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> It’s easy for the super-rich to structure their wealth so that it doesn’t generate much taxable income. That’s why the income tax fails. > Since the notion o
by abeppu 3y ago
> It’s easy for the super-rich to structure their wealth so that it doesn’t generate much taxable income. That’s why the income tax fails.
> Since the notion of income for the very rich is not very well defined, it should not be expressed as a function of income but of wealth.
> Our proposal is to have a minimum tax equal to 2% of the wealth of billionaires each year.
I think this is pretty reasonable.
To me the more interesting part is a structure for tax-avoidance where he says each country should be able to look at a company's total global tax bill, compute a "deficit" of how much more tax they would have paid if that country's tax rate applied to its global business, and pro-rate based on how much actually occurs in that country ... which presumably then updates their "deficit" calculation.
> There can always be countries that play the role of tax collectors of last resort. If Spain decides that it wants multinationals to pay at least 25%, it can calculate the tax deficit of each multinational that has access to its market, defined as the difference between what they are taxed globally and what they would have to pay if they were subject to a minimum tax of 25% in each country where they operate. Some will pay at least 25% everywhere and will not have an extra tax in Spain, but for those that do not [pay]? Spain could collect a portion of its fiscal deficit. For example, if Apple has a global fiscal deficit of 10 billion and does 10% of its global sales there, Spain could say, “If you want to continue to have access to our market, you must pay 10% of 10 billion, an additional €1 billion in taxes.” The logic is very simple: you have to link market access to minimum taxation.
Am I wrong, or does this mean that if multiple countries took such a policy, calculating taxes then requires a fixed-point process to converge on a value?
- Uinchuling 3y ago[flagged]
- houseatrielah 3y agoWealth is not that easy to calculate. What is a Basquiat painting worth? The worth of Mar-a-lago is currently the subject of a lawsuit. https://nptelegraph.com/news/nation-world/government-politics/is-mar-a-lago-worth-1-billion/article_205ed600-418c-56fe-8394-ca445a3e6021.html https://nptelegraph.com/news/nation-world/government-politic...
- hotpotamus 3y agoI'm guessing the people who own those things acquired them with money. I'm sure it's possible to figure out a value.
- houseatrielah 3y agoIts not accurate unless you tax the sale price. An estimate could be off by 10s of millions in the case of $100m dollar properties.
- abeppu 3y agoI think one way of getting values that are reasonable is that if you claim something is worth X, the government should have the prerogative to call your bluff and purchase it from you for X * (1 + c). If you're making a reasonable attempt to value stuff, you should be mildly pleased with that sale, if perhaps inconvenienced. If you're trying to pretend stuff is worth far less than it is, you're at risk.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoApple will optimize it so they don’t enter markets that would cause their tax bill to rise. So say Spain wants 25% and other countries just want 20%, well, iPhones will just be sold in the black market like they did in India, so Spain loses out on the VAT that it is already reliably collecting. Each country also wants Apple to compute their profits differently, and they will probably argue about what profit they have dibs on (if multi taxation is avoided).