Your wealth tax will discourage people from being wealthy meaning that they will be laws likely to make new companies and current companies will get worse to save money hurting everyone.
Yeah. It's a good idea. It's just that socialists who don't know how money works that make things worse for its implementation. They bring their hate and lack of understanding of money everywhere.
Vox Id support a wealth tax because you can use it to help fund these social programs like Medicare for all and college free tuition. The people effected by the tax probably won’t even notice a damn difference. What’s of little significance to them can be life changing for millions of others
No! It's so nice in theory, and I wish it could be possible, but in practice, it causes capital evasion, people take their money to other countries with less tax regulation, like Singapore or Taiwan. It have already been tried in France, and lead to this very situation, capital evasion leading to job loss. 👌
Austin me It is staggeringly hard to get remotely close to that much wealth. You can see that almost everyone even successful and entrepreneurial owns less than that. It's affecting a couple thousand Americans at most at 50 million, and even if the tax was everything above say 10 million, you can find a million people or so who earn between that and the already high income people of larger companies and celebrities. Wouldn't you be interested in owning 49.99 million dollars?
Is there a moral justification aside from "it's not that much"? People who have 2 billion in assets (which does not mean that they have a single physical penny, by the way) do not use any of the entitlement programs, so it's pure theft. They have no interest in it, it does not provide any public goods (roads, army, etc.) since everything is already provided by the current system. Thus, there can be no moral argument in favour of that arrangement, that is, if we disregard "it's not that much" as an argument.
well, no, it's like if you had 2 Billion USD in property, and the government decides that everything you own is worth about 2 Billion USD, so the government can take $60 million USD of your money, which is property, by the way, thus violating property rights and taking $60 million of your money, which has already been taxed several times over by the time it's yours.
@@mathiasgaming4586 This is really important. Most countries tax codes are huge. That's why it can be difficult to compare tax rates between countries because while you have, say, an income tax rate the multitude of various deductions and breaks and whatnot can mean the rate actually paid can be quite different from what you'd initially expect.
To add to this^ for example in Luxembourg we have an above average income tax rate, but in the end we pay less than most other rich European countries, due to deductions. It’s complicated.
Not exactly true, really depends on the President and majority party in the Senate. A Republican President might place the money into helping the funding of Colleges or Federal Agencies such as NASA. Democrats might place the money into the Discretionary System, for Healthcare , though that might be varied as some Democrats are either supportive of Bernie's Medicaid for All or Obamacare.
What's much more likely to happen is that Social Security and Medicare would eat it up, which add up to more than 50% of what the Feds spend each year.
Truth. When did government ever spend wisely. Even in this video, they were going to use the money for new programs. Even while we waste money on protecting the world and run massive deficits. You can't tax your way out of debt, nor can you tax your way out of stupid administration of the government.
The main problem with this tax is that the people who are that rich don't actually have that much money lying around in a bank account ready to be taxed - they just have that much money in assets. It'd be pretty difficult to properly gauge how much "wealth" these people have and then to properly tax all of their assets (and this is assuming they don't somehow move their assets overseas to avoid the tax). It's a good idea in theory, but would be difficult to enforce.
It's always hard to enforce taxes, but we enforce property tax on realty, and also on store inventories and such like. I'd set the penalty for taking assets overseas to the confiscation of all the overseas assets, and the non hidden stuff is still subject to tax if you have any of it when you get out of prison
Why would it be that hard? Insurance companies determine value of assets all the time. If you own a $100,000,000 home, you're going to have insurance and you're going to know how much it's worth.
I'm sure clever people could figure it out. And with a large book with enough clauses most loopholes should be stamped out. Obviously we should give the wealthy tools to dispute unfair taxes as well.
That’s why we need to close loopholes for assets stored overseas. If you make your money in America/from the American people, you should have to pay taxes on it. Period. I don’t understand why that’s a hard concept for people. (Though I do understand that that kind of reform would be hard to pass with the senate the way it is :/)
@@Grajor Here's a link for you with a graph of the US government spending www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ Go to the one labeled discretionary spending. That shows what the US chose to spend money on that was not mandatory. Can you guess what the largest portion is?
DK1213 no the US already set the army budget to $600b. It’s not like they need to up it to 800b unless full on ww3 breaks out. That money will go to the causes mentioned in the video among other things. Granted I think those are dumb causes. Things like infrastructure and jobs are more important.
CW MD Yes, and this just goes to show the level of asininity that we deem 65% of spending as “mandatory.” The fact still stands that the majority of spending is comprised of entitlements. By the way, we do need to cut military spending, but also welfare spending.
@@ninja1inblack105 By not having one global superpower with a high spending military budget to support the peace the ww3 will happen, countries are afraid to go to war cause they have the usa eyeballing them.
Here's the problem already - its INCREDIBLY hard to get a sense of a person's assets even through audit. No doubt rich people are going to move money out overseas, to family members, and all that jazz to avoid tax. It already happens
Not to mention that anyone who follows the news knows that Dem and Rep are both branches of the same tree (one plays good cop, the other plays bad cop) playing the same scam game. You can't trust democrats to propose this kind of bill and expect them to go through with it.
You can't move assets, such as land and homes out of the country. If they want to redistribute their own wealth in order to avoid the government doing it for them, that accomplishes the same thing.
@@DriFitMonkthat is too simplistic. land or property could be held by foreign entity that are then leased back to the original owner. On paper, the person doesn’t own it at all.
Depends on the markets, and this is "assets" not just stocks and property. Many assets degrade in value naturally, like cars. This just taxes them on top of that.
@@jgelliot One of the nice benefits of inflation is the equalizing pressure (reducing debts, shrinking wealth), but yeah I think this law and especially with these rates is overkill.
Actually they would lose money as real wealth growth is measured by net net net of fees inflation and taxes. Assume 6% gain minus 2% for income tax (33% of taxable gain), minus 2% for Warren's plan, minus 2% for inflation and minus 1% for fees. That leaves with negative 1%. I would rather have a 95% top income tax as it taxes my growth rather than my savings. Btw, this is why people need to hire investment advisors who invest in low fee investments and the advisory fee is low. In net net net, the only thing you can control is fees.
The govt can provide all of these things already. It has a 4 trillion annual budget and overspends another trillion. If it wanted to do all of these things, it would.
@@conradferris8049 The CA govt underfunds the things we want, then tries to convince us to raise taxes. Schools, National Parks, fire depts, etc... are underfunded. Their pet projects get the money first. Every election, the dems get on TV and say, "We need more money for the brave firefighters, the dedicated nurses, and of course, THE CHILDREN!" They also beg for the environment. CA has the highest taxes because morons keep voting for tax increases. This is a tactic that they use to keep the revenue streams flowing.
They raise taxes in places that ignore immigration laws, just last year, the US wasted 150 billion dollars on illegals while the people living in the said city was suffering in a tax increase
Imagine unironically thinking that someone with over a billion dollars being required to spend a few million to keep help the poor is going to lead to the collapse of society
ajuicejemas Well, historically nations with great inequality (very high Gini coefficients) have experienced revolutions that led to the death of the most wealthy. Namely, the French and Bolshevik revolutions, although they are many more examples throughout history. As the saying goes “heads will roll.” Thus, if you assume that great inequality will lead to the destruction of a given society, then as a society it is our job to reduce it. If, and only if, it is at the point to which it becomes dangerous to our society. After the 2008 financial crisis, there has been growing discontent among the middle class that inequality is reaching its breaking point. As the brunt of Wall Street’s poor management was paid for by the American middle class; however, that middle class did not receive much of the benefit. This is also no fault of any particular person or politician, but rather a result of the structure of our financial and political system. Therefore, it is within our best interest to reduce the growing discontent by changing said system. If that is a wealth tax then so be it, but to deny the fact that the problem exists is not going to solve anything.
I think you fail to understand the fact that billionaires DO NOT have billions in their bank accounts. They cannot be taxed 200 million dollars every year because they do not have this much cash. Yes, they have assets worth this amount, but do you seriously expect them to sell their assets every year to pay for taxes? That is ridiculous.
Uh, it's called being a republican? And I'd be grateful if you respected that position. Also, if we taxed Trump's 100B IQ, we'd all be geniuses. And just like in communism, no one would be a genius. Destroyed with facts and logic.
Republicans believe that the millions could be used to create jobs instead of simply giving everyone hand outs. At least try to look at the other sides view.
This wealth tax sounds reasonable, like if you have 60million, 200 000 isnt that much money compared to it. Ok im just a poor student so who am i to say. But this would benefit many people, without taking much from the richest of the rich
How do you pay the tax if the 60 million is in real estate, business investments, bonds, and the stock market? Sell a house every year and divest from businesses? How about we just tax them on their gains when they sell and any dividend payments.... oh wait, we do that already.
Hartsikasvo Ok. Then by that logic, whatever you have more than what I have, I’m allowed to take. Balance it out. Regardless if you deserved it or not or if I deserve it or not.
Since the average capital return is something like 7%, lets say 5% to be safe. If you have 2 billion, you make 100 million every year without doing anything and have to give away 50 million (2:42). Now if you try to come up with a way to actually spend the 50 million per year, you will realize that this is plenty. And that is without working at all.
Im super poor. Yet i dont want to see this happen. The rich already get taxed so much. You all act like this money will go towards you. The government just wants more power. Stop giving it so much.
Macaroon Cat Anytime the government makes the claim that they’ll tax the rich they only end up taxing the middle class and poor. This is literally how the government was able to establish annual taxes with the 16th amendment, before the amendment was established nobody was taxed, the only way you were taxed was due to sales tax.
NO MORE TAXES. Every time these morons talk about increasing the tax on the wealthy, it's the middle class that gets the shaft. Screw the entire idea of taxation. It has caused the middle class to suffer because the morons who promise higher taxes on the rich don't get it. The rich increase the prices of their goods and we the little guy end up paying for it. SCREW YOUR TAXES. IT IS THEFT.
In France, such a tax is applied, it is called ISF ('Impôt Sur la Fortune') and is taxing all posessions in excess if €1M (with a few exceptions like first personal residence, works of art and most importantly, money invested in real economy.
@@Steve-si5nq Well their birth death rate isn't as bad as the USA. The amount of people bankrupted by medical bills doesn't exist unilke America. They don't have the grinding poverty of many Americans and they also don't have many other human stats that read like a developing country, unlike America.
If a rich person was taxed on their non-liquid assets and say their assets are predominantly non-liquid (as they usually are) would that mean they could potentially need to sell their assets to pay their taxes?
I'd expect more companies to pay dividends above that 2 or 3 per cent so that their major shareholders would be able to pay off the wealth tax simply through dividends.
They can try to sell the assets, but good luck finding a buyer for that 50 million dollar painting at your asking price of 50 million. Assessing something high value might actually reduce its value because the higher it is assessed the more it costs to keep.
Exactly. Not only that, but it would divert money that is being used for research and development, paying salaries, acting as capital to start new businesses or support existing businesses, and so on and so on. And it would encourage capital flight out of this country and the wealthy would frantically begin restructuring their assets which just creates more inefficiencies in an economy. It would be catastrophic to the economy.
How do you pay a tax especially that high when your "wealth" is all in assets? 🤔 I noticed vox didn't explain anything about how this will actually work 👌
This is 10 times more complicated than in the video and it has a negative outcome. You need to get money from those Billionaires but Wealth Tax is not the answer, we need to find another way.
Invest your wealth in something that gives enough return to pay the tax (which is actually a great incentive to not just buy mansions and yachts), or liquidate assets.
At this point you should really think in the possibility of doing both. But If we are talking about cutting costs, those missiles and aircraft carriers are starting to look too Gucci with that 700billion dollars a year for my taste
Wealth tax has been tried and repealed in about a half dozen EU countries. It's too easy for accountants to find loopholes. By contrast, a Value Added Tax (VAT) has been adopted by most countries at this point. We should not be looking to other countries’ mistakes. Instead, we should look at the tax system in 160 countries like Germany and France that set up future generations for success, which is a value-added tax.
The problem with this is we can't really compare EU countries to America, our economies are so vastly different based on size. Just the fact that america is a federal state and most EU countries are unitary makes it hard to compare, although it isn't the worst idea there is
VAT is really regressive though, it hits people who need to spend money to live the most in proportion. If you want to reap an extra buck without having to impinge on workers' incomes I'd advocate for a Land Value Tax instead.
1) if you are in the top 0.05% just renounce your US citizenship. Why would you need it? 2) its not the taxes, but how they are spent. The US historically spends taxes on interventionist policies.
You sure 200B is enough to pay for free college three times over? That doesn’t sound right. Plus, we’re even assuming that the money gets to where it is supposed to go, which it inevitably won’t.
She wasn’t sure, but now she is sure it doesn’t and had to change it to take a LOT more. It’s somehow ok for the government to steal but not the rest of us, taxing is one thing but taking what isn’t theirs after tax this is just stealing.
@@Fals3Agent 70% of Venezuela's economy is privately owned, the other 30% is state owned. State capitalism is not socialism. And the government's corruption and decision to not diversify their nationalized oil industry (1) has absolutely nothing to do with the criticisms of socialism.
There would probably have to have a very strict rule, that the money could only be used to help citizens on the lower levels (the people, not the government) so that it can’t just be given back to the wealthy.
@@Nick-ky8pd There is more than a trillion spent on military... we could easily waste $200 billion more or even trillions more depending on how delusional government is.
Would assets with no/low liquidity be taxed? And if so, why? Would assets held outside the country / assets that become less than $50M per person when they are collectively owned be taxed? And if so, how? Would assets such as businesses be taxed? And if so, how will businesses with
I was thinking that. To tax an asset, it needs to have value, to give it value, it needs to be sold. I can't just chop off 5% of my house while I own it.
When two people with the same income have very different wealth, it means that the one with more wealth has either inherited (so someone already paid taxes for that money), or saved it, or made better decisions with it (and also paid taxes for that income) or a mixture of the above. Taxing wealth means taxing twice, and that's why it's never done before.
@@atticusjones Wealth taxes are a joke. Almost all of rich people’s wealth is held in stocks and corporations. If you tax their wealth, you would just force them to sell parts of their companies…. Whereby crashing the market.
@@stefanoparlatore7141. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that. They had a general wealth tax until 2018 and then switched to just a real estate wealth tax.
That wealth was already taxed when it was earned. Other countries have stopped bothering with a wealth tax, beause it brings in less than expected and increased evasion and underreporting massively.
@@burn_out um sorry, how much more wealth does the middle class have now than they did in the 60s? You got an extra chromosome bud? Need help finding your helmet?
@@otinanai5439 Why don't I? Cause I don't have as much money? Nothing is stopping me from running my business, getting an education, or making money. To be upset that other people are successful, and you aren't is nothing more than jealousy.
@@kingdeedeedee1450 Actually yes many large companies are actively stopping competing companies who might offer a better service from becoming big. This is very common so you are not competing on the same terms as everyone else.
King DeeDeeDee being rich undoubtedly gives you advantages that the poor don’t have though. Eg: tutoring, paying the way into college, better job opportunities / not having to worry about money, etc
Why does this talking point come up when it's about helping working and middle-class Americans, but when we want to build a wall, start a trade war, or start an actual war just because it's not a factor.
@@rosegold-beats Foreign nations hold a non-trivial portion of this debt. Private entities hold a lot of it too. Private entities are mostly US citizens, so if the gov't won't honor its bonds to its own citizens then we are going to have societal collapse. As for foreign nations, if the US stops paying off the debt then the foreign nations will stop trading with us. Otherwise they'd just be giving us free things, which is senesless.
Vox: let's tad people for literally buying expensive things. *"Expensive things are less bought"* *Workers who make expensive things lose their job* Pikachu face:
@@арефнар That’s literally just trickle down economics. If the objective is to benefit the workers who produce the luxury products that are disproportionately more likely to be bought by the wealthy than the general populace, then why not tax just tax the rich and then redistribute that money to the workers? Would you rather overprice your customer to make $10, or give your customer $10 so they can buy a product that cost $8 to manufacture so that you can make $2 profit?
Alex 1. the government makes laws. Rich people influence them. But money related bribes are illegal. 2. All wealthy people pay taxes. I say that because I don’t consider people in jail for tax evasion wealthy people. Now of course you can funnel money or assets into offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes on it. But what’s the point? You might as well not have gone to the effort of making the money if you never see the benefits of doing so. That money is nothing but an unofficial statistic.
Warren's plan would include assets overseas, so the wealthy would need to move to foreign countries en renounce their US citizenship to avoid paying this tax.
So, there are people with $60 million net worth who can't afford $200,000 tax? That's 0.03% of their worth. That's like 30 cents to someone with $100 I think not, Boomer.
Yusuf Jinadu They’d have to liquidate their assets, by selling them. That means that basically someone else is paying for it, but the greedy government needs a way to get their hands on that extra bit of money.
@@yusufjinadu wealth does not equal cash. Even though they have massive amounts of wealth it does not mean they have cash availability after taxes and other payments they have to make.
Uncle Sam: Lol, you think you can just make money, without paying me? Also Uncle Sam: You think you can buy something, without paying me? Still Uncle Sam: LMAO, you think you can just continue to OWN something? WITHOUT PAYING ME???
Its so funny to watch a country who's people life are better than 85% of the world population is complaining about rich having all the wealth. If you compare with people of my country,your middle class is our top 1%.
@@lordecircojeca2039 look at switzerland, norway and denmark. they all tax wealth. seems to work just fine for them. google even has their europe HQ in switzerland with thousands of employees (just as an example) companys are coming to these places. not move away from them
@@ramonkeller4016 1. Look at Sweden's GDP graph. It was growing steadily until around the 70s, when they began raising the taxes. Since then it began stagnating. It does not prove my point, but it's a nice indicator. 2. Just because A happens in the presence of B doesn't mean A causes B. Michael Jordan drinks water, therefore does drinking water make me great at Basketball? Probably not. 3. Taxation only destroys wealth. This can be demonstrated aprioristically, without the need for examples or experiments. 4. Taking someone's money without their consent is theft.
@@lordecircojeca2039 fair enough. so 1. would you call an increase in gdp from 37.5 billion in 1970 to 538 billion in 2017 stagnation? 2. absolutely true. i gave you 3 countries in europe where it worked. do you have 1 in western europe or north america where it didnt work? 3. This isnt true. look at the gdp of high taxing countries. most of them outperform gdp growth of low taxing countries 4. if you think taxation is theft you should move to a country with no taxation. nobody says you cant. i think there is a reason why most people decide to stay and pay there taxes
A.) Wealth is not liquid B.) The value of items like stocks, cars, houses, etc is not static. C.) No tax has ever stayed in one category. Saying that we are only taxing the Rich or foreign nations should come with a "for now" sticker.
Depreciation and revaluation of assets are calculated already using certain methods. If we implement a percentage tax considering those values then there would be no issues caused by the changing worth of assets.
The problem with a wealth tax is that it is really hard to count and really easy to hide. So even if it could theoretically cash in 200 billion, , this estimate is wayyy too big, which is why it got cancelled in France.
The wealth tax is taxing the things you already bought with your income every year after you bought it again. Even though you may not have the income to pay for it.
So what will happen if I inherit my parents 700k SoCal home? I work as a high-school teacher so my pay is ok but will I be taxed to death for getting a house that is already payed off because it raises my net worth considerably?
Bro you realize rich people exist in places like germany "where the rich people get taxed 1000% of their wealth while the bottom 90% get money for free" but If taxes get too high then "all the rich people will leave" oh wait rich people don't leave germany for america
I d be very worried about the thin end of the wedge. Once you establish that people can be taxed simply for owning assets, then what’s to stop everyone being taxed? Also, how would you determine net worth? You might own all these assets but they could be secured against massive liabilities that you are paying off. Plus any valuation of assets is partly subjective and can be manipulated.
O R also have to add the massive loopholes this has. A couple who has 100 million net worth could just divorce and split it 50/50 and avoid the tax, or give money to their children or charity, or just spend so much money they only have a net worth of 50 million. Or just leave the Country like what Rich French and German citizens did until they repealed the Wealth Tax in their nations.
Also would that mean selling off property and businesses, of you ask me it's a huge infringement on the constitution. Also said note at around 2:00, if you have the same income but way lower net wealth, maybe it's a personal problem and not a social problem.
I honestly doubt that. If someone is living comfortably and lavishly with more money than there next six generations could possibly spend, they don't need more of a reason to keep making money, even if 2% of it gets taxed. Their incentive is the extremely comfortable lifestyle they get to live with their children in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
@Chuck Gladfelter Wealth hoarding is a mostly an upper-middle or middle-class thing. The richest are constantly reinvesting their money into their businesses or economy.
@@timtimtimmaah with all due respect, that actually isn't true. Our middle class is actually disappearing. The reason there is so much wealth inequality is because of hoarding, tax loopholes (that's how Jeff Bezos paid zero taxes.) and trumps tax break for the wealthy. The wealthy was suppose to invest in their companies but instead they gave themselves pay raise a participated in stock buy backs.
@@druscus If taxing the wealth which was already taxed (and declared tax free) again is not robbery , then i don't know what robbery is, moreover if the money is in the shares , and the business guy have to sell his shares to pay his taxes , where do you think money is better off ? 1) A business guy who is gonna multiply it 2-3 times in next ten years ? or 2) A govt that knows nothing but to spend the money ? which is beneficial for the economy ? in my opinion , business persons should be treated like a hen who gives golden eggs , if you have the patience to wait for the recurring golden egg , you will be good , but in the greed of getting all the golden eggs at once you will just end up killing the hen.
In France we don’t have this much inequalities, but we implemented this tax 30 years ago for every person earning more than 1M€ per year. Recently the tax was transformed into a lighter one, because so many rich left the country or stopped investing in France that the whole economy was suffering from it... I mean, we really need to find a way to tax those ultra rich, but on the other hand, their wealth are usually only assets based, that can lower every day significantly...
France should let the ultra-rich leave, seriously, and to prevent an asset drain; just outlaw the transfer of a local asset to any foreigner; such as having a Quota/percentage system for real-estate, property & stock-share that is reserved only for French citizen, so that if an ultra-rich leave France; the asset must be handed over to the government or liquidised for cash, and still get taxed for that. So, why didn't French government do that? is there a hidden agenda for politician to accumulate wealth? I mean, a quota/privilege system is very common everywhere, otherwise what's the benefit of being a citizen of a country?
thibaud drion ISF was a tax levied on wealth not income. Most rich people actually left France in 2013 and 2014 when the 75% high income tax was voted. (pas la peine de savoir parler anglais si c'est pour faire de la mal-information) edit: it was 1.3MM not 1MM btw and the "light one" as you call it is pretty much the same
@PLK123 no, it's not illegal nor unethical, actually it depends on Reasons. For example in the US; there's tech company who can't leave; like chip manufacturer Broadcom, which was recalled from Singapore due to national security reason, and rocket company, like SpaceX & Boeing, can't hire non-American nor export to any other country. In other country like Malaysia for example, affirmative action require some company shares to be hold by local people. I don't see it being unethical nor illegal if Reasons exist.
If your friend has more wealth despite you having the same income, the most likely explanation is you are spending your money differently. Instead of spending money on restaurants, instant lottery tickets or Netflix, he saved it for the yacht; and you want to punish him for that.
If you spend all of your income on travels and experiences, while I save mine to buy a yacht, why should I be punished for that for the rest of my life? Shouldn't we also tax your travels for the rest of your life?
Travels are taxed with sales tax, so it would be at a higher rate than a wealth tax. Buying a yacht would get off easy. Btw, do you have more than $50M?
Well one stimulate the economy and the other is a waste of assets so yes. Also those that spend it on experiences pay up to a 10% sales tax while you don't so once more yes
@@for_light_and_life Except "travels" are taxed only once, whereas the "yacht", according to this plan, would be taxed EVERY YEAR IN PERPETUITY. And before you say it, "yacht" in this context refers to wealth over the imaginary line that this plan intends to tax. Just to head off your likely "nOt iF tH3 YAcHt iS l3sS tHAn 50 MiLliOn d0lLar$!!!!1111" response.
@@NadeemAhmed-nv2br Totally clueless. Who builds the yachts? Not those who buy them, obviously. Luxury goods stimulate the economy just as much, arguably more so since they are more expensive, than travels. And I guess you forgot about sales tax and property tax for luxury goods, as well? Yep, you're clueless.
We can't base whether or not we implement a policy based on a hypothetical future one. If it's a bad idea to put a wealth tax on non rich people then you can vote for candidates who don't support that if it comes up
This was the first thing i thought of, in typical government fashion it would be expanded to catch the middle class then everyone. It is much harder to get wealthy when your savings are being taxed.
@@haydenlamb6309 It's a joke that makes fun of lower/middle class people that are against taxing the rich because they imagine that one day they will be rich.
@@nullnull7089 or those that realize this is theft... what's next? We get to slowly just take over their assets to even out the income inequality? Give their companies to the poor that can't manage their own spending? It's pathetic, everyone just envies everyone elses success
it's not robbery, it's fairness. They pay nothing in federal income taxes, look at Amazon, they increased by tens of billions their revenue during the pandemic AND STILL pay nothing. A wealth tax is the least these onerous criminals owe us.
@@mygetawayart Wait so they "owe" you billions of dollars for somthing you didn't earn.And everytime you think you can just stick your hand in somebody's wallet for money.IF YOU WANT MONEY EARN IT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE
Im pretty sure we don't have the kind of wealth tax he's talking about, we only have income. Estate taxes are the closest thing and that only taxes when someone dies.
Australia gives out too many handouts to the upper-middle-class in its taxation system imo. Simplifying the tax rate and cutting down on a lot of the exceptions would make it fairer.
Sorry Joe, but your comment is going to look very silly in a year or so. Australia are heading into a probably deep recession due to their bursting housing bubble, a failure to tax land (and many explicit subsides and turning a blind eye to terrible lending practices akin to US sub prime) is the culprit.
Wealth tax on the US. Speaks about wealth inequality. Pushes a paid subscription at the end to people that would most likely not have wealth. Cheers Vox
Ok. Let's make a thought bubble: If you make a wealth tax in the US, - How many will simply change citizenship and move their wealth abroad? - How many would inherit their children in orther to avoid being taxed? - How many would donate their money to irrevocable trusts whose only objective is to pay them earnings? Just playing the devil's attorney...
I think your points are invalid, because those rich people have already doing it for years For example, One of Facebook's co-founder,Eduardo Saverin, changed his citizenship to Singapore. I believe if they could move for not paying tax, they have done already.
First of all, most of that is already done. Secondly, if there are holes in the plan, they need to fix the holes. Third, it they're going to move abroad for less than 3% tax then they can move.
the government is racist, homophobic, and evil, so lets give them billions and hope they feed the poor with it instead of not feeding the poor to keep the reason for their billions
From an economist perspective, a wealth tax is a worse way to raise tax revenues than taxes on consumption since it leads to asset misallocation (punishes people from investing money instead of blowing it on stuff) which makes the economy worse of.
Nobody, but you need to pay your fair share. Its our nation, our people. We need Healthcare, education (desperately), adorable housing, food and water. All of which are essential human needs in the modern ear. Not a luxury. USA shouldn't be a ponzi scheme for the privileged.
I thought the video was going to be about how wealth taxes have largely been unsuccessful at raising tax revenue in countries that tried to implement the policy, and that some type of VAT typically is better at generating tax revenue.
As a European, a wealth tax is silly, it has been tried and results in people leaving or hiding their money. And it has only gone to government coffers for spurious, never direct distributions to the poor's bank accounts. Friedman spoke of a negative income tax which would be much more effective.
Lol. Must be, but it’s likely the people that don’t understand the assets that the billionaires have. A lot of it is in stocks, so there’s no ‘relocation’ of the ultra rich. They already use every loophole in the book to hide their income.
Sure that may be a _better_ way to tax the rich, but let me tell you the *_best_* way to tax the rich: *Land Value Tax* Or rather, let Henry George tell you the best way to tax the rich in his magnum opus, _Progress and Poverty._
@@sunshineimperials1600 If society deems land worth protecting for environmental reasons, it can designate it as such. We shouldn't allow private land owners to hold land until it appreciates in value enough to be worth selling or renting for development. That is allowing land bankers to capture value made by society writ large. That is land speculation, that is the problem.
This would be a splendid idea on how to crash the stock market and real estate values overnight. I can't think of a faster way to force an economy into a depression than this completely ill conceived and idiotic idea.
@@Miuccia. people don't just have $200,000,000 every year sitting in a bank account. They would have to sell stocks and other things to make it work. Not to mention, they would probably just leave the country if this was ever put into place, and in a state like California where the top 1% of earners pay almost half of the total income tax, this would lead to a huge economy crash because states like that would have way less money to do anything with.
I cannot understand that logic. These people has the same rights than you, thus, should have the same obligations right? Charging them just because you are broke seems quite unfair, and pitiful to me.
Very cool idea. Question though, if a ultra rich person has all their assets in the form of private property (houses, yachts, etc,) how would the gov. Tax them?
The same way every other tax works. Give them a bill and let them figure out how to pay it themselves. If they have to sell some things to make the payment then so be it. That's actually kind of the point, to be honest. To keep the majority of the wealth in the country from stagnating in the assets of the uber-wealthy, dead to the economy.
0:55 "Because these people are so much wealthier than the rest of us" - These businessmen are the reason that people have jobs, thats literally your whole gdp right there. Also forgetting the Multi- Billions of dollars they've donated to charity work. Its earned wealth.
"It's earned wealth" well... yes, but no. There are several arguments that are usually brought forward regarding outlandish incomes and wealths, the main ones being... First of all, one's wealth is, in a "meritocratic" system like the one America claims they have, supposed to represent the work you do. More valuable work means more money. However, we arrive to points where the money extremely rich people make doesn't come from work: it comes from money generating money. While in theory it should be useful (investing in small companies is good, right?), in reality it's not how it works anymore: an overwhelming majority of stock investments in 2018 were speculative and didn't help the companies at all. So that first argument is: that wealth isn't earned by work, it's self-sustained through economical activities that, ironically, aren't that good for the economy. The second question is that of how much of that money was earned at birth. There are a few "self-made men" (who really had a lot of help :p) like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, who are quoted as people who went from poor to rich (they really didn't but against it's another topic)... But in 2016, according to a study conducted by Consumer Finances, the average one percenter inherited ~4.8 million dollars. Which leads to think that... you /might/ become rich through hard work, but if you're just born in the right place at the right time, you won't really have to work at all to be rich. This also puts a damper on the whole "wealth comes from merit" idea.
They don't produce anything. Remove the CEO from a factory or a service company for a month, it will keep going just fine. Remove all the front-line workers, the CEO won't produce jackshit and go bankrupt quickly.
@@Thalanna Man leaving out the extreme extreme outliers such as Gates and Bezos that are like the 0.000000001%, the great majority of the "1%" that's frequently mentioned is self made. If you search it up generally figures say around 80-90% of millionaires in the US are self made - generally self employed and involved in some form of business. Business creates jobs and stimulates investment and consumption as we know regardless of the scale were talking about. This expendable CEO u talk about is again a very small % of the population, literally negligible, but if you scale that down to the level of a small or even medium sized business owner (as it tends to be in the real world). You can't simply get rid of that business owner (or CEO) and expect the workers to keep it running smoothly, the whole business would fail without a leader. Now obviously if you get to the point where you're the CEO of a multinational corporation with thousands of employees its a different story, but that's not exactly an easy position to get to.
@@TheGinglymus Do you really believe this? Politicians ALL get rich so it doesn't add up when we continue to operate with a deficit. People getting wealthy helps the economy by creating legitimate jobs based on supply and demand, etc. Also, the real wealth inequality is more based on age than anything else--because Baby Boomers own more than 70 percent of the wealth. They earned it so doesn't make sense to take it away from them. Right now the US debt is 31 Trillion and the baby boomers combined wealth is 14 Trillion. The obvious problem is the government is out of control with spending and debt.
@@orlandorodriguez8507 we are talking about different countries. I'm English but it's still a similar situation. The UK is the most like America in Europe. Politics is slightly less run by money here. Also, government spending is not a bad thing as long as it's spent in the right way. Business needs infrastructure in which to operate and a well run society is better for business. All wealth is not earnt either and if trickle down theory was really true everything would be great now because there are some immensely wealthy people. If they were actually investing back into economy by better wages and new opportunities it would be good but they are not. They are buying up assets which is driving up prices and also extracting more money from ordinary people.
Anyone supporting a wealth tax needs to let go of their hate and not feel so jealous of someone who has more than themselves. Don't covet that which is your neighbor's.
When you tax alcohol, less people buy alcohol. When you tax sugar, less people buy sugar. When you tax being wealthy, less people become wealthy. Simple. A one way ticket to shrinking the economy.
@@johnmaris1582 If you're a poor person who only earns 5,000$/year you would be taxed 10% of that (at least in income tax) and have only 4,500 $ left (if we don't count all the spending, which is at least 50% of that). When you tax the poor, more people will be poor (if you don't provide with those revenues something more than 2250 $). It is ignorant to just look at the Nordics and say they tax VAT (taxing poor) and they have low poverty, it is more like they have a lot of tax revenue so that they can fund a public welfare state that can help the poor more than the taxes take from them. Taxes are the expense people pay for a better society
Would you support a wealth tax in the US? Why or why not?
Your wealth tax will discourage people from being wealthy meaning that they will be laws likely to make new companies and current companies will get worse to save money hurting everyone.
Yeah. It's a good idea. It's just that socialists who don't know how money works that make things worse for its implementation. They bring their hate and lack of understanding of money everywhere.
Vox Id support a wealth tax because you can use it to help fund these social programs like Medicare for all and college free tuition. The people effected by the tax probably won’t even notice a damn difference. What’s of little significance to them can be life changing for millions of others
No! It's so nice in theory, and I wish it could be possible, but in practice, it causes capital evasion, people take their money to other countries with less tax regulation, like Singapore or Taiwan. It have already been tried in France, and lead to this very situation, capital evasion leading to job loss. 👌
Austin me It is staggeringly hard to get remotely close to that much wealth. You can see that almost everyone even successful and entrepreneurial owns less than that. It's affecting a couple thousand Americans at most at 50 million, and even if the tax was everything above say 10 million, you can find a million people or so who earn between that and the already high income people of larger companies and celebrities. Wouldn't you be interested in owning 49.99 million dollars?
Just to give some perspective: if you have $2b and your tax bill is 60 million it's like having $2000 and paying $60.
Is there a moral justification aside from "it's not that much"? People who have 2 billion in assets (which does not mean that they have a single physical penny, by the way) do not use any of the entitlement programs, so it's pure theft. They have no interest in it, it does not provide any public goods (roads, army, etc.) since everything is already provided by the current system. Thus, there can be no moral argument in favour of that arrangement, that is, if we disregard "it's not that much" as an argument.
well, no, it's like if you had 2 Billion USD in property, and the government decides that everything you own is worth about 2 Billion USD, so the government can take $60 million USD of your money, which is property, by the way, thus violating property rights and taking $60 million of your money, which has already been taxed several times over by the time it's yours.
$60 every year...
@@ramzanninety-five3639 I'm not arguing for or against it. I'm only putting the figures discussed into sums that regular people can relate to.
Having 2000 in assets and being taxed 60 in cash, every year, is very huge actually...
that is nice and all but the people who have the power to implement such a tax are the very ones who will be taxed
Lol i didn't think about that
That's exactly why it won't pass. That and donor money
How many politicians are billionaires?
@@cob571 you mean multimillionaires
Chris Anderson politicians became politicians in the first place because of billionaires
Vox should make a video comparing how different country's taxation systems work
I would be really interested in how they do it in flatter societies like Sweden or Switzerland or wierder systems like Singapore.
The problem with that is each country’s taxation system is so complicated that comparing it to other countries would be quite difficult.
@@mathiasgaming4586 This is really important. Most countries tax codes are huge. That's why it can be difficult to compare tax rates between countries because while you have, say, an income tax rate the multitude of various deductions and breaks and whatnot can mean the rate actually paid can be quite different from what you'd initially expect.
To add to this^ for example in Luxembourg we have an above average income tax rate, but in the end we pay less than most other rich European countries, due to deductions. It’s complicated.
Vincent Min I can get on board with that
We all know all of the 200 billion would get re-"invested" into the military program instead of something good
Ah America
Sigh. You’re right. It’s the sad truth
Not exactly true, really depends on the President and majority party in the Senate.
A Republican President might place the money into helping the funding of Colleges or Federal Agencies such as NASA.
Democrats might place the money into the Discretionary System, for Healthcare , though that might be varied as some Democrats are either supportive of Bernie's Medicaid for All or Obamacare.
@@defaultlogos2976 how is nasa a cororation?
@@anemu3819
My fault, should have said "federal agency" instead of corporation.
3:10 Or it could pay for some new aircraft carriers and better missiles, which is more likely to happen.
What's much more likely to happen is that Social Security and Medicare would eat it up, which add up to more than 50% of what the Feds spend each year.
Truth. When did government ever spend wisely. Even in this video, they were going to use the money for new programs. Even while we waste money on protecting the world and run massive deficits. You can't tax your way out of debt, nor can you tax your way out of stupid administration of the government.
Tobías Chaparro it’s sad but they Problaby would.
For Israel
Yay! More military spending for me! I feel special lol. Go Navy!
The main problem with this tax is that the people who are that rich don't actually have that much money lying around in a bank account ready to be taxed - they just have that much money in assets. It'd be pretty difficult to properly gauge how much "wealth" these people have and then to properly tax all of their assets (and this is assuming they don't somehow move their assets overseas to avoid the tax). It's a good idea in theory, but would be difficult to enforce.
It's always hard to enforce taxes, but we enforce property tax on realty, and also on store inventories and such like. I'd set the penalty for taking assets overseas to the confiscation of all the overseas assets, and the non hidden stuff is still subject to tax if you have any of it when you get out of prison
Why would it be that hard? Insurance companies determine value of assets all the time. If you own a $100,000,000 home, you're going to have insurance and you're going to know how much it's worth.
I'm sure clever people could figure it out. And with a large book with enough clauses most loopholes should be stamped out. Obviously we should give the wealthy tools to dispute unfair taxes as well.
That’s why we need to close loopholes for assets stored overseas. If you make your money in America/from the American people, you should have to pay taxes on it. Period. I don’t understand why that’s a hard concept for people. (Though I do understand that that kind of reform would be hard to pass with the senate the way it is :/)
You're telling me they can't find a couple million dollars for the tax when they regular spend more than that on fancy cars, homes, private jets, etc?
*Cashier* Net worth: -$4,000
That must be Squidward.
And if you keep going to the left, far off the screen, you will see the the US government.
probably student loans
Squidward owns a 3 story loft space. He's doing fine
@@dorkmax7073 are you sure he owns it
I get the feeling it's probably Spongebob :(
Make a video of how to dodge wealth tax, so we can see the perspective of rich people and what they would do to dodge the tax.
Exactly what i was thinking
If it were me I would continue living in California, but my money lives in Switzerland now
@@gonzotime7224 yeah this whole system seems very easy to bypass
Dodging taxes is one those things rich people do that people hate, even though 100% of those haters would do it too.
@@SeanKH19 ding ding ding. My same thought. Oh vox and your near sightedness
Let’s be real, if this was to happen, every single penny would go to the military because the US is crazy
DK1213 Nonsense, the top 3 largest expenditures are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
@@Grajor Here's a link for you with a graph of the US government spending www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/
Go to the one labeled discretionary spending. That shows what the US chose to spend money on that was not mandatory. Can you guess what the largest portion is?
DK1213 no the US already set the army budget to $600b. It’s not like they need to up it to 800b unless full on ww3 breaks out. That money will go to the causes mentioned in the video among other things. Granted I think those are dumb causes. Things like infrastructure and jobs are more important.
CW MD Yes, and this just goes to show the level of asininity that we deem 65% of spending as “mandatory.” The fact still stands that the majority of spending is comprised of entitlements. By the way, we do need to cut military spending, but also welfare spending.
@@ninja1inblack105 By not having one global superpower with a high spending military budget to support the peace the ww3 will happen, countries are afraid to go to war cause they have the usa eyeballing them.
Here's the problem already - its INCREDIBLY hard to get a sense of a person's assets even through audit. No doubt rich people are going to move money out overseas, to family members, and all that jazz to avoid tax. It already happens
Because we need to sanction countries that do not allow wealth transparence, fiscal paradises such us UK, NL, USA, Italy, etc
Not to mention that anyone who follows the news knows that Dem and Rep are both branches of the same tree (one plays good cop, the other plays bad cop) playing the same scam game. You can't trust democrats to propose this kind of bill and expect them to go through with it.
we still should try
You can't move assets, such as land and homes out of the country. If they want to redistribute their own wealth in order to avoid the government doing it for them, that accomplishes the same thing.
@@DriFitMonkthat is too simplistic. land or property could be held by foreign entity that are then leased back to the original owner. On paper, the person doesn’t own it at all.
It's funny that these people literally earn more from interest than they'd be taxed.....
it's depressing.
Depends on the markets, and this is "assets" not just stocks and property. Many assets degrade in value naturally, like cars. This just taxes them on top of that.
They won't be able to out pace inflation. This is a dumb idea.
@@jgelliot One of the nice benefits of inflation is the equalizing pressure (reducing debts, shrinking wealth), but yeah I think this law and especially with these rates is overkill.
Actually they would lose money as real wealth growth is measured by net net net of fees inflation and taxes. Assume 6% gain minus 2% for income tax (33% of taxable gain), minus 2% for Warren's plan, minus 2% for inflation and minus 1% for fees. That leaves with negative 1%. I would rather have a 95% top income tax as it taxes my growth rather than my savings. Btw, this is why people need to hire investment advisors who invest in low fee investments and the advisory fee is low. In net net net, the only thing you can control is fees.
So what happens if this top 1% leaves the country?
if this top 1% leaves the us.... look france
The US har worldwide tax authority, they cant get away
@@adorabasilwinterpock6035 They can revoke their citizenship
Pav B It is not easy to revoke it
Noah Remnek they can still do it
The govt can provide all of these things already. It has a 4 trillion annual budget and overspends another trillion.
If it wanted to do all of these things, it would.
Freedom toons?
Thats only the federal, the combined municipal+state+federal level government spends 7.5 trillion.
But how do you know that. That money has to be divided up into so many different places.
@@conradferris8049 The CA govt underfunds the things we want, then tries to convince us to raise taxes. Schools, National Parks, fire depts, etc... are underfunded. Their pet projects get the money first. Every election, the dems get on TV and say, "We need more money for the brave firefighters, the dedicated nurses, and of course, THE CHILDREN!" They also beg for the environment. CA has the highest taxes because morons keep voting for tax increases. This is a tactic that they use to keep the revenue streams flowing.
They raise taxes in places that ignore immigration laws, just last year, the US wasted 150 billion dollars on illegals while the people living in the said city was suffering in a tax increase
Imagine unironically thinking that someone with over a billion dollars being required to spend a few million to keep help the poor is going to lead to the collapse of society
ajuicejemas Well, historically nations with great inequality (very high Gini coefficients) have experienced revolutions that led to the death of the most wealthy. Namely, the French and Bolshevik revolutions, although they are many more examples throughout history. As the saying goes “heads will roll.”
Thus, if you assume that great inequality will lead to the destruction of a given society, then as a society it is our job to reduce it. If, and only if, it is at the point to which it becomes dangerous to our society. After the 2008 financial crisis, there has been growing discontent among the middle class that inequality is reaching its breaking point. As the brunt of Wall Street’s poor management was paid for by the American middle class; however, that middle class did not receive much of the benefit. This is also no fault of any particular person or politician, but rather a result of the structure of our financial and political system.
Therefore, it is within our best interest to reduce the growing discontent by changing said system. If that is a wealth tax then so be it, but to deny the fact that the problem exists is not going to solve anything.
How is money supposed to flow in the economy if it’s just sitting in bank accounts
I think you fail to understand the fact that billionaires DO NOT have billions in their bank accounts. They cannot be taxed 200 million dollars every year because they do not have this much cash. Yes, they have assets worth this amount, but do you seriously expect them to sell their assets every year to pay for taxes? That is ridiculous.
Uh, it's called being a republican? And I'd be grateful if you respected that position. Also, if we taxed Trump's 100B IQ, we'd all be geniuses. And just like in communism, no one would be a genius.
Destroyed with facts and logic.
Republicans believe that the millions could be used to create jobs instead of simply giving everyone hand outs. At least try to look at the other sides view.
This wealth tax sounds reasonable, like if you have 60million, 200 000 isnt that much money compared to it. Ok im just a poor student so who am i to say. But this would benefit many people, without taking much from the richest of the rich
I'm tentatively in favor. I'd wanna see how the numbers play out when compared with growth from investments and things
How do you pay the tax if the 60 million is in real estate, business investments, bonds, and the stock market? Sell a house every year and divest from businesses? How about we just tax them on their gains when they sell and any dividend payments.... oh wait, we do that already.
MJ Lyco if you have $60 million in estates and stocks it’s not making money than you have different problems.
Hartsikasvo Ok. Then by that logic, whatever you have more than what I have, I’m allowed to take. Balance it out. Regardless if you deserved it or not or if I deserve it or not.
Since the average capital return is something like 7%, lets say 5% to be safe. If you have 2 billion, you make 100 million every year without doing anything and have to give away 50 million (2:42). Now if you try to come up with a way to actually spend the 50 million per year, you will realize that this is plenty. And that is without working at all.
Jeff Bezos will suddenly announce that he has fallen in love with Switzerland culture, renounce his American citizenship, and yet stay as an expat 😆
I believe Switzerland already has a wealth tax.
@@liamm32 the banks
Yeah, Switzerland has a wealth tax. They would love that
Until he meets the National Guard
If this plan goes through, every billionaire will move to another country and take their wealth with them. Great plan Vox.
tfw all of the middle class people are defending the top 1%
Because they're still sitting praying they'll by some miracle join them, then they won't want to be taxed like that
Im super poor. Yet i dont want to see this happen. The rich already get taxed so much. You all act like this money will go towards you. The government just wants more power. Stop giving it so much.
Macaroon Cat Anytime the government makes the claim that they’ll tax the rich they only end up taxing the middle class and poor. This is literally how the government was able to establish annual taxes with the 16th amendment, before the amendment was established nobody was taxed, the only way you were taxed was due to sales tax.
Name one poor person that created a job
NO MORE TAXES. Every time these morons talk about increasing the tax on the wealthy, it's the middle class that gets the shaft. Screw the entire idea of taxation. It has caused the middle class to suffer because the morons who promise higher taxes on the rich don't get it. The rich increase the prices of their goods and we the little guy end up paying for it. SCREW YOUR TAXES. IT IS THEFT.
In France, such a tax is applied, it is called ISF ('Impôt Sur la Fortune') and is taxing all posessions in excess if €1M (with a few exceptions like first personal residence, works of art and most importantly, money invested in real economy.
Jean Bonnefoy thank you for sharing!
Yes and look at how France is doing. Not exactly a model country
@@Steve-si5nq Well their birth death rate isn't as bad as the USA. The amount of people bankrupted by medical bills doesn't exist unilke America. They don't have the grinding poverty of many Americans and they also don't have many other human stats that read like a developing country, unlike America.
Captain Win and they have violent riots in the streets and a fear of a change in government. Delightful.
@@davidhochstetler4068 isn't it what Americans dream about since Trump was elected?
If a rich person was taxed on their non-liquid assets and say their assets are predominantly non-liquid (as they usually are) would that mean they could potentially need to sell their assets to pay their taxes?
Yes.
I'd expect more companies to pay dividends above that 2 or 3 per cent so that their major shareholders would be able to pay off the wealth tax simply through dividends.
They can try to sell the assets, but good luck finding a buyer for that 50 million dollar painting at your asking price of 50 million. Assessing something high value might actually reduce its value because the higher it is assessed the more it costs to keep.
Yes but then you have capital gains tax and such.
Exactly. Not only that, but it would divert money that is being used for research and development, paying salaries, acting as capital to start new businesses or support existing businesses, and so on and so on. And it would encourage capital flight out of this country and the wealthy would frantically begin restructuring their assets which just creates more inefficiencies in an economy. It would be catastrophic to the economy.
How do you pay a tax especially that high when your "wealth" is all in assets? 🤔 I noticed vox didn't explain anything about how this will actually work 👌
heard you can directly give the government the asset if you dont have cash
This is 10 times more complicated than in the video and it has a negative outcome.
You need to get money from those Billionaires but Wealth Tax is not the answer, we need to find another way.
Invest your wealth in something that gives enough return to pay the tax (which is actually a great incentive to not just buy mansions and yachts), or liquidate assets.
@@TheCulturedThug buying mansions and yachts creates jobs.
@@pingukutepro what is the way?
Stop making videos before us! : p
I'm glad you finally say it
I'm sub you just now too.
Super, j'attendais justement ton avis sur le sujet.
I see your videos are mostly in French.. You have different market man.. 😅
@@armanke13
I define myself as a citizen of the world 😅
The goverment will spend 2 billions in 5 hours. We need to fix how the goverment uses money, not give them more.
Yes
At this point you should really think in the possibility of doing both.
But If we are talking about cutting costs, those missiles and aircraft carriers are starting to look too Gucci with that 700billion dollars a year for my taste
@@dinamosflams We should also try to pay back our dept.
@@newt9908 the money can be for as a priority
@@dinamosflams Yeah but we should save it instead. It could be extremely useful.
Wealth tax has been tried and repealed in about a half dozen EU countries. It's too easy for accountants to find loopholes. By contrast, a Value Added Tax (VAT) has been adopted by most countries at this point. We should not be looking to other countries’ mistakes. Instead, we should look at the tax system in 160 countries like Germany and France that set up future generations for success, which is a value-added tax.
How bout we rather plug the loop holes, implement VAT AND still employ a wealth tax!!! (^o^)
The problem with this is we can't really compare EU countries to America, our economies are so vastly different based on size. Just the fact that america is a federal state and most EU countries are unitary makes it hard to compare, although it isn't the worst idea there is
@@ellatobin6967 If unitary high-tax states failed at it, why would typically dysfunctional anti-tax America succeed?
VAT is really regressive though, it hits people who need to spend money to live the most in proportion.
If you want to reap an extra buck without having to impinge on workers' incomes I'd advocate for a Land Value Tax instead.
@@Blaze6108. A land value tax would be just another case for the unintended consequences play book.
1) if you are in the top 0.05% just renounce your US citizenship. Why would you need it?
2) its not the taxes, but how they are spent. The US historically spends taxes on interventionist policies.
You sure 200B is enough to pay for free college three times over? That doesn’t sound right. Plus, we’re even assuming that the money gets to where it is supposed to go, which it inevitably won’t.
Tax comes in yearly m80 ;)
She wasn’t sure, but now she is sure it doesn’t and had to change it to take a LOT more. It’s somehow ok for the government to steal but not the rest of us, taxing is one thing but taking what isn’t theirs after tax this is just stealing.
Americans be like: Is this socialism?
Then they break out in hives.
"hey Vox why don't you guys move to venezuela lololol"
whERE is tHe incenTive TO BECoME A mULTi-BILLioNaIre if 3 perCenT is TAkeN fROM YoU?
-person who made less than 60k last year.
The Nixon and Reagan era made sure that Americans would rather die of starvation than let the wealthy pay their fare share.
@@Fals3Agent 70% of Venezuela's economy is privately owned, the other 30% is state owned. State capitalism is not socialism. And the government's corruption and decision to not diversify their nationalized oil industry (1) has absolutely nothing to do with the criticisms of socialism.
@@CoryMck I know that, i'm making fun of the people who get socialism wrong
Might that taxed wealth just end up being used to buy more nuclear bombs or giving all senators a raise...
Buy 10 B2 would be more reasonable for the US.
There would probably have to have a very strict rule, that the money could only be used to help citizens on the lower levels (the people, not the government) so that it can’t just be given back to the wealthy.
US: extra $200 B. What should I spend it on
Boeing: new jet fighter and bomber coming up soon
US: take my money !!!
Nuclear bombs is unlikely as the US is signed of a treaty limiting the number of nuclear weapons
@@Nick-ky8pd There is more than a trillion spent on military... we could easily waste $200 billion more or even trillions more depending on how delusional government is.
Would assets with no/low liquidity be taxed? And if so, why? Would assets held outside the country / assets that become less than $50M per person when they are collectively owned be taxed? And if so, how? Would assets such as businesses be taxed? And if so, how will businesses with
Exactly. There's a lot of people who don't even understand how assets work.
Obviously you would get an inspector to measure out and cut off 2-3% of that private jet every year
@@timothyn4699 Big bran power
@Joey The Conservative Assets that are easily sold for cash
I was thinking that. To tax an asset, it needs to have value, to give it value, it needs to be sold. I can't just chop off 5% of my house while I own it.
When two people with the same income have very different wealth, it means that the one with more wealth has either inherited (so someone already paid taxes for that money), or saved it, or made better decisions with it (and also paid taxes for that income) or a mixture of the above. Taxing wealth means taxing twice, and that's why it's never done before.
A lot of assumptions in this comment my friend.
@@atticusjones Wealth taxes are a joke. Almost all of rich people’s wealth is held in stocks and corporations. If you tax their wealth, you would just force them to sell parts of their companies…. Whereby crashing the market.
@@LegalAutomation socialism my friend
Oh, that's right. You Americans don't have a wealth tax.... Totally forgot about that.
Most countries don't lol
P1ranh4 property tax is a wealth tax
@@user-qo7ul3wm1g Not really.
For what it’s worth they did this in France and lost billions of dollars from the rich fleeing.
But what about Switzerland? They have had a wealth tax for the longest time and they are famously known as a tax haven for the rich.
Any evidence of this? Any stats or figures?
@@keifer7813. It’s well known, so just Google it and I’m sure you’ll find something.
That wasn't on the mega rich only that was a taxing of people who were slightly wealthy upwards. This is different.
@@stefanoparlatore7141. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that. They had a general wealth tax until 2018 and then switched to just a real estate wealth tax.
I like her idea of taxing corporations at the profit they claim to their shareholders, not the IRS.
I want to know more about that poorest person in America worth like a negative million dollars
Medical debt for something uncommon gets that high.
probably the donald before his presidency ;-)
His name is donald trump
@@lilisommerfeld I don't get it. I said on the low end of the spectrum
@@nigelwest5776 yep, I know. That self proclaimed stable genius businessman was mostly in debt for much of his life.
I did not expect everyone in here to be experts on tax wow!!
Yourself included
No one here has a clue what they’re talking about for the most part.
Lol u must be an idiot to not even know this basic rule of tax and how it work. I learn that in college. Its very basic and simple.
@@javiermendez9880 no. More like u have no clue about what they are talking about becuz u never learn it urself.
The poor always want money for free
Real deal I have a degree in finance and think this is stupid. You can’t even spell because right... I think I’m gonna trust myself on this one.
That wealth was already taxed when it was earned. Other countries have stopped bothering with a wealth tax, beause it brings in less than expected and increased evasion and underreporting massively.
If we implement this, we'll see a sharp increase of people with a net worth of just $49.9 million dollars
Not really because assests would still often increase in value faster than the tax. It would a waste to cut your wealth to avoid the tax.
Nah if people tax the rich they move to different country
@@axel665 nah, then they're traitors and we'll just have the government seize their properties and assets.
@@dylanc9145 bro wake up you shat yourself
@@burn_out um sorry, how much more wealth does the middle class have now than they did in the 60s? You got an extra chromosome bud? Need help finding your helmet?
Any tax related video will always be controversial
Republicans don't like it when you challenge their gods.
Equal opportunity is true equality, not equality of outcome.
@Sam Yes, I do, that's my point.
King DeeDeeDee You don’t have the same opportunities jeff bezos’ kids have.You just want to believe you do
@@otinanai5439 Why don't I? Cause I don't have as much money? Nothing is stopping me from running my business, getting an education, or making money. To be upset that other people are successful, and you aren't is nothing more than jealousy.
@@kingdeedeedee1450 Actually yes many large companies are actively stopping competing companies who might offer a better service from becoming big. This is very common so you are not competing on the same terms as everyone else.
King DeeDeeDee being rich undoubtedly gives you advantages that the poor don’t have though. Eg: tutoring, paying the way into college, better job opportunities / not having to worry about money, etc
He speaks about the more money this could bring in and what we could then afford with it like we arent over 20 trillion in debt at a massive deficit
Debt doesn't exist.
@@Albanez39 ?
Why does this talking point come up when it's about helping working and middle-class Americans, but when we want to build a wall, start a trade war, or start an actual war just because it's not a factor.
No one holds the government accou table for being in a 20 trill debt, thats why they'll never attempt to pay it back
@@rosegold-beats Foreign nations hold a non-trivial portion of this debt. Private entities hold a lot of it too. Private entities are mostly US citizens, so if the gov't won't honor its bonds to its own citizens then we are going to have societal collapse. As for foreign nations, if the US stops paying off the debt then the foreign nations will stop trading with us. Otherwise they'd just be giving us free things, which is senesless.
2:55 which could...
Run the federal government for like 20 days
Vox: let's tad people for literally buying expensive things.
*"Expensive things are less bought"*
*Workers who make expensive things lose their job*
Pikachu face:
So the goverment spends too much iresponsibly? Give them more money! Obviously... Increase the national debt even more!
They get around 3 trillion dollars a year if they where going to give us free whatever they could find a way
@@арефнар That’s literally just trickle down economics. If the objective is to benefit the workers who produce the luxury products that are disproportionately more likely to be bought by the wealthy than the general populace, then why not tax just tax the rich and then redistribute that money to the workers?
Would you rather overprice your customer to make $10, or give your customer $10 so they can buy a product that cost $8 to manufacture so that you can make $2 profit?
Will not happen because:
1. Wealthy people make laws
2. Wealthy people would find a way to avoid taxation of their wealth, eg. offshore.
Alex
1. the government makes laws. Rich people influence them. But money related bribes are illegal.
2. All wealthy people pay taxes. I say that because I don’t consider people in jail for tax evasion wealthy people.
Now of course you can funnel money or assets into offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes on it. But what’s the point? You might as well not have gone to the effort of making the money if you never see the benefits of doing so. That money is nothing but an unofficial statistic.
Or u learn criticle thinking skill then rethink about it. U only create unfair ground
No
Warren's plan would include assets overseas, so the wealthy would need to move to foreign countries en renounce their US citizenship to avoid paying this tax.
@@realdeal5712 first you learn spelling and then we have a conversation
It’s simple. If you tax the rich, they’ll leave.
If they don’t leave they will avoid tax legally and illegally. They will get better accountants.
Where will they go? Our taxes are significantly lower than taxes in Europe
@@stevenlovejoy6838 Singapore. Cyprus. Other places with virtually no taxes. There’s plenty of choices.
@@jasonmonica6290 lol yes because Jeff bezos is going to pack all his belongings and move to Cyprus thanks for clarifying!
@@stevenlovejoy6838 He can easily use tax law to move exclusively his business dealings there. Do some research
That graph is like an exponential function.
Y= aB^x 😂😂💯
I mean it's just a dumb thicc lorenz curve
@@washyourhands pretty poor Gini coefficient
It is....
@@samverebes4564 you mean pretty high
So what about the people who have more “wealth” than they do cash flow? Are we forcing them to sell their businesses to pay their taxes?
Finally someone with some common sense. The wealth tax has been tried and it failed. Wealth and cash are not the same.
So, there are people with $60 million net worth who can't afford $200,000 tax?
That's 0.03% of their worth.
That's like 30 cents to someone with $100
I think not, Boomer.
Yusuf Jinadu They’d have to liquidate their assets, by selling them. That means that basically someone else is paying for it, but the greedy government needs a way to get their hands on that extra bit of money.
@@yusufjinadu wealth does not equal cash. Even though they have massive amounts of wealth it does not mean they have cash availability after taxes and other payments they have to make.
finally a sensible comment
Uncle Sam: Lol, you think you can just make money, without paying me?
Also Uncle Sam: You think you can buy something, without paying me?
Still Uncle Sam: LMAO, you think you can just continue to OWN something?
WITHOUT PAYING ME???
Its so funny to watch a country who's people life are better than 85% of the world population is complaining about rich having all the wealth.
If you compare with people of my country,your middle class is our top 1%.
Bingo. It’s nothing but greed and envy on the part of voters and politicians trying to secure the next election for themselves.
Bruh, just implement a Georgist Land Value Tax that would help solve America's Inequality issues
@Abhik Kumar Bhunia Exactly, I am glad I wasn't the only thinking this :)
🤓
@abhikkumarbhunia5878 Ok Abhik Kumar
1:45
*YACHTS ARE A HUMAN RIGHT.*
Private property is human right
indeed my fellow intellectual
That's almost as bad as the people that say 'respect is a basic human right' its not.
The yacht gives jobs to hundreds of people. It's not shameful to buy expensive stuff.
indeed
I would not support a tax increase on anyone. I would support a smaller government. We need less redistributers and more producers.
Yes but distrubters is needed in order to get things back in shape for a smaller government
I was gonna say harvest their organs but we could try this instead
The CCP would be proud of you Lmao
Next thing we know.... "China is stealing our rich people" 😂
I wouldn't miss them
@@hubert4646 Enjoy your country with no companies and everyone unemployed
@@lordecircojeca2039 look at switzerland, norway and denmark. they all tax wealth. seems to work just fine for them. google even has their europe HQ in switzerland with thousands of employees (just as an example) companys are coming to these places. not move away from them
@@ramonkeller4016
1. Look at Sweden's GDP graph. It was growing steadily until around the 70s, when they began raising the taxes. Since then it began stagnating. It does not prove my point, but it's a nice indicator.
2. Just because A happens in the presence of B doesn't mean A causes B. Michael Jordan drinks water, therefore does drinking water make me great at Basketball? Probably not.
3. Taxation only destroys wealth. This can be demonstrated aprioristically, without the need for examples or experiments.
4. Taking someone's money without their consent is theft.
@@lordecircojeca2039
fair enough. so
1. would you call an increase in gdp from 37.5 billion in 1970 to 538 billion in 2017 stagnation?
2. absolutely true. i gave you 3 countries in europe where it worked. do you have 1 in western europe or north america where it didnt work?
3. This isnt true. look at the gdp of high taxing countries. most of them outperform gdp growth of low taxing countries
4. if you think taxation is theft you should move to a country with no taxation. nobody says you cant. i think there is a reason why most people decide to stay and pay there taxes
A.) Wealth is not liquid
B.) The value of items like stocks, cars, houses, etc is not static.
C.) No tax has ever stayed in one category. Saying that we are only taxing the Rich or foreign nations should come with a "for now" sticker.
Depreciation and revaluation of assets are calculated already using certain methods. If we implement a percentage tax considering those values then there would be no issues caused by the changing worth of assets.
A. Not an argument.
B. Not an argument.
C. Also not an argument.
@@ThePi314Man Care to give actual counter arguments?
The problem with a wealth tax is that it is really hard to count and really easy to hide. So even if it could theoretically cash in 200 billion, , this estimate is wayyy too big, which is why it got cancelled in France.
The wealth tax is taxing the things you already bought with your income every year after you bought it again. Even though you may not have the income to pay for it.
So what will happen if I inherit my parents 700k SoCal home? I work as a high-school teacher so my pay is ok but will I be taxed to death for getting a house that is already payed off because it raises my net worth considerably?
@@ABUBBA22 only if you had another 49.3m in other assests, and belonged to the top 5% of the 1%
Lol you probably do not have to worry, or do you have more than 50 *10^6 $.
If u could read just one of Thomas Sewell's books, you'd see how bad this idea is
Chibuikem Ubesie he should be mandatory reading.
He's an propagandist and a joke of an academic
Great incentive for anyone with a net worth of over $50 million to leave the country. Really hard hitting journalism, Vox!
Switzerland!!!
Some will leave, and some will stay. History hasn't proven that taxes increases are bad for the economy, it's the opposite.
Good leave then. And btw good luck with your ventures without the largest consumer economy in the world.
Bro you realize rich people exist in places like germany "where the rich people get taxed 1000% of their wealth while the bottom 90% get money for free" but If taxes get too high then "all the rich people will leave" oh wait rich people don't leave germany for america
The rich have so much money that this rich tax would be nothing to them. Literally 3% annually at worst.
That compression artifact-looking background was driving me nuts
I d be very worried about the thin end of the wedge. Once you establish that people can be taxed simply for owning assets, then what’s to stop everyone being taxed? Also, how would you determine net worth? You might own all these assets but they could be secured against massive liabilities that you are paying off. Plus any valuation of assets is partly subjective and can be manipulated.
O R also have to add the massive loopholes this has. A couple who has 100 million net worth could just divorce and split it 50/50 and avoid the tax, or give money to their children or charity, or just spend so much money they only have a net worth of 50 million. Or just leave the Country like what Rich French and German citizens did until they repealed the Wealth Tax in their nations.
Not to mention what those assets actually are ... stocks. Are we going force people to sell stock to pay these taxes?!
@@adamlynch462 Nah, when I finally pay off my mortgage they'll just have me redirect the payments to uncle sam. It's outlawing ownership.
Also would that mean selling off property and businesses, of you ask me it's a huge infringement on the constitution. Also said note at around 2:00, if you have the same income but way lower net wealth, maybe it's a personal problem and not a social problem.
@@Christ5306 nowhere in the constitution does it say you cant tax people. How is it infringement to the constitution???
And then the rich leave your country to go somewhere where they don't do this.
That implies America currently have the world's lowest taxes
I honestly doubt that. If someone is living comfortably and lavishly with more money than there next six generations could possibly spend, they don't need more of a reason to keep making money, even if 2% of it gets taxed. Their incentive is the extremely comfortable lifestyle they get to live with their children in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
@Chuck Gladfelter Wealth hoarding is a mostly an upper-middle or middle-class thing. The richest are constantly reinvesting their money into their businesses or economy.
@@zac5572 Check the effective rate rather than the statitory rate which was formerly %25-20 base, and is now half that.
@@timtimtimmaah with all due respect, that actually isn't true. Our middle class is actually disappearing. The reason there is so much wealth inequality is because of hoarding, tax loopholes (that's how Jeff Bezos paid zero taxes.) and trumps tax break for the wealthy. The wealthy was suppose to invest in their companies but instead they gave themselves pay raise a participated in stock buy backs.
"Only the richest 0.05% of Americans would pay this tax"
Me (who knows how the world works): "Haha, no they wouldn't"
Jep
Ne vaan muuttaa pois
it will NEVER pass.
Because robbery is wrong
People have a right to personal property
@@josevelazquez7818 how is this robbery?
@@druscus If taxing the wealth which was already taxed (and declared tax free) again is not robbery , then i don't know what robbery is, moreover if the money is in the shares , and the business guy have to sell his shares to pay his taxes , where do you think money is better off ?
1) A business guy who is gonna multiply it 2-3 times in next ten years ? or
2) A govt that knows nothing but to spend the money ?
which is beneficial for the economy ?
in my opinion , business persons should be treated like a hen who gives golden eggs , if you have the patience to wait for the recurring golden egg , you will be good , but in the greed of getting all the golden eggs at once you will just end up killing the hen.
Some billionaires would have to sell their stocks to pay the tax which would lead to less control over their companies.
In France we don’t have this much inequalities, but we implemented this tax 30 years ago for every person earning more than 1M€ per year. Recently the tax was transformed into a lighter one, because so many rich left the country or stopped investing in France that the whole economy was suffering from it... I mean, we really need to find a way to tax those ultra rich, but on the other hand, their wealth are usually only assets based, that can lower every day significantly...
France should let the ultra-rich leave, seriously, and to prevent an asset drain; just outlaw the transfer of a local asset to any foreigner; such as having a Quota/percentage system for real-estate, property & stock-share that is reserved only for French citizen, so that if an ultra-rich leave France; the asset must be handed over to the government or liquidised for cash, and still get taxed for that. So, why didn't French government do that? is there a hidden agenda for politician to accumulate wealth? I mean, a quota/privilege system is very common everywhere, otherwise what's the benefit of being a citizen of a country?
thibaud drion ISF was a tax levied on wealth not income. Most rich people actually left France in 2013 and 2014 when the 75% high income tax was voted. (pas la peine de savoir parler anglais si c'est pour faire de la mal-information) edit: it was 1.3MM not 1MM btw and the "light one" as you call it is pretty much the same
Keushenflam on peut concéder que cette taxe était une catastrophe en tout cas
@PLK123 no, it's not illegal nor unethical, actually it depends on Reasons. For example in the US; there's tech company who can't leave; like chip manufacturer Broadcom, which was recalled from Singapore due to national security reason, and rocket company, like SpaceX & Boeing, can't hire non-American nor export to any other country. In other country like Malaysia for example, affirmative action require some company shares to be hold by local people. I don't see it being unethical nor illegal if Reasons exist.
If your friend has more wealth despite you having the same income, the most likely explanation is you are spending your money differently. Instead of spending money on restaurants, instant lottery tickets or Netflix, he saved it for the yacht; and you want to punish him for that.
If you spend all of your income on travels and experiences, while I save mine to buy a yacht, why should I be punished for that for the rest of my life? Shouldn't we also tax your travels for the rest of your life?
True!! Same thing applies to debt, poor dad saves enough for her daughter, in return he sees an alcoholic get debt waiver!!
Travels are taxed with sales tax, so it would be at a higher rate than a wealth tax. Buying a yacht would get off easy. Btw, do you have more than $50M?
Well one stimulate the economy and the other is a waste of assets so yes. Also those that spend it on experiences pay up to a 10% sales tax while you don't so once more yes
@@for_light_and_life Except "travels" are taxed only once, whereas the "yacht", according to this plan, would be taxed EVERY YEAR IN PERPETUITY. And before you say it, "yacht" in this context refers to wealth over the imaginary line that this plan intends to tax. Just to head off your likely "nOt iF tH3 YAcHt iS l3sS tHAn 50 MiLliOn d0lLar$!!!!1111" response.
@@NadeemAhmed-nv2br Totally clueless. Who builds the yachts? Not those who buy them, obviously. Luxury goods stimulate the economy just as much, arguably more so since they are more expensive, than travels. And I guess you forgot about sales tax and property tax for luxury goods, as well? Yep, you're clueless.
Federal income tax was also supposed to be solely for top earners.
We can't base whether or not we implement a policy based on a hypothetical future one. If it's a bad idea to put a wealth tax on non rich people then you can vote for candidates who don't support that if it comes up
This was the first thing i thought of, in typical government fashion it would be expanded to catch the middle class then everyone. It is much harder to get wealthy when your savings are being taxed.
A lot of temporarily embarrassed multi-millionaires and billionaires in the comment section. lol
That is statistically very improbable
Rich people aren’t embarrassed for literally holding up american society by employing people, and paying more taxes than everyone else already.
@@haydenlamb6309 It's a joke that makes fun of lower/middle class people that are against taxing the rich because they imagine that one day they will be rich.
@@nullnull7089 Or just those that actually have morals.
@@nullnull7089 or those that realize this is theft... what's next? We get to slowly just take over their assets to even out the income inequality? Give their companies to the poor that can't manage their own spending? It's pathetic, everyone just envies everyone elses success
I don’t care how rich someone is, robbery is always wrong
it's not robbery, it's fairness. They pay nothing in federal income taxes, look at Amazon, they increased by tens of billions their revenue during the pandemic AND STILL pay nothing. A wealth tax is the least these onerous criminals owe us.
@@mygetawayart Wait so they "owe" you billions of dollars for somthing you didn't earn.And everytime you think you can just stick your hand in somebody's wallet for money.IF YOU WANT MONEY EARN IT LIKE EVERYONE ELSE
@@mygetawayart”I suffered so why shouldn’t you”
Everybody gangsta until the rich hides their money overseas in foreign shell companies to avoid taxes.
They do that already so what difference does it make?
I have a better idea, lower taxes and government spending, let the private industry grow the economy.
You should look at Australia’s taxation, it’s quite simple and has been working for decades
Im pretty sure we don't have the kind of wealth tax he's talking about, we only have income. Estate taxes are the closest thing and that only taxes when someone dies.
Alex yeah it’s not inherently the same but we tax most assets and our tax brackets are much more diverse. How good would a system like this be in Aus
Australia gives out too many handouts to the upper-middle-class in its taxation system imo. Simplifying the tax rate and cutting down on a lot of the exceptions would make it fairer.
Sorry Joe, but your comment is going to look very silly in a year or so. Australia are heading into a probably deep recession due to their bursting housing bubble, a failure to tax land (and many explicit subsides and turning a blind eye to terrible lending practices akin to US sub prime) is the culprit.
Does Australia need to run a trillion dollar military?
FreedomToons
same
Yeah they tried this in France and it resulted in financial loss. Their wealthy individuals left the country.
Wealth tax on the US. Speaks about wealth inequality. Pushes a paid subscription at the end to people that would most likely not have wealth. Cheers Vox
Ok. Let's make a thought bubble:
If you make a wealth tax in the US,
- How many will simply change citizenship and move their wealth abroad?
- How many would inherit their children in orther to avoid being taxed?
- How many would donate their money to irrevocable trusts whose only objective is to pay them earnings?
Just playing the devil's attorney...
Just take a look at france...
I think your points are invalid, because those rich people have already doing it for years
For example, One of Facebook's co-founder,Eduardo Saverin, changed his citizenship to Singapore.
I believe if they could move for not paying tax, they have done already.
First of all, most of that is already done. Secondly, if there are holes in the plan, they need to fix the holes. Third, it they're going to move abroad for less than 3% tax then they can move.
Haha inherit their own children? Devil's attorney?
@@CoryMck you've got a whole lot of trouble with your use of the word hole. Putting a whole extra letter in it.
Imagine thinking that giving the government billions of dollars will just fix problems
the government is racist, homophobic, and evil, so lets give them billions and hope they feed the poor with it instead of not feeding the poor to keep the reason for their billions
From an economist perspective, a wealth tax is a worse way to raise tax revenues than taxes on consumption since it leads to asset misallocation (punishes people from investing money instead of blowing it on stuff) which makes the economy worse of.
A wealth tax is amongst the most brain dead ideas I've heard in a long time.
Who said wealth was supposed to be equal?
Nobody, but you need to pay your fair share. Its our nation, our people. We need Healthcare, education (desperately), adorable housing, food and water. All of which are essential human needs in the modern ear. Not a luxury. USA shouldn't be a ponzi scheme for the privileged.
@@bloodcards3084 And you think that paying taxes will even this out? How is that "fair"?
@@bloodcards3084 Shouldn’t that be the governments job and not the rich?
The rich should be taxed just like us. It’s their money.
@@BensGarden its not fair because they pay less than us lol.
0:17 i’m supposed to be like omg I HAVE STUDENT LOANS THEY UNDERSTAND ME
How about instead of taxing rich people as if taxes were fines, and instead we should reduce government deficit and purge the bureaucracy clean.
However, this is just a band-aid. It allows the systems that create this wealth inequality to continue.
Yeah, but that's not really the point. Maybe every solution doesn't have to fix every problem.
Guess we better do nothing until we find a solution that solves everything then
down with capitalism
@@blainegabbertgabonemhofgoa6602 my phone was made by workers, not capitalism
Yes, but now. We can use that tax money to give a raise teachers
_in a closeby alternate universe_
Rich people: introducing, poor privilege.
I thought the video was going to be about how wealth taxes have largely been unsuccessful at raising tax revenue in countries that tried to implement the policy, and that some type of VAT typically is better at generating tax revenue.
One of the dumbest tax ever. Maybe try Land Value tax.
As a European, a wealth tax is silly, it has been tried and results in people leaving or hiding their money. And it has only gone to government coffers for spurious, never direct distributions to the poor's bank accounts. Friedman spoke of a negative income tax which would be much more effective.
Bitcoin is the future, investing in it now will be the wisest thing to do especially with the current rise in bitcoin
@Hector Macias You're lucky
I Lost $1500 trading with an unprofessional trader
Investing in crypto currency is so lucrative
Most people don't invest due to ignorance
People are scared of investing because of the high rate of scam in the business. There are scammers but real brokers are out there for investors
7K downvotes looks like many millionaires watch this channel
Lol. Must be, but it’s likely the people that don’t understand the assets that the billionaires have. A lot of it is in stocks, so there’s no ‘relocation’ of the ultra rich. They already use every loophole in the book to hide their income.
It's cuz of the Debunkers.
A land value tax should be implemented
A federal property tax? Unconstitutional.
@@stanislausklim7794 nope
Sure that may be a _better_ way to tax the rich, but let me tell you the *_best_* way to tax the rich: *Land Value Tax*
Or rather, let Henry George tell you the best way to tax the rich in his magnum opus, _Progress and Poverty._
Land value tax encourages overdevelopment and environmental degradation due to the tax putting a burden on rural landowners and farmers.
@@sunshineimperials1600 If society deems land worth protecting for environmental reasons, it can designate it as such. We shouldn't allow private land owners to hold land until it appreciates in value enough to be worth selling or renting for development. That is allowing land bankers to capture value made by society writ large. That is land speculation, that is the problem.
Eat the rich
Eat the rich
Eat the rich
Eat the rich
Eat the rich
I would become rich in flavor not in dollars
they full of nasty diseases.
This would be a splendid idea on how to crash the stock market and real estate values overnight. I can't think of a faster way to force an economy into a depression than this completely ill conceived and idiotic idea.
imzjustplayin
Congrats, you understand economics better than every Vox employee combined.
Please explain why
Nah that's not the most idiotic idea, shutting down almost the entire economy is (Covid-19)
No, it is proportional and for the rich it’s nothing... they won’t need to take the money from their stock market or else...
@@Miuccia. people don't just have $200,000,000 every year sitting in a bank account. They would have to sell stocks and other things to make it work. Not to mention, they would probably just leave the country if this was ever put into place, and in a state like California where the top 1% of earners pay almost half of the total income tax, this would lead to a huge economy crash because states like that would have way less money to do anything with.
I cannot understand that logic. These people has the same rights than you, thus, should have the same obligations right? Charging them just because you are broke seems quite unfair, and pitiful to me.
Very cool idea. Question though, if a ultra rich person has all their assets in the form of private property (houses, yachts, etc,) how would the gov. Tax them?
Make em sell it lol
@@zutaca2825 but they already pay property tax on the house and they would have had to pay sales tax on the yacht
The same way every other tax works. Give them a bill and let them figure out how to pay it themselves. If they have to sell some things to make the payment then so be it. That's actually kind of the point, to be honest. To keep the majority of the wealth in the country from stagnating in the assets of the uber-wealthy, dead to the economy.
Property is obviously part of your net worth.
@@leosheldon9725 yeah great idea
0:55
"Because these people are so much wealthier than the rest of us" - These businessmen are the reason that people have jobs, thats literally your whole gdp right there. Also forgetting the Multi- Billions of dollars they've donated to charity work. Its earned wealth.
"It's earned wealth" well... yes, but no. There are several arguments that are usually brought forward regarding outlandish incomes and wealths, the main ones being... First of all, one's wealth is, in a "meritocratic" system like the one America claims they have, supposed to represent the work you do. More valuable work means more money. However, we arrive to points where the money extremely rich people make doesn't come from work: it comes from money generating money. While in theory it should be useful (investing in small companies is good, right?), in reality it's not how it works anymore: an overwhelming majority of stock investments in 2018 were speculative and didn't help the companies at all. So that first argument is: that wealth isn't earned by work, it's self-sustained through economical activities that, ironically, aren't that good for the economy. The second question is that of how much of that money was earned at birth. There are a few "self-made men" (who really had a lot of help :p) like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, who are quoted as people who went from poor to rich (they really didn't but against it's another topic)... But in 2016, according to a study conducted by Consumer Finances, the average one percenter inherited ~4.8 million dollars. Which leads to think that... you /might/ become rich through hard work, but if you're just born in the right place at the right time, you won't really have to work at all to be rich. This also puts a damper on the whole "wealth comes from merit" idea.
If you want to slow down the wealth of the super rich, cut back on the goods and services they produce.
They don't produce anything. Remove the CEO from a factory or a service company for a month, it will keep going just fine. Remove all the front-line workers, the CEO won't produce jackshit and go bankrupt quickly.
@@Thalanna Man leaving out the extreme extreme outliers such as Gates and Bezos that are like the 0.000000001%, the great majority of the "1%" that's frequently mentioned is self made. If you search it up generally figures say around 80-90% of millionaires in the US are self made - generally self employed and involved in some form of business. Business creates jobs and stimulates investment and consumption as we know regardless of the scale were talking about. This expendable CEO u talk about is again a very small % of the population, literally negligible, but if you scale that down to the level of a small or even medium sized business owner (as it tends to be in the real world). You can't simply get rid of that business owner (or CEO) and expect the workers to keep it running smoothly, the whole business would fail without a leader. Now obviously if you get to the point where you're the CEO of a multinational corporation with thousands of employees its a different story, but that's not exactly an easy position to get to.
Somehow I read "A better way to eat the rich" and got all excited.
Useless and evil
De yh Vf jj “Eat the rich. The poor are tough and stringy.” -anonymous
The best way to eat the rich by far is medium rare with a pepper sauce.
Government Revenue = 4 Trillion
Government Spending = 5 Trillion or more
Its never enough. We need to cut spending
If wealth inequality was reduced, so would the need for government spending.
@@TheGinglymus Do you really believe this? Politicians ALL get rich so it doesn't add up when we continue to operate with a deficit. People getting wealthy helps the economy by creating legitimate jobs based on supply and demand, etc. Also, the real wealth inequality is more based on age than anything else--because Baby Boomers own more than 70 percent of the wealth. They earned it so doesn't make sense to take it away from them. Right now the US debt is 31 Trillion and the baby boomers combined wealth is 14 Trillion. The obvious problem is the government is out of control with spending and debt.
@@orlandorodriguez8507 we are talking about different countries. I'm English but it's still a similar situation. The UK is the most like America in Europe. Politics is slightly less run by money here. Also, government spending is not a bad thing as long as it's spent in the right way. Business needs infrastructure in which to operate and a well run society is better for business. All wealth is not earnt either and if trickle down theory was really true everything would be great now because there are some immensely wealthy people. If they were actually investing back into economy by better wages and new opportunities it would be good but they are not. They are buying up assets which is driving up prices and also extracting more money from ordinary people.
OR you can work hard and make your own money instead of trying to take others. Manage your money.
This reasoning is so mind-boggingly simplistic, compared to how insanely complex the economy is. :(
Anyone supporting a wealth tax needs to let go of their hate and not feel so jealous of someone who has more than themselves. Don't covet that which is your neighbor's.
When you tax alcohol, less people buy alcohol. When you tax sugar, less people buy sugar. When you tax being wealthy, less people become wealthy. Simple. A one way ticket to shrinking the economy.
so if we tax the poor then less people will be poor?
@@theneutralguy2317 Exactly. The Nordic country have the most regressive tax rate in the form of VAT and they have low poverty.
@@johnmaris1582 If you're a poor person who only earns 5,000$/year you would be taxed 10% of that (at least in income tax) and have only 4,500 $ left (if we don't count all the spending, which is at least 50% of that). When you tax the poor, more people will be poor (if you don't provide with those revenues something more than 2250 $). It is ignorant to just look at the Nordics and say they tax VAT (taxing poor) and they have low poverty, it is more like they have a lot of tax revenue so that they can fund a public welfare state that can help the poor more than the taxes take from them. Taxes are the expense people pay for a better society