I’m in favour of tax and rich folk paying more, but a naive imagining that a simple wealth tax is the answer just isn’t helpful. I’m against wealth taxes because they’re crap taxes - they’re easy to avoid, easy to get caught in by accident if you’re not employing an expensive accountant, and therefore a rubbish way of raising money
Something can be legally liquid, but not practically liquid. Like a house. For example the Board of the company could give me permission to sell, but why would they?
That’s my point - I’m not making any profit from my ownership of the shares. If I were I’d pay tax on it. All I have a bit of paper which might be worth some real cash in the future. It would become a liability if I had to pay a simple wealth tax on it.
If I use the shares as collateral on a loan and they come good then I have to sell the shares to repay the loan (and pay tax on the sale). If they don’t then I suppose the loan company takes a loss, they’ll have factored that in on to the interest I pay. So probably won’t be so low interest
I completely agree on the economy but and happily pay all the tax I should. But ‘wealth’ is not a simple concept- it comes in many forms, it’s not just a pile of bags of cash with a fat bloke in a top hat sitting on. Even measuring it is hard. So taxing it is really hard and inefficient, which is completely glossed over in these kinds of campaigns
And that creates a loophole that is trivially easy to exploit, which is the problem. I simply wrap up any asset I want to hold onto into a fund or trust that stops me doing the above…
Also require greater transparency around money movement and proper auditing. Governments need to spend more on auditing.
Trickle down is complete BS and the many ways to avoid wealth taxes are part of the problem with them. You need to properly tax income and capital gains and close as many of the loopholes around each as possible. Then add a proper estate tax as well to reduce inter generational wealth
Of the counter-productive effects? I have a bunch of shares in a private company that I was given for good performance and retention. At the latest share price from the latest funding round they’re worth more than enough to put me in the 0.5%. However, they’re not liquid - I can’t sell them unless the company floats or is bought. Under a simple wealth tax I’d have to pay many thousands of pounds of tax on them every year despite them having no realisable value. Just because something is an asset with a nominal value doesn’t mean it’s liquid or generating income. Obviously when (if) I sell the shares I’ll pay capital gains, or if they generate a dividend, income tax.
Wealth taxes are rarely efficient and create all sorts of weird and counter productive effects. Better to properly tax income and capital gains.
It’s not difficult to turn off.
Very informative- thank you
I can’t tell if you’re serious or not. I hope you’re not. The fact that you’ve made two scientifically verifiable errors, gender = sex, and asserted it’s only a binary scale, suggests to me you’re not, in which case you should rethink joking about this - not everyone will get it.
Not the same - a bank needs it to be roughly right across a portfolio of loans, I need it to be exactly right for me.
Property tax etc is an understood part of owing a property- an intrinsically valuable thing. I’m strongly in favour of land tax - it encourages the productive use of land. I can’t live in shares, and I can’t eat them. At some point I may make some actual money from them and at that point I should pay tax. I should not be taxed now on possible future gains, anymore than I should be taxed now on a possible pay raise if I get a promotion.
Fairer and more effective tax is essential- and to advocate for it effectively a grasp of the basics is essential. Otherwise you’re counter productive. I feel I’ve made my points and shall withdraw