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Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money... (thelemmy.club)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
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[–] 12 points 6 months ago (13 children)

Would making the law kick in after a certain amount of net worth be the answer in that situation?

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (10 children)

    Not likely. First of all, the net worth numbers you see for these ultra-wealthy people are all educated guesses. To actually legally impose anything based on total net worth, you need to actually audit net worth and get a real figure. The resources it would take to do this are very unlikely to yield more tax revenue than they cost, especially because there is so much one can possess whose value is pretty much completely arbitrary (the high-end artwork, etc.).

    It's actually all-but-certain it'd be a net loss of tax revenue. There is a reason that every time such a policy targeting only the wealthiest is put into place (it's been tried numerous times over the years in a bunch of European countries), it's gotten rid of soon thereafter, or 'dialed down' to be just another 'mundane' tax that falls primarily into the lap of the middle class.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    To actually legally impose anything based on total net worth, you need to actually audit net worth and get a real figure.

    So, what's wrong with that? You have a wealth tax on all wealth over $100 million. If you have wealth anywhere over say, $50 million, you hire an accountant to assess your business's value. Everyone with that level of wealth already hires accountants. It's a trivial additional burden. If your wealth is no where near the tax threshold, you don't need to bother hiring an accountant to get a precise figure.

    There is a reason that every time such a policy targeting only the wealthiest is put into place (it’s been tried numerous times over the years in a bunch of European countries)

    I'm calling bullshit on this. There are all sorts of taxes that fall heavily or solely on the wealthy. The reason the wealthy don't all leave is that they don't actually want to live in places that have low taxes. You can get low taxes in a war-torn hellhole, but most don't actually want to live like that.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    If you have wealth anywhere over say, $50 million, you hire an accountant to assess your business’s value.

    'Oh, our accountant says the valuation is just under the threshold for the new tax, what a coincidence!'

    It is trivially easy to shift assets around in such a way that having a net worth threshold for a given tax is basically a guarantee that no one will pay it. Many countries have tried this already, and failed. Why repeat their mistakes, instead of learning from them?

    We need to remember that people, and especially the ultra-wealthy, are not inert blocks of wood that don't react to policy changes like these.

    I’m calling bullshit on this. There are all sorts of taxes that fall heavily or solely on the wealthy.

    Firstly, I said "only the wealthiest", so don't already start nudging those goalposts by "calling bullshit" and immediately tweaking it to "heavily or solely". Secondly, if there are so many, name three.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    ‘Oh, our accountant says the valuation is just under the threshold for the new tax, what a coincidence!’

    Well that's your risk to take. No different than if you cook your books now and claim lower income than you actually have. We don't throw up our hands and conclude we can't tax the wealthy. Maybe we need to seriously reform corporate charter law, and do things like prohibit corporations from themselves owning subsidiary companies. Reforms like that could prevent a lot of tax-dodging shenanigans.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    So, what’s wrong with that? You have a wealth tax on all wealth over $100 million. If you have wealth anywhere over say, $50 million, you hire an accountant to assess your business’s value. Everyone with that level of wealth already hires accountants. It’s a trivial additional burden. If your wealth is no where near the tax threshold, you don’t need to bother hiring an accountant to get a precise figure.

    And I'm going to say, it's a great means to go after the assholes if they try to claim their assets are worth something different. I think we have a recent case of 34 felonies about that....

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (3 children)

    Accepting your premise as true, that still doesn't make the tax valueless. The real value in a wealth tax is breaking up the money from individuals, the revenue is just a bonus. Even if it is all used to pay the accountants, that's still money that's now actually moving through the economy rather than zombie wealth sitting in some rich fuck's paws, doing nothing but contribute to inflation.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    The real value in a wealth tax is breaking up the money from individuals, the revenue is just a bonus.

    And the mask comes off, revealing the true motivation. You'd happily waste the taxpayer money that is the poor's lifeline in many cases, reducing overall tax revenue, because hurting the rich matters more to you than helping the poor.

    money that’s now actually moving through the economy zombie wealth sitting in some rich fuck’s paws, doing nothing but contribute to inflation.

    1. Net worth is a valuation, a price tag on something that's already been transacted on, how could it possibly contribute to inflation? What nonsense.
    2. The ultra-wealthy don't have Scrooge McDuck vaults full of cash, their wealth consists of investments in businesses that run within the economy.
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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Taxes in the US are overwhelmingly used for the military and to enrich rich fucks, not to help the poor. Don't be disingenuous. Rich fucks sitting on assets aren't "not hurting anyone". Their assets have real world value, that's why they're valued like that. By letting someone sit on them to "allow them to appreciate" is letting someone doing nothing accumulate the wealth gains of society that we all work for. Because those assets appreciate faster than inflation, they create inflation pressure as more asseted people have income to burn that doesn't reflect actual economic movement. Decreasing the value of money that other people need to use to buy things to live.

    No one lives in a vacuum and letting people hoard assets has a negative impact on everyone else. So yes, wealth redistribution is a net positive not because "it punishes rich people" but because it allows our money to better reflect who actually produces the value in society. The workers who do the labor of running everything, rather than rich fucks who normally reap all the monetary benefit of that with almost no actual contribution to the effort it required.

    If everyone became a laborer with proper compensation, society would thrive. If everyone became an asset hoarder, society would break apart as there would be no one to operate the machinery of society. Increased wealth inequality pushes us towards the second scenario(asset ownership is rewarded over value producing behaviors, pushing individuals towards more asset accumulation in order to not be left behind, increasing the price of those assets, devaluing other ways of earning money, creating more pressure to own assets), reducing wealth inequality pushes us towards the first.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Taxes in the US are overwhelmingly used for the military

    "Overwhelmingly" is a bit of a ridiculous way to describe 13% of the budget, don't you think?

    and to enrich rich fucks

    Cite a figure for this nebulous category, if you can.

    not to help the poor.

    Actually, welfare spending is barely less than military spending, at 11.8% of the budget.

    By letting someone sit on them to “allow them to appreciate” is letting someone doing nothing accumulate the wealth gains of society that we all work for.

    The same can be said of anyone who owns a house. There is nothing wrong with a thing you already own becoming more valuable to others.

    Because those assets appreciate faster than inflation, they create inflation pressure as more asseted people have income to burn that doesn’t reflect actual economic movement. Decreasing the value of money that other people need to use to buy things to live.

    This is a very confused couple of statements; most egregiously, you're conflating asset price inflation with consumer price inflation, and only the latter has a direct effect on the working class.

    The ultra-wealthy have a low 'marginal propensity to consume'. If Jeff Bezos gains $10 billion on paper, he does not spend $10B on consumption goods; most gains remain invested. Appreciation alone does not automatically translate into CPI inflation, because unrealized gains are not income.

    No one lives in a vacuum and letting people hoard assets has a negative impact on everyone else.

    It's objectively nonsensical to refer to the notion of purchasing something, and its market value increasing while you merely continue to own it, as "hoarding". Not to mention, again, that net worth is a valuation, a price tag. It is not money. Stop acting like when the price of a stock goes up, that amount of cash money is magically vacuumed out of the wallets of the working class.

    If everyone became a laborer with proper compensation, society would thrive.

    People want to be able to own things (aka assets), though.

    If everyone became an asset hoarder

    Ownership isn't hoarding.

    society would break apart as there would be no one to operate the machinery of society.

    Except this literally cannot ever happen because the demand created by the market is the whole reason those assets appreciate in value in the first place. It's a self-correcting issue: if too many people try to just 'own assets', the demand will drop, and said assets' value will start depreciating, incentivizing those people back in the other direction, to laboring.

    ...increasing the price of those assets, devaluing other ways of earning money

    Asset appreciation is not income, stop equivocating the two.

    reducing wealth inequality pushes us towards the first.

    Not necessarily; it's entirely possible for everyone to have identical wealth, and also all be poor. In fact, that was the default state of humanity for the vast majority of its history.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Do you consider Switzerland to be a European country. It has had forms of wealth tax for centuries, and the current tax generates roughly 4% of Switzerland's total revenue. It seems to work just fine there.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Switzerland's wealth taxes, depending on area (there is no country-wide wealth tax) starts at the equivalent of ~$100,000 on average, putting it very squarely in the

    ‘dialed down’ to be just another ‘mundane’ tax that falls primarily into the lap of the middle class.

    category I mentioned before. That is absolutely not a tax aimed exclusively at the ultra-wealthy.

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