Wealth taxes are a symptom of a broken tax system. If you let someone get to hundreds of billions in net worth and then realize they haven’t been appropriately paying back into the system, it’s already too late. Like the article says they can simply say “no” in a variety of ways, from fighting in court to simply leaving.
> If you let someone get to hundreds of billions in net worth and then realize they haven’t been appropriately paying back into the system
This is to once again mistake net worth for money. Net worth is not real. It is not a good measure of the money someone may be able to realise. They do not have hundreds of billions. There is nothing to tax until they sell some shares.
Why? What are they going to do with the money instead? If you charge, say, 5% on unrealised gains, possibly discountable against CGT on sale, say, then do you think rich people are really going to go "well, now I'm only getting 9.5% return instead of 10% return, so I'm going to sell all my shares and build a Scrooge McDuck style swimming pool full of money, instead"?
There are cases where taxes can hurt investment, but you're really talking about quite high rates. For instance, the US peak rate of income tax used to be 94%. That almost certainly _did_ hurt investment.
binlog · · focus · HN ↗
philipallstar · · focus · HN ↗
This is to once again mistake net worth for money. Net worth is not real. It is not a good measure of the money someone may be able to realise. They do not have hundreds of billions. There is nothing to tax until they sell some shares.
rsynnott · · focus · HN ↗
WalterBright · · focus · HN ↗
rsynnott · · focus · HN ↗
There are cases where taxes can hurt investment, but you're really talking about quite high rates. For instance, the US peak rate of income tax used to be 94%. That almost certainly _did_ hurt investment.
WalterBright · · focus · HN ↗
rsynnott · · focus · HN ↗