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Doesn't Switzerland do this instead of capital gains? Makes sense IMO, much better to tax wealth than discourage transactions.
by sebzim4500 2mo ago
Doesn't Switzerland do this instead of capital gains? Makes sense IMO, much better to tax wealth than discourage transactions.
- briandw 2mo 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 2mo agoand on the other hand we have trillionaires who spend their wealth on fascist party propaganda and censorship
- tim333 2mo 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 2mo agoWell, it is socialist in that the government basically gets to own more of everything you own every year.
- spacebanana7 2mo 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 2mo agoThe idea of taxing people for not working an hour sounds incredibly dystopian.
- superxpro12 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoIf your goal is to reduce investment that creates jobs for labour, then you should do that.
- overtone1000 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo agoIf the government forced transfer of ownership %, instead of forcing a sale, it would be not as bad?
- sebzim4500 2mo agoThey could accept either I suppose
- philipallstar 2mo agoIt's identical really. It's just instituting the nationalisation over time of all businesses.
- sebzim4500 2mo 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 2mo ago> Makes sense IMO, much better to tax wealth than discourage transactions. It's much, much worse to tax wealth.
- overtone1000 2mo agoI disagree with you in the other thread, so I want to balance that by saying that I strongly agree with you here.