this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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Ukraine

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[–] [email protected] 133 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Musk openly stated that he spoke directly with Putin after the Ukraine invasion had started. The super wealthy have no loyalties and will sell anyone and anything to the highest bidder. I've said it before, every penny after $1 billion needs to be taxed at 100%. Time to reign in the oligarchs.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But then who would create the underpaying jobs?!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The state love making those, I wouldn't worryy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Funny how that (along extreme wealth inequality and the destabilizing effects therein) could be improved by taxing billionaires.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is that just liquid assets, or do you also want to tax them on stock they own in companies?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Honestly I don't know. It's really more the sentiment that I'm expressing. I'm aware that the wealthy are very good at playing shell games. No measures would catch everything.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can definitely tax the hell out of dividends and sales. They are free to hold as many imaginary value tokens as they like, but the second they try to convert those tokens into actual currency, that should be heavily taxed. This goes for stock as well as cryptocurrency/NFTs.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They use loans currently to get cash against their assets.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where do they get the money to pay off those loans?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are lots of ways to sell assets in specific scenarios to reduce tax burden or eliminate the tax rate to 0%. For example, a billionaire can take a loan and pay the interest only for years. Then in a year with losses on investments then can sell some assets to pay off the loan and pay no taxes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except if the money they are using to pay the interest and the money received from the sale of those assets is taxed appropriately. Interest on business loans should not be deductible, nor should investment losses. The government is not responsible for their poor business decisions. Of course, there can be delineations for investment loss write-offs based on total gross income from all sources. A small business owner or an individual that holds an investment account with an AGI under $1million or so would reasonably still have access to such write-offs or deductions, but anything over that $1million per year is free game, losses or not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I agree with your assessment.