The US's resistance stems from concerns that a global wealth tax might deter investment, prompt capital flight, and potentially impede economic growth.
' We are to selfish to impose such a thing, here's our pretend stance on why; We will refuse to invest if you force us to help humanity. '
Capital flight? To where? The fucking moon?
2-6% is a joke when the rest of the population is paying >25% up to 50% or more in some places.
in brazil we are paying 100% in some cases. not income, of course, but some goods are twice as expensive for us to obtain as they should because of crazy taxation.
meanwhile our rich pay among the lowest taxes in the world (they pay zero tax in some investments). shit even when tax is due, some of our richest won't pay it and get away with it. (thanks, neymar!)
this shit is egregious and has to end.
If you would have read the article, you would have noticed it's a wealth tax, not an income or gains tax.
What does that matter? 2% of a billion is 20 million. Do you seriously think their wealth doesn't grow by at least 20 million a year? Do you think their wealth doesn't grow by more than 2% every year? It should not be growing, it should be diminishing!
I'll repeat myself: 2-6% is a fucking joke.
To be fair though, it's not nothing (unlike the USA). They have to start somewhere, I'll give 'em that.
Wealth taxes have been tried and later rescinded. They are extremely hard to administer for rich people. They usually have their wealth tied up in assets, not cash. Valuing those assets is itself expensive. What is a painting worth? Their entire stock portfolio? It is much easier to tax money as it moves through capital gains, income, and estate taxes.
The fact that even this largely performative measure is being opposed by the US makes it pretty clear that no real action will be possible under the current regime.
Okay, and how is that a rebuttal? Wealth taxes cost a large amount to administer and don't provide much revenue. Any tax should be weighed against its side effects. If a type of tax has a history of being mainly performative with little revenue, what's the case for swallowing the side effects?
Again, it's much easier to tax wealth as it moves because typically that movement involves putting a value on it. Estate taxes also require appraising the value of assets, but they are literally once in a lifetime.
I'm not rebutting that wealth taxes don't really work. I'm saying that even this performative measure is not palatable to the oligarchs, then obviously any serious measure won't be either.
If they won't accept bloodletting to release the bad humors, then surely they won't accept acetaminophen for a headache?
It's bad policy. Many countries have experimented with it and given up. Others like the UK looked at it and couldn't find a way to make it worth the administration cost to begin with. There is simply no excuse for enacting known bad policy, and no amount of blaming things on oligarchies is going to get around that.
Oh hey, I remember how this guy Sanders was proposing a lot of good and sensible policies with his green new deal idea. How'd that work out?
if third party sites can come up with someone's net worth without access to any tax returns/financial data, I'm sure the US government can do the same. Honestly they could just give a broad estimate and if its wrong have the taxee fight it with the data proving its wrong. The system for this already exists on tax forms. The administrative costs part of the argument seems really weird, it's not like the US is like most other established governments and gives a bill/check. It requires citizens to calculate their own taxes so they technically don't even need to do the math outside a simple "does this look right? ah probally" or audits
Those are estimates based on published data that are often wildly inaccurate. Taxation would need real numbers. The way that things have typically worked in the past is that taxees self-report their assets, which leads to widespread cheating.
widespread cheating is still a net plus though, worst case scenario they pay less taxes then needed, but any non-zero number would be money that otherwise wouldn't have been recieved. Actual calculations can be done on audits so if someone sends something in that is drastically different than what you would expect it should be then they can do the actual calculation but for the most part estimates should work fine for that matter.
The way I see it a 5 to 10% variance in what is actually owed isn't going to mean much in the long run, and if a number is submitted that does raise eyebrows, which would be easy to implement just based off what their annual income(which is already reported) is versus what their reported assets are, a more in-depth calculation can be done
2% isn't enough. If that's all you probably will just get capital flight.
The proposal is for a globally-levied tax. Where exactly is capital going to fly to?
DPRK, they dont have income tax 
Confused libertarian noises
If they could get totally global coordination to work, sure. Every single nation signing up is a pipe dream though. If that's how the proposal was actually written it was never intended to pass.
Capital flight only exists where it is allowed to exist. It is possible and, in fact, advisable to have laws allowing for the seizure of assets in such a scenario.
to where? we are the biggest market in south america. good luck abandoning it because of a measly 2% tax.
i wish their capital would fly, we would probably take over that fucking space ourselves and do a better fucking job.
What this means in practice, is that someone will make a billion dollars in Brazil, and then move and spend it all elsewhere, so they can continue becoming richer. This is bad for Brazil, since developing is expensive.
I think a hard cap would be better.
I agree, a 2% tax is barely anything and would only be just slightly better than absolutely nothing.
someone will make a billion dollars in Brazil, and then move and spend it all elsewhere
they do exactly that already. most of our oligarchs hate their own country and spend most of their time (and money!) in europe or something. really gross people in general.
You could secretly take 90% and I'm convinced they wouldn't even notice in their day to day
Lol, probably. You just have to get their accountants in on it.
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