Germany's Left Party wants to halve billionaires' wealth
Germany's Left Party wants to halve billionaires' wealth
The Left Party says "there shouldn't be any billionaires." With Germany gearing up for an election, the far-left force has launched a new tax plan — though it will most likely never get a chance to implement it.
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The biggest challenge with an "owned wealth" tax is how do you actually measure it? It's easy if it's held in cash in a bank, but most billionaire's wealth is is land, property, and how do you measure the value of a Picasso stored in a vault if they can slip the valuator a grand to say it's worthless?
Closing offshore money transfer loopholes, heightened tax on luxury spending (100% VAT on private jets and yachts?), making fines income-based, and treating capital gains the same way as income, are all more achievable.
I'm totally on board with the sentiment though.
They want
- the creation of a wealth register
- implementation of high wealth tax + inheritance tax
- penalize wealth hiding/capital flight via exit tax and binding taxation to citizenship
Make every time it's used as collateral a taxable event. Prosecute for fraud any valuations that try to dodge tax. Its a very fixable problem.
For those with wealth or income above a certain amount, require that their wealth is assessed annually, not on sale only and capital gains tax is paid each year.
Forbes and the rich themselves have no issue assigning net worth.
It's not hard to setup objective parameters that measure wealth in all the forms it can be held.
The idea that it isn't is propaganda
Tax = Purchase Cost × Minimum Wage(Moment of Purchase) ÷ Minimum Wage(Moment Tax is Charged)
You can multiply that all by a magnitude term, depending on the taxation frequency, or to charge more/less.
This is a totally arbitrary formula intended to discourage holding non-cash assets that provide no intrinsic utility, and it incentivises owners to raise the minimum wage.
It isn't hard to come up with these sorts of measures, in fact I bet you the reader have some ideas about how my suggestion can be improved. A team of experts could come up with something much better, and they CAN be enforced (don't believe their lies). You just need to disentangle yourself from notions of rules-based "fairness" that exist to justify & preserve our presently lawless economy, where might makes right.
Why do you think art is used all the time for money laundering? It’s almost impossible to determine how much it’s worth. Well until someone buys it.