pay taxes on those.

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      • VOwOxel@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Correct, which is why we need a reformation of the wealth tax. Billionaires have gotten away with not being taxed according to their actual wealth for far too long.

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    • gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      the question is, how do you assess net wealth? is there any kind of way of knowing how much net wealth a person has?

      there might be, i’d just like to see it.

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• Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Honestly, to me this is a bad take because only a handful of nations in the world consider to tax their nationals when living outside of their borders.

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  • Steve@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What does that matter?
    The point is that it’s absolutely possible. There is no technical reason it can’t be done, it just isn’t often.

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    • Eq0@literature.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I think taxes should be meant as a contribution to the services to are getting (pension, roads, schools). If you are not living in a country, you shouldn’t pay taxes there. In the other hand, a company that ID physically on US soil should pay taxes there

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      • Steve@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        If you make a fortune from your connections to an economy, people, and society; wherever you may live personally, it makes sense for you to contribute back to that society. You may not directly benefit from its roads, but you make money from the people who do. Money you wouldn’t be able to have without those roads.

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    • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Is this a bot? It responded to itself.

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      • Steve@communick.news ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I responded to eq0.
        Don’t know what you’re seeing

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