Taxing isn’t a solution for the richest individuals. It’s a coping mechanism. Their egregious ill-gotten gains aren’t justified by the government seizing it and misusing it. Most of that wealth should stay in the hands of the workers they’re abusing.
That said, if the question must be answered, above 99% when you’re earning literal hundreds of millions, and including funds held overseas&etc… Tax capital, not money.
With tax they actually pay.
Identify types of income, wealthy, etc. that are most frequently owned by the richest people. Tax that at a rate that is steep, but not quite enough to eliminate the motive to try for more. Gradually eliminate the tax at lower levels so as to not affected middle income people.
This is not possible when capitalists are in charge of the society and have a government that represents their interests. And if you had the working class in charge then you wouldn’t need taxes in the first place because means of production would be owned by the workers and directed towards producing things that everyone needs. The whole point of taxes is to provide things like social services, educations, healthcare, and infrastructure. In a socialist society, that’s what labour is directed towards as the default.
I was just trying to answer the question of how taxes on wealthy individuals would work in my ideal world.
And I’m just pointing out that it’s fundamentally impossible for such a world to exist.
A progressive tax scheme seems to work well for the UK.
I sometimes wonder if we’d be better off continuing those tax brackets until 99%, so that everything over some number, like €1M per year, becomes almost entirely tax. I don’t see much point in having people who own €20M. If €20M doesn’t make you happy, it’s probably time to start trying medication, rather than money.
The rest of the ‘how’ gets more fiddly. Every article on tax loopholes I read seems incomplete, so I guess a comprehensive tax system will take some work, with some very cynical and prepared people.
With a glock.
In minecraft
From the neck up
Heavily. They want to keep their money, but there is no way in hell they actually need such ludicrous amounts. At this point the richest people on the planet are not unlike gold-hoarding dragons.
I wouldn’t mind capping the maximal net worth one could reach at (for example) 1 billion. And therefore tax any wealth beyond that with 100%.
This has been tried before (or rather, a wealth tax). It turns out to be extraordinarily difficult to administer, especially when people start owning a mess of companies or artwork that has to be appraised. It turns out that movement of money is the easiest thing to tax since it is an objective value.
A cliff like this also distorts behavior because people don’t want to loose a bunch of wealth if they go over in one year. Imagine having one great year where your company doubles in value to $2 billion dollars, but the next year there is a crash and it halves in value. You personally are down to 0.5 billion, less than you started. Tax policy should make it difficult to remain obscenely wealthy, but not impossible.
Sure, it is complicated. But there are only so many billionaires. My countries spends way more resources on controlling the poor than a billionaire wealth tax would ever cost.
My recollection is that it costs nearly as much to administer as it provided. At a certain point, there’s just not much point.
Sounds like a perfect way to make them migrate to another country. Unless others join in, it just moves the issue beyond your control.
Let them go away then. The company/properties they leave behind is better without them.
With their heads.
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How about we instead give more power to the common person. Working at a company should by default make you part owner, no matter what your position is. That way we give the means of production to the workers as well and everyone gets to profit from the productivity.
The only way I see this work is how China does it, where they simply announce the state is taking over the goods.
This is a dangerous toy to play with because it is rule by fiat instead of rule by law. When your company can simply be taken away because Xi or some local official doesn’t like you, many business leaders simply refuse to build businesses, or build them in the shadows.
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