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Exactly, taxing assets instead of income is a no-brainer. All income that is not used for consumption becomes an asset itself and if people cant consume all the
by jcfrei 3y ago
Exactly, taxing assets instead of income is a no-brainer. All income that is not used for consumption becomes an asset itself and if people cant consume all their income then that should be taxed. The reason it isnt done is that any country that introduces wealth / assets taxes experiences immediate wealth flight (see Norway for a recent example). A wealth tax can only be done at a global level for example through the OECD.
- LeonB 3y agoYes - the root problem is lack of international tax treaties. There’s no simple solution, but acknowledging that this is the root cause is a vital step 0 in making any progress. We’re fortunately at an inflection point where there are some (though not many) governments large enough to challenge mega international companies. Sadly they are somewhat captured by the largest international companies — so it’s hard to see any solution. Simple example — Australia was trying to participate in the construction of international tax laws. The only companies capable of understanding the existing Byzantine laws were hired as consultants and immediately turned around and marketed their insider knowledge on the topic to their rich clients. There was nothing remarkable about the story - ie its occurrence was not remarkable. The fact that the media ignored it as a story for 18 months was not remarkable. The slightly remarkable thing is that for a few weeks a small slice of the media reported on it at all. https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/26/pwc-scandal-pwc-australia-reached-confidential-settlement-with-ato-months-before-tax-scandal-became-public-documents-reveal https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/26/pwc-scandal...