"We can't tax rich people because they might leave instead of paying higher taxes"
Bro they're not paying taxes NOW, so what the fuck's the difference?
Tax the rich. They'll either pay their fair share in tax, or they'll leave and stop being a drain on the system. Both options are a win.
"But they'll take the jobs with them"
A) No they won't. It's expensive as shit to uproot your entire operation, rehire, retrain, and reorganize entire production lines from the ground up, not to mention a gigantic pain in the ass.
B) Even if they do, that will leave a hole in the economy which can be filled by small business and entrepreneurs.
C) Even if it doesn't, trickle down economics is a filthy lie sold to you to keep you complacent. You can do better than a below minimum wage gig economy sidehustle. Demand better from employers.
@Lana I think the claim is not so much that they'll take the jobs, it's that they'll stop investing in things that create new jobs. There are a bunch of problems with this argument:
When Washington State and I think mass Massachusetts imposed sur taxes on income above $1 million and elevated the capital gains taxes. They didn’t lose any wealthy because it turns out they are more tied to their locations than most other people that’s where all their social connections are for instance, and for starters.
There are very few high paid professions that are incredibly mobile.
..
But on top of that, the threat to move out of country and go somewhere else, also skips over the subtle point that most of these people make their money in a particular country.
So for instance, a real estate mogul can’t simply pick up all of his property and move it to the grand Caymans. It’s not the way it works.
The same goes for companies that have sales in specific location. Your business makes money in the countries it does business in, not fantasy Island
@janneke @Lana No. This is what exit taxes are for. A tax authority with global reach is a bad thing.
Not sure how other countries handle this, but in Canada all of your unrealized gains get taxes when you leave. Basically the same as dying. This is the closest thing we have to taxing wealth, and it's fantastic.
FATCA is the reason why a non-US-citizen, who's never been to the US, who has no relation with the US, when creating an account at a non-US bank, in a country which is not the US, must check a box saying "I am not a US person".
So on top of the *severe* harms FATCA causes to US citizens all over the world, it also intrudes on everyone else's business. It's high time the US stops getting special treatment, now more than ever.
@janneke @Lana that is *not* a thing to copy. It massively impacts retirement savings and is a huge problem. There's a reason other countries don't do this.
Its not fair to punish people for moving someplace else. Everything that was put in place to impact companies and the ultra rich has instead been used to punish all migrants.
@mooseandriosmom @Lana They should, but they're rich enough to pick where to call home, while the sycophants and business they drum up makes nations want to draw them in.
They literally shop for the cheapest tax bill, and as things stand, they are free to do so.
@x0 @mooseandriosmom @Lana Well, The Right, specifically the commercial sector, has ALEC writing legislation for lawmakers to take to the floor. They get paid for that. The Left doesn't have that equivalent. You've got some great ideas. It sounds to me it would be worth looking into how you & yours could do that & submit something that fits well-enough into the legislative landscape that it would pass.
FWIW, I can't carry your ball forward--I just don't have the chops, creds, or connections.
Also, there is such a thing as an exit tax.
And the tax? It’s often something like 4% on income earned over 1 million dollars (taking MA’s “wealth tax” as an example). It’s not like the government is coming to take their first-born child or something. IIRC, there was no exodus afterwards in MA. They can afford it and they know it.
@Lana Plus, the vast majority of rich people's fortunes rest on political contacts and clientelism networks that are rarely global.
They are not going anywhere. Even with higher taxes, they are better at home.
@Lana we can't tax the rich because they are rich enough to split their empire in 1000 parts and impersonate a thousand self-employed peasants, and we don't want to tax those.
I don't really know if under capitalism we can really tax them in any meaningful way...
You could hire lots of auditors per billionaire, but you're not necessarily going to find stuff. Because they can hire (and may have hired) just as many accountants to ensure compliance.
And being a billionaire doesn't actually mean that you have a billion dollars that can be taxed. Nor does it mean you have more income than say a professional athlete. Those tax dollars may not be there.
More taxes on rich people requires a real shift in how we do taxes.
@tedmielczarek let's speak to @qwazix's point for a second.
How do you actually roll out a wealth tax that is fair and meets your target goals for tax collection? There is not such a thing as A wealth tax. There are a dozen different forms of wealth that could be taxed in three or four different ways.
If you think there are too many people with a billion dollars in cash and property and yacht money, that's a different tax scheme from billion dollar business owners or from billionaire athletes
And these differences are relevant. If you look at the centi-millionaire athletes in North America, they're mostly union members. They clearly earned this with labor. And they've absolutely paid a ton of taxes already.
Likewise a lot of centi-millionaire business owners have most of that value tied up in shares of a business they own and operate. And so taxing that wealth technically means forcing them to give up ownership of their own company bit by bit...
@tedmielczarek @qwazix and I'm not saying that we cannot do any of these things.
I actually think there's a case to be made that we can and should enact some form of wealth taxes.
But we're not 140 characters away from solving this. And we kind of look like simpletons if that's the extent of our discussion.
@biplanepilot @Lana What jobs? China does all our manufacturing; India and The Philippines are popular for offshoring tech work. Unless you're working for a major tech giant (good luck) or in an Amazon warehouse where people will literally step over your dead body to try to keep their own impossible numbers up, the rich largely circulate money between themselves.
The actual economy relies on much smaller fortunes and they're not going to all just up and leave.
@biplanepilot https://beige.party/@Lana/114746337669585182 answers that nicely.
"But they'll take the jobs with them" A) No they won't. It's expensive as shit to uproot your entire operation, rehire, retrain, and reorganize entire production lines from the ground up, not to mention a gigantic pain in the ass. B) Even if they do, that will leave a hole in the economy which can be filled by small business and entrepreneurs. C) Even if it doesn't, trickle down economics is a filthy lie sold to you to keep you complacent. You can do better than a below minimum wage gig economy sidehustle. Demand better from employers.
i prefer beheading, for the historic nod and expediency. eating is a more infamous solution. yeeting via trebuchet into a canyon is a new favorite.
@Lana "But then they won't create jobs" - look, even assuming they do, which they often don't, either they'll leave but keep their businesses open, preserving those jobs, or they'll shut down, leaving a hole in the market for others to open businesses & hire people.
Rich people are utterly expendable; we can absolutely do without them but they can't do without us. Anything else is a myth created by them & the people who want to be like them.
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