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Why don't they just stop using tax deductions, tax planning and tax havens? It would bring even more tax revenues than a few percent wealth taxes yearly and the

Why don't they just stop using tax deductions, tax planning and tax havens? It would bring even more tax revenues than a few percent wealth taxes yearly and they could do this today without any political lobbying. Moreso if they are more worried about climate than they are about their wealth, they could invest in far fetching new technologies that have slim chances of returning a profit, if they don't care about returning a profit they could be way more aggressive in investing new technologies and services that might not otherwise be profitable enough for regular investors. They could even give subsidies to companies that operate at a minor loss like investors have done with Twitter or Facebook before they became profitable. Even more importantly there are activist investors that invest in companies and try to change their behavior. Why don't they start investing in companies and demand that they stop tax planning? Is this just a publicity stunt, or are they powerless to do any of these things already?

delusional 7y ago
> Why don't they just stop using tax deductions, tax planning and tax havens? Given that this isn't signed by every rich person ever. Wouldn't that just mean that the people left at the top are the assholes? If 10% if the richest 1% (not necessarily the richest 10% of them) stopped using tax havens, they get punished, while the other rich people her to reap the rewards.
- HissingMachine 7y ago
  But it would be a start at least, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet started the Giving Pledge, at first it only meant that those two were going to give most of their wealth to charity, but now there are over 200 members. And like I said, it doesn't have to stop at the individual level, they have leverage to pressure the companies they own to stop tax dodging which would have much larger impact than the wealth tax they are proposing here. And it doesn't even block the wealth tax from happening eventually. All I'm saying is that they have tools at their disposal right not, but still they are lobbying for another tax, which eventually some will evade, so why not start from paying current ones they are currently evading and not invent a new just to evade it eventually?
esotericn 7y ago
Game theory. If everyone takes a 20% haircut, everyone retains roughly the same relative competitiveness. If you individually / manually drop 20%, you're disadvantaging yourself. Basically, spending money is losing. No-one wants to spend money. That's why we have taxes, to force redistribution.
- HissingMachine 7y ago
  But you really shouldn't try to pass it off as philanthropy demanding new taxes for yourself, when you, in fact, created the problem by evading current tax regime using loopholes. This would just create a new tax that would be circumvented through new loopholes and the problem remains. If multinational corporations paid their taxes in full it would generate exponentially more tax revenues than what this proposed tax would. And like I said, this would be circumvented with tax havens like many other taxes are currently, so this really seems like a populist move rather than an actual solution.

delusional 7y ago

> Why don't they just stop using tax deductions, tax planning and tax havens? Given that this isn't signed by every rich person ever. Wouldn't that just mean that the people left at the top are the assholes? If 10% if the richest 1% (not necessarily the richest 10% of them) stopped using tax havens, they get punished, while the other rich people her to reap the rewards.

HissingMachine 7y ago
But it would be a start at least, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet started the Giving Pledge, at first it only meant that those two were going to give most of their wealth to charity, but now there are over 200 members. And like I said, it doesn't have to stop at the individual level, they have leverage to pressure the companies they own to stop tax dodging which would have much larger impact than the wealth tax they are proposing here. And it doesn't even block the wealth tax from happening eventually. All I'm saying is that they have tools at their disposal right not, but still they are lobbying for another tax, which eventually some will evade, so why not start from paying current ones they are currently evading and not invent a new just to evade it eventually?

esotericn 7y ago

Game theory. If everyone takes a 20% haircut, everyone retains roughly the same relative competitiveness. If you individually / manually drop 20%, you're disadvantaging yourself. Basically, spending money is losing. No-one wants to spend money. That's why we have taxes, to force redistribution.

HissingMachine 7y ago
But you really shouldn't try to pass it off as philanthropy demanding new taxes for yourself, when you, in fact, created the problem by evading current tax regime using loopholes. This would just create a new tax that would be circumvented through new loopholes and the problem remains. If multinational corporations paid their taxes in full it would generate exponentially more tax revenues than what this proposed tax would. And like I said, this would be circumvented with tax havens like many other taxes are currently, so this really seems like a populist move rather than an actual solution.