World’s billionaires should pay minimum 2% wealth tax, say G20 ministers
Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis
The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2% tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise £250bn a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested.
In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Spain say a 2% tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.
They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year’s extreme weather events.
“It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods,” the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece.
Alternative proposal. Billionaires should pay an annual 75% tax on any income and any wealth in excess of 1 billion.
Uh, why not 99%, and you get a framed certificate congratulating you for winning capitalism?
When you get to 1 billion your wealth resets but you get exclusive skins
So they’ll be playing on a higher difficulty?
Same difficulty everyone else plays, which yeah it's a lot higher than theirs
100% on all wealth above, say, a quarter of a billion dollars and all income that would bring you above that threshold.
Nah dude. If they hit a billion dollars, you take all their wealth, reset them back to level one, put a star next to their name and tell them to do it again. They'll appreciate the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes with a second run.
Sorta like New Game Plus but without the plus? I like it!
It'd be hilarious to hear shit heels like Elon Musk talk about how they "earned" their wealth and then be completely unable to do it again.
I'm kinda happy with 75%, maybe we could bump it up to 90 or so but at 75% wealth and revenue taxation billionaires would need to multiply their pot by 16x every year to maintain their wealth... that's pretty unrealistic do everyone north of a billion would quickly trend to a billion - that number should ideally be lower (I think ten million or a number like that is a perfectly reasonable effective wealth cap) but that was the reference in the article.
Alternative alternative proposal: being billionaire shouldn't be possible. There should be a wealth cap.
A wealth cap tax...I could get behind that.
Cap all personal wealth to 2³²-1.
Whoops, used a signed 32 bit value and it went negative.
That isn't how it works though. Nobody is collecting billions in wages. They receive stock which isn't counted as taxable income until sold.
Sure, that's why I also suggested a wealth tax.
But 75 percent wealth tax can't work, because that would require more liquidity to happen than exists. The attempt would utterly destroy most retirement funds in the process. Wealth tax sure, but need to be realistic about the scale of "money" actually possibly in play.
It'd probably deflate a bunch of overvalued stocks in the process of liquidation which would be healthy for the economy overall but, you're correct, it would cause short term shocks to retirement and other managed funds.
No, long term there would be no economy. Wealth cannot be taxed. Humans tried that since ancient Roman times, never worked.
All registered securities (stocks, bonds,etc.) should be taxed at 75% per year. Natural persons are exempted from the tax on their first $16.7 million, with a progressive schedule up to the full tax rate at $1 billion in value.
Securities are not sold to pay the tax. A percentage of each security held by the ultra-wealthy taxpayer is transferred to the IRS. IRS liquidators sell off the shares in small lots over time, so that liquidated shares comprise no more than 1% of total traded volume.
1 billion of what currency? How do you account for inflation?
USD seems the general assumption (not like - pre-zero chopping Turkish Lira) and that level of wealth is far above a reasonable amount for one person to control.
Alternative proposal: While your net worth exceeds some function of GDP, laws do not protect you. Find a way to offload those stocks, or keep your head on a swivel.