this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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1970 was the last time the government collected more than 3% of GDP in taxes. After that point, there was less and less of a need to avoid taxation.
We need a new tax bracket for the ultra wealthy. The top current bracket is 37% above ~$300,000. For most of the 20th century, the top tier tax bracket was 91%. We need a 91% tax bracket on income beyond $600,000. We need some sharp incentive for the wealthiest among us to avoid.
You're thinking like one of the poors. Us ultra wealthy don't get paid in dollars. We get paid in shares. And we don't sell the shares, we take out long term low interest bank loans with the shares as collateral any time we absolutely need to use cash.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/invest-borrow-against-die-scott-114400643.html
First off, your link is about 80% tracking information. You can remove the "?" and everything that follows it.
You are correct. The value of those shares should be considered income and taxed at the time of transfer. If they were, the 91% top-tier tax bracket would catch most of their excess income. Since that isn't happening, we need additional measures.
Capital gains tax should be higher than income tax. It is patently absurd that sitting around waiting for your money to make more money is taxed less than busting your ass for 40+ hours a week. With capital gains taxed higher than income, businesses will want to pay a larger percentage of their workers with shares rather than simple income.
More importantly, we need a specific type of wealth tax. We don't need to tax all wealth: We need to tax financial assets. Registered securities. The vehicles that the ultra wealthy use to exponentially transfer wealth out of the economy.
We should tax registered securities at 1-3% per year. Natural persons holding less than $10 million in securities are exempt. That keeps 99% of taxpayers from owing this tax.
The securities tax should be paid in shares of the security, transferred directly to the IRS. By paying directly in shares, they don't have to find a buyer; the don't have to liquidate them, so they won't be dragging down prices for everyone else. The IRS will sell off these shares over time, such that IRS liquidation sales never comprise more than 1% of total traded volume.
Securities are shares of the "means of production". A securities tax will drive ownership of those shares toward the working class.
My accounting team told me they would open more Panamanian shell companies for me, and the shares would get distributed across them. I'd retain full ownership, of course.
If they are holding shares that can be traded in US markets, the SEC knows about those shares, and ultimately controls those shares. They don't need your Panamanian shell company to release them. You'll wake up one morning to find that a portion of the shares formerly in your shell company's portfolio are now in the IRS's portfolio. The SEC just ctrl-x'd them from your portfolio, and ctrl-v'd them to the IRS.
Your Panamanian shell company is not a "natural person". Only "natural persons" are eligible for the $10 million dollar exemption. Your shell company pays the tax on its entire portfolio, not just the excess above $10 million.
So you want to tax all companies a percent of their stock ownership every year? Good luck with that.
You're falling intro a trollhill. The point is the ultra-wealthy pay very smart people to work out loopholes. If some internet retard can run around your ideas and keep you busy, a team of full time financial experts will have a field day. This is not an easy problem to solve. Pretending like it is leads to support for crappy subpar legislation that doesn't work.
Not at all.
Companies shouldn't be owning stock.
Companies issue their own stock. They don't own it. The shareholders who buy it or otherwise acquire it are the owners. And if those owners have more than $10 million worth of it, they can afford to pay 1% of everything they own beyond that first $10 million.
I won't prohibit companies from owning other publicly traded companies, but they don't get special status when they do. That status is reserved for natural persons, and only $10 million of the the stock owned by such a person is exempt from taxation.
Correct. The securities tax I'm talking about is not the actual solution. The loopholes they use to avoid that securities tax is the solution. The actual solution is for them to actually spend their wealth and enjoy their lives, rather than treating the economy like some idle clicker.
This is a fantastic idea, and it wouldn't actually require eating any of them, necessarily.
Ultra wealthy got so rich you won’t undo inequality with just income tax. There needs to be a cap on existing wealth and if they opposed income tax, they won’t part with it willingly.