3 ms·
Doesn't Switzerland do this instead of capital gains? Makes sense IMO, much better to tax wealth than discourage transactions.
by sebzim4500 9d ago
Doesn't Switzerland do this instead of capital gains? Makes sense IMO, much better to tax wealth than discourage transactions.
- briandw 9d agoReally? How? Show me a country that taxes wealth and is prosperous. Taxing unrealized gains results in owing tax on money you don’t have and makes starting a funded company impossible.
- superxpro12 9d agoand on the other hand we have trillionaires who spend their wealth on fascist party propaganda and censorship
- tim333 9d agoApparently not. Googling, no one seems to actually do it in spite of some politicians talking about it. It seems quite a bad idea from a practical point of view. Not so much because it's socialist but it leads to all sorts of extra paperwork for no good reason. Like say you buy some utility company share for your retirement in 20 years and it fluctuates. Do you want to be valuing it and paying tax and then claiming it back when it goes down every year for 20 years or just declare the gain at the end?
- philipallstar 9d agoWell, it is socialist in that the government basically gets to own more of everything you own every year.
- spacebanana7 9d agoTaxing capital assets by taking large portions of their value destroys value by forcing liquidity events. Think forcing sales of farms, factories and domain names. I much prefer land value taxes (and similar taxes on non capital wealth like jewellery) and leisure taxes (ideally taxing people for every hour they don't work). Of course these are difficult to administer in practice, but British business rates and US overtime tax discounts effectively approximate this.
- bitmasher9 9d agoThe idea of taxing people for not working an hour sounds incredibly dystopian.
- superxpro12 9d agoWhat will they think of next? tying healthcare to employment that you lose the moment you get fired to meet quarterly profits? Madness i tell you!
- overtone1000 9d agoI had the same reaction. It also seems easy to pull apart. What about disabled people who are unable to work? I think something more like "investment income should be taxed at a higher rate than income earned through labor," accomplishes similar goals but is more intuitive and less problematic.
- philipallstar 9d agoIf your goal is to reduce investment that creates jobs for labour, then you should do that.
- overtone1000 9d agoThis is a false dichotomy. Laborers could just as easily invest in job-creating endeavors as passive income earners. All taxes cause economic drag, not _just_ business and investment income taxes. The economy includes every participant, and laborers are not an externality.
- philipallstar 8d agoI'm sorry, I don't follow. Yes, people who are labourers could also somehow creating funding pools that are big enough to start companies, but so what? That doesn't negate the fact that they will be disincentivised to do so by a tax on investment income.
- axus 9d agoIf the government forced transfer of ownership %, instead of forcing a sale, it would be not as bad?
- sebzim4500 9d agoThey could accept either I suppose
- philipallstar 8d agoIt's identical really. It's just instituting the nationalisation over time of all businesses.
- sebzim4500 8d agoIn an ideal world, the government would sell some of whatever shares it gets at good times to pay off debt, for example when interest is high just before a tranche of government bonds expire
- philipallstar 9d ago> Makes sense IMO, much better to tax wealth than discourage transactions. It's much, much worse to tax wealth.
- overtone1000 9d agoI disagree with you in the other thread, so I want to balance that by saying that I strongly agree with you here.