Finally, a wealth tax is essentially armed robbery. It says that "you have money that I want. Give it to me or I will send people with guns after you
The federal government has to tax something to pay their bills.
The population elects the governments that create the taxes, so the taxes are set by society. Someone who is so upset about the tax situation in their country can go live elsewhere. Pop stars often do that. So can anyone.
It does seem wrong that Bill Gates can make $100 billion in his life through ownership of MSFT, and then rather than ever pay taxes on that holding he gifts it to a foundation that he then runs. Why is it OK that every MSFT employee pays taxes on their salaried income each paycheck, while Bill Gates pays zero on the ever appreciating value of his stock holdings?
If my salary is $150,000/year I pay taxes on that, but if my stock holdings appreciate by $1.5 million in a given year, and I don't sell them, I pay zero? Why? The investor has made 10x the worker in the same year, and the investor pays zero while the worker pays whatever his rate is for ..... working? It's likely the worker is being more helpful to society than the asset holder, so why punish the worker rather than the asset holder?
If we are going to tax capital gains, why tax them only when sold? If two people hold the same equity position for 10 years and each makes $1 million in capital gains, why punish the investor who wants to sell and buy something else (good for the economy) and reward the holder who doesn't sell, and, well, doesn't do anything at all (doesn't seem too good for the economy)?
Taxes gotta come from somewhere. I'm open to the idea of taxing ownership of assets (like property tax) rather than taxing transactions (sales tax, salaried income tax, capital gains tax, etc etc). |
