Germany technically has a wealth tax. However, it is supended since 1997, because the methods of how real estate wealth was calculated were outdated and thus considered unconsittutional.
Tax is not collected, but the supporting law has never been revoked.
Considering how everything is rigged in favor for the rich I don't have high hopes for this. But it would be great if they really come up with a system that makes sense and offers equal tax regimes for everybody. Right now if I'm not mistaken in Spain the most taxed people (in terms of ratio) are those who earn < ~300K per year.
The super-rich don't stay rich by just sitting on their money, they invest it.
These countries should focus on encouraging investment there - by getting rid of bureaucracy and red tape, make it possible to hire across the whole EU a lot easier, without needing separate tax registration in every country, etc.
Lower the barriers to entry wherever possible - no long application processes for developments with endless consultations, no arbitrary minority language or qualification requirements, etc.
Income inequality is a good thing, but there needs to be equal access to education and opportunities and the lowest barriers to entry possible.
I think increased automation and now AI are making wealth inequality problems inherently worse.
The existence (and prevalence) of food delivery work alone is a depressing portent in my view: If delivering food for objectively shitty pay is still a viable option for a lot of people, that signals to me that human labor has become borderline worthless (even in a wealthy/developed environment).
That makes the "american dream" (=> start from nothing, do a good job, become wealthy) increasingly less realistic.
I'm also afraid that this (preventing wealth inequality from getting out-of-control) might be a "practically unsolvable" problem for democracies in general (just like managing housing and public pensions): It is too easy to "sabotage" democratic progress for the negatively affected minority (and that minority is exceedingly powerful/well-positioned, too).
How are they going to do this? If they increase the tax burden on people's salaries, they'll start working informally (I live in Brazil and currently see that people look for various ways to escape income tax, whether by opening a company or choosing not to register formally (and they're not rich, but the state considers them rich, even earning ~$32k per year)). If they force companies to pay, the tax burden will be diluted into products/services, falling on the poorest. The right path is to reduce the size of the state - these policies will only make life worse for the poor. In a world with scarce resources, this problem has no solution.
Instead of calling for more surveillance, government overreach, and other communist wet dream fantasies like a global registry of wealth they could have started by fixing things in their own countries.
One good way would be to start taxing assets they control like land. Tax land value and suddenly there will be incentives to build more. Tax land value under big touristic resorts and use that revenue to fund local services instead of killing middle class with taxes on their productivity as they are currently doing.
Instead of complaining about rich people buying big houses and a lot of land around just tax that - that aligns incentives and makes presence of rich people profitable for local communities.
What they want to do instead though is first tax assets people have in other countries which don't influence them what so over and then if those people want to leave they cry foul as well - you will stay and you will like it - exactly as in communist Cuba.
>>There’s a real need to know who the beneficial owners are behind companies and legal structures used to conceal wealth,” said Mr. Gascón
Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. If you tax assets and get rid of corporate income tax replacing it with revenue based taxes (like a new digital tax idea or a tax on big super market chains) and a land value tax then it doesn't matter who is behind what as the local entity has to pay anyway.
If you build an attractive country companies and people will pay you to live and do business there. Why are you so obsessed on their total wealth? Is it maybe more about control and power than paying your "fair share"?
The thing is they don't want fair taxation. They want to take wealth of productive people and give to their ever increasing number of cronies. This kind of toxic thinking geared towards punishing productivity and making sure no one gets ahead too far is a cancer in Europe and imo major reason old EU countries stagnate instead of growing.
I hope this works. The only way to save the economy and the society is by taxing the rich.
Think about it for a minute. The rich people hoard all the resources, financial assets, means of production and in the competition for resources they will (and are doing so) displace everyone else in the economy (and really from society also).
This means that those who are displaced have no means to participate in the economy. And not only that but also they will be pushed to the fringes of the society and exists in slum conditions. This will stiff the economy and hollow it out.
Let's say for arguments sake that the government taxes X hundred of millions of $ from the bezos/musks/gates/etc. and put that into the economy by
- indirectly or directly hiring people
- building infrastructure
- providing services for the citizens (education, health care etc)
- providing benefits to those who need.
All that money will immediately go back into the economy stimulating all kinds of economic activity. And essentially two weeks later that same X hundred million is back in the bank account of bezos/musk/gates and it can be taxed again!
By letting the uber rich hoard the wealth that wealth is essentially away from the economy providing very little economic activity.
In economy this is known as the "high propensity to spend". The "poor" (i.e. working/middle class people) have high propensity to spend, the rich have low propensity to spend.
Tax the wealth, not the work!
This has been done before and it can be done again!
I wish these kind of comments were backed by some numbers. European welfare states are paid for by taxes on the middle class. The wealthy already pay taxes disproportionately and taxing the wealth itself has an obvious problem, it's stock not flow, so given government spending it will last you a few years at best. Then what?
The way to fix the economy is to bring one metric back to what it was when the economy supposed ly worked in the past - per capital government spending
Brazilian government is dumb as hell, just tax everything and waste money with idiot things and a lot of corruption, tax the rich will make then flee to another country like Arab Emirates or USA, so more money for then, less for the country, extremely common L of the Workers Party
Maybe these economies shall try to attract the wealthy before trying to tax them ... Or is that so that because of past fiscal policies, the wealthy are gone and are now missing out to the economy? :-)
The reality is that many (other) countries understand this and attract these wealthy people who contribute to their own economy - because wealthy people are more than people with a large bank account, it's usually entrepreneurs who will hire local workforce for their business, buy real estate, etc.
If one knows Brazil and especially Spain, the other reality is that this initiative is certainly driven by a socialist-populist agenda, nothing to see here.
Either way, this initiative is just a show, and sure to fail for many reasons.
Forcing rich people to invest in low return area might be better strategy. If they know how to make money productive, they can make that area grow faster so that gdp can grow faster.
This will ensure rich people money grows at higher rate only if gdp grows.
Asking government to manage money is very in efficient.
Trevor Noah had a good take on the absurdity of stocks and unrealised gains with their Schrödinger's-cat-like qualities: https://youtu.be/Gqlbn2nPO-A?t=84
I've replied to a comment with this but I'll leave it here.
Reducing inequality in Brazil (even a tiny amount) is a DEAD SIMPLE problem that is not in any way related to the government taking more money from people (rich or poor), but, rather, in taking LESS money:
> The collection of federal taxes on the reserve base, shows that of the amount collected by the IRS of Brazil, the majority of the taxes are based on consumption, with approximately 53% on average of the funds raised by Revenue Federal Brazil and continue accounting for more than half of tax (52%) charged by the agency. This tax structure is even more perverse when we add the taxes collected at the state and municipal levels, which bring in the largest source of revenue. The tax burden on consumption is regressive. In Brazil those who earn up to twice the minimum wage spend 26% of their income to pay indirect taxes, while the tax burden for families with income higher than 30 times the minimum wage amounts to only 7%. Excessive taxation on consumption depresses demand directly affecting the economy, reducing the consumption of the middle and lower income families.
We're talking about a country where minimum wage is 260ish dollars a month, and a macbook costs TWICE what it costs in the US, where people make much more. We're structured in a way where only rich people have access to anything. You can tax said rich people more, but they'll just keep being the ones that can afford anything at all.
Yeah Brazil's issue isn't that it isn't taxing its people enough. As usual these things always just go after the middle class and sort people into destitute vs rich buckets. IE they exacerbate inequality.
Yeah, socialism always works. Look how well the retribution of wealth did for the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, even Russia today.
Socialism isn't the answer.
If you take away the individual rewards of success you are awarded with "SUCK-N-EXCESS,"
Look at some successful societies: Japan, New Zealand, Germany. Not socialist. Success was rewarded and societies benefited.
Absolutely? Wealthy Must Be Accountable Regardless Super Rich Lifestyle, Generosity Spreads Hopefully With Help!!! Mankind Needs Sensible Solutions Rich Or Poorer, Taxes Finance Programs For All People Needy?
26 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 41.6 ms ] threadTax is not collected, but the supporting law has never been revoked.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verm%C3%B6gensteuer_(Deutschla... (Sorry, no translation available)
Best not to hold your breath though...
The super-rich don't stay rich by just sitting on their money, they invest it.
These countries should focus on encouraging investment there - by getting rid of bureaucracy and red tape, make it possible to hire across the whole EU a lot easier, without needing separate tax registration in every country, etc.
Lower the barriers to entry wherever possible - no long application processes for developments with endless consultations, no arbitrary minority language or qualification requirements, etc.
Income inequality is a good thing, but there needs to be equal access to education and opportunities and the lowest barriers to entry possible.
The existence (and prevalence) of food delivery work alone is a depressing portent in my view: If delivering food for objectively shitty pay is still a viable option for a lot of people, that signals to me that human labor has become borderline worthless (even in a wealthy/developed environment).
That makes the "american dream" (=> start from nothing, do a good job, become wealthy) increasingly less realistic.
I'm also afraid that this (preventing wealth inequality from getting out-of-control) might be a "practically unsolvable" problem for democracies in general (just like managing housing and public pensions): It is too easy to "sabotage" democratic progress for the negatively affected minority (and that minority is exceedingly powerful/well-positioned, too).
A millionaire is 1000x the wealth as someone with a thousand bucks.
As someone closer to a net worth closer to $1000, it sure is funny watching the rich millionaires complain about the rich billionaires.
I bet the millionaires don't think the wealth transfers and confiscation they support for the billionaires, will ever be applied to them.
Instead of complaining about rich people buying big houses and a lot of land around just tax that - that aligns incentives and makes presence of rich people profitable for local communities.
What they want to do instead though is first tax assets people have in other countries which don't influence them what so over and then if those people want to leave they cry foul as well - you will stay and you will like it - exactly as in communist Cuba.
>>There’s a real need to know who the beneficial owners are behind companies and legal structures used to conceal wealth,” said Mr. Gascón
Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. If you tax assets and get rid of corporate income tax replacing it with revenue based taxes (like a new digital tax idea or a tax on big super market chains) and a land value tax then it doesn't matter who is behind what as the local entity has to pay anyway. If you build an attractive country companies and people will pay you to live and do business there. Why are you so obsessed on their total wealth? Is it maybe more about control and power than paying your "fair share"?
The thing is they don't want fair taxation. They want to take wealth of productive people and give to their ever increasing number of cronies. This kind of toxic thinking geared towards punishing productivity and making sure no one gets ahead too far is a cancer in Europe and imo major reason old EU countries stagnate instead of growing.
Think about it for a minute. The rich people hoard all the resources, financial assets, means of production and in the competition for resources they will (and are doing so) displace everyone else in the economy (and really from society also).
This means that those who are displaced have no means to participate in the economy. And not only that but also they will be pushed to the fringes of the society and exists in slum conditions. This will stiff the economy and hollow it out.
Let's say for arguments sake that the government taxes X hundred of millions of $ from the bezos/musks/gates/etc. and put that into the economy by
All that money will immediately go back into the economy stimulating all kinds of economic activity. And essentially two weeks later that same X hundred million is back in the bank account of bezos/musk/gates and it can be taxed again!By letting the uber rich hoard the wealth that wealth is essentially away from the economy providing very little economic activity.
In economy this is known as the "high propensity to spend". The "poor" (i.e. working/middle class people) have high propensity to spend, the rich have low propensity to spend.
Tax the wealth, not the work!
This has been done before and it can be done again!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal
The reality is that many (other) countries understand this and attract these wealthy people who contribute to their own economy - because wealthy people are more than people with a large bank account, it's usually entrepreneurs who will hire local workforce for their business, buy real estate, etc.
If one knows Brazil and especially Spain, the other reality is that this initiative is certainly driven by a socialist-populist agenda, nothing to see here.
Either way, this initiative is just a show, and sure to fail for many reasons.
- No, the rich won't run away.
- No, the rich are not carrying the country.
- No, caring for another or a lesser fortunate, isn't communism.
It's weird I have to say it, but some really need to hear it.
Reducing inequality in Brazil (even a tiny amount) is a DEAD SIMPLE problem that is not in any way related to the government taking more money from people (rich or poor), but, rather, in taking LESS money:
> The collection of federal taxes on the reserve base, shows that of the amount collected by the IRS of Brazil, the majority of the taxes are based on consumption, with approximately 53% on average of the funds raised by Revenue Federal Brazil and continue accounting for more than half of tax (52%) charged by the agency. This tax structure is even more perverse when we add the taxes collected at the state and municipal levels, which bring in the largest source of revenue. The tax burden on consumption is regressive. In Brazil those who earn up to twice the minimum wage spend 26% of their income to pay indirect taxes, while the tax burden for families with income higher than 30 times the minimum wage amounts to only 7%. Excessive taxation on consumption depresses demand directly affecting the economy, reducing the consumption of the middle and lower income families.
We're talking about a country where minimum wage is 260ish dollars a month, and a macbook costs TWICE what it costs in the US, where people make much more. We're structured in a way where only rich people have access to anything. You can tax said rich people more, but they'll just keep being the ones that can afford anything at all.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Brazil
Look at some successful societies: Japan, New Zealand, Germany. Not socialist. Success was rewarded and societies benefited.