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To late for an edit now. And while just throwing the number out like it’s a bank balance is a bit of a hot take… I’m fully aware of the fact that any realistica
by techdragon 4y ago
To late for an edit now. And while just throwing the number out like it’s a bank balance is a bit of a hot take… I’m fully aware of the fact that any realistically useful proposal for this kind of wealth tax would require a lot of careful structural work to make useful and effective.
It’s important to note that the USA is one of the only countries that expects overseas citizens to file tax reporting paperwork. Normally this is perfunctory stuff. But the key is that it’s law that living full time outside the USA doesn’t mean you have any loopholes for skipping the paperwork… The IRS is uniquely positioned under current law to enforce a global jurisdiction wealth tax on US Citizens … and since the USA already requires a payment for processing the renouncing of citizenship, you could just as easily place a punitive sized fee or fine for obviously renouncing citizenship to avoid paying billionaire taxes.
But once one country moves toward this sort of law I think others would follow. We have international law organisations that are used for tracking financial criminals and if more countries had similar laws these international organisations would gradually be more and more useful in ensuring billionaires can’t just stash money in overseas banks markets trusts and assets.
- koonsolo 4y agoMy take is that billionaires are mostly made because they own a very successful company. So when you talk about wealth tax of these billionaires, you automatically talk about diminishing their stake in said company(-ies). And I think that is the main point that needs to be discussed.
- giraffe_lady 4y agoAnother view of this is just that they've very effectively captured the value created by the workers of those companies. Rather than wait for them to accumulate that value personally then tax it, we could limit how and how much value accrues to individuals who run companies.
- koonsolo 4y agoHow would that work in practice? Like give shares to workers as the company becomes more valuable?