Taxes on everyday Europeans bring in 13 times more revenue than taxes on wealth(oxfam.org)
oxfam.org
Taxes on everyday Europeans bring in 13 times more revenue than taxes on wealth
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/taxes-everyday-europeans-bring-13-times-more-revenue-taxes-wealth
14 comments
It's not the proportion of the population that is wealthy that matters, it's what proportion of the total wealth that they have. From the article, "In 2022, the wealthiest 1 percent held a quarter of the net personal wealth in the EU." So if you are taxing the 'poor' 99% of people, you are only accessing 75% of the taxable wealth.
What about LOWERING taxes on productive activities (e.g. making things) and RAISING taxes on asset acquisition (e.g. buying up real-estate, land)?
And no more QE for asset acquisition, only for productive activities.
And no more QE for asset acquisition, only for productive activities.
Unfortunately, people are often ignorant of both how wealthy the billionaires literally are... and at the same time, how much of a drop in the bucket it is to government spending.
If we seized 100% of every billionaire's net worth and managed to liquidate their stock at market rates without causing a shock (impossible), we would theoretically gain $14.2 trillion. Note that this is for all billionaires worldwide, not just the US.
$14.2 trillion is a mountain of money. On the other hand, it's only enough to pay for US government operations for a little over 2 years.
If we seized 100% of every billionaire's net worth and managed to liquidate their stock at market rates without causing a shock (impossible), we would theoretically gain $14.2 trillion. Note that this is for all billionaires worldwide, not just the US.
$14.2 trillion is a mountain of money. On the other hand, it's only enough to pay for US government operations for a little over 2 years.
There's also the consideration that taxing the milk lasts a lot longer than taking the cow and selling it, once.
I agree, and I think it is part of a very important set of issues to discuss when taxing the rich:
A. Let's not kill the golden goose. A little return every year for the next 5 decades is a much more desirable outcome than a huge return that lasts 5 years.
B. A ridiculous percentage of billionaire's wealth (~89%) is in the stock market. This leads to huge on-paper valuations, but is impossible to liquidate at the paper valuation. Any attempt to collect that money would destroy the value; almost making it Schrödinger's wealth.
C. The rest of the world is still competing for our business. If you somehow passed a 90% tax rate, there would be no advantages to staying in the US. Even the serious limitations and government issues of different countries (China, Australia, Europe) would be preferable.
A. Let's not kill the golden goose. A little return every year for the next 5 decades is a much more desirable outcome than a huge return that lasts 5 years.
B. A ridiculous percentage of billionaire's wealth (~89%) is in the stock market. This leads to huge on-paper valuations, but is impossible to liquidate at the paper valuation. Any attempt to collect that money would destroy the value; almost making it Schrödinger's wealth.
C. The rest of the world is still competing for our business. If you somehow passed a 90% tax rate, there would be no advantages to staying in the US. Even the serious limitations and government issues of different countries (China, Australia, Europe) would be preferable.
B sounded nice, and it's one of the reasons that Americans (at least) would stand up for the rich. It's possibly part of "temporarily embarrassed millionaire syndrome." However Elon Musk completely ruined this line of logic, forever - at least for me. He said he was going to buy twitter. He was then forced to buy twitter. He then somehow came up with the 40-50 billion to buy twitter. Remember, he only had this "wealth" on paper, prior to this. Up until the minute he paid, people were saying "he only has it on paper, he can't buy it, he's going to get punished for [messing with the market or whatever]." Then the sale went through. Lots of people said he was dumb and just lost tens of billions of dollars - in fact, people still do! He "convinced" the board or shareholders of another company to cut him a check for about the same amount of money (that he only had on paper) that he bought twitter for.
this is what it read like to the average american that was paying attention to it at all. It doesn't matter if the above "isn't what really happened" - that's what was presented, in the rough order it was presented.
When you have "a billion dollars on paper", you can manipulate a large amount of perception, laws, policies - basically whatever you want. My point is, Musk was one of the only billionaires to use their wealth in the open in this way, and it eliminates the "only on paper" argument.
this is what it read like to the average american that was paying attention to it at all. It doesn't matter if the above "isn't what really happened" - that's what was presented, in the rough order it was presented.
When you have "a billion dollars on paper", you can manipulate a large amount of perception, laws, policies - basically whatever you want. My point is, Musk was one of the only billionaires to use their wealth in the open in this way, and it eliminates the "only on paper" argument.
Elon Musk is a billionaire among billionaires.
There are 3,194 billionaires; only one is worth $250B+. To compare all billionaires to Elon Musk is by itself fallacious.
> He then somehow came up with the 40-50 billion to buy twitter.
No, he didn't. He got a loan from 7 banks, in combination with his own funds, and using Tesla stock as collateral. This allowed him to avoid selling too much stock, while placing repayment obligations for that loan on X as a company. He also was able to reuse a Twitter stake that he purchased earlier.
There are 3,194 billionaires; only one is worth $250B+. To compare all billionaires to Elon Musk is by itself fallacious.
> He then somehow came up with the 40-50 billion to buy twitter.
No, he didn't. He got a loan from 7 banks, in combination with his own funds, and using Tesla stock as collateral. This allowed him to avoid selling too much stock, while placing repayment obligations for that loan on X as a company. He also was able to reuse a Twitter stake that he purchased earlier.
So i could go to 7 banks and get 40 billion? interesting to note. Please note:
>this is what it read like to the average american that was paying attention to it at all. It doesn't matter if the above "isn't what really happened" - that's what was presented, in the rough order it was presented.
Also you did the thing whereby Musk's "net worth" somehow matters when this thread has folks talking about how that is all "just on paper".
>this is what it read like to the average american that was paying attention to it at all. It doesn't matter if the above "isn't what really happened" - that's what was presented, in the rough order it was presented.
Also you did the thing whereby Musk's "net worth" somehow matters when this thread has folks talking about how that is all "just on paper".
“Just on paper” can mean “doesn’t actually exist at all” - like the dollar amount a startup is “worth” right after a funding round - or it can mean “not easily and immediately accessible”.
Musk really does control billions of dollars in value of real companies, but even he found it difficult to get $40 billion in cash quickly.
Banks, on the other hand, can produce billions in cash pretty quickly - if they feel the collateral is good for it, even if they have to wait. They make money turning time into money and money into time, after all.
Musk really does control billions of dollars in value of real companies, but even he found it difficult to get $40 billion in cash quickly.
Banks, on the other hand, can produce billions in cash pretty quickly - if they feel the collateral is good for it, even if they have to wait. They make money turning time into money and money into time, after all.
A petition supported by 0.06% of the population... Doesn't seem like it's popular... They're also mixing together income and wealth taxes.
Maybe people are not aware of it? My previous two submissions regarding this initiative were quickly flagged, while this submission (which only mentions the initiative) was demoted.
Taxing great wealth to finance the ecological and social transition https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/20...
Taxing great wealth to finance the ecological and social transition https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/20...
Tax speculation not productive activity. Tax asset accumulation.
But I think what this reasoning misses is the minor effect increasing taxes on the wealthy would actually have. I think the proportion of people who are wealthy is so exceedingly small (in proportion) that even if they were to pay tax at 90%, the majority of tax revenue would still come from the average income masses. There are too few of them to move the needle.
Therefore, the argument that we should tax the wealthy more because of this statistic doesn't hold water.