- cross-posted to:
- capitalocene
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As much as I like this IN-KIND idea, we really need a society where no single person can hoard an obscene amount of wealth.
We can come to a consensus about what “enough” looks like, but it’s going to be far less than hundreds of millions, billions, or hundreds of billions of dollars.
There’s a lot of talk about how taxing share grants and stock options potentially harms innovation, as it impacts startup employees. Startup doesn’t have enough cash to attract top tier employees, so they’re offered stock grants as part of compensation which is fair enough. But if they’re taxed, and the stocks are illiquid (pre IPO), the employee is going to end up paying a whole bunch of tax on something that might, in the future, be worth a certain amount.
Collecting the taxes in-kind is a simple and incredibly obvious solution now that I see it.
conservatives like to float the idea of a national sales tax and im always fine with it provided it applies to all financial transactions. Honestly though the land value really seems good but I would like that to really replace all local taxes. Less tax for the person living in an efficiency condo in a complex and more for the mcmansions.
A sales tax disproportionately impacts people who are lower income, as a greater percentage of their earnings go towards purchasing essential goods - and defining exclusions for sales taxes is a whole exercise. Food, easy; heat, ok. But what if i heat with electricity and also drive with electricity? Should clothes be taxed? Where do we draw the line on what constitutes luxury clothing when people buy carhartt for very different reasons depending on their income source. What about diapers, people choose to buy disposables. Condoms? Period products are a shoe-in but what about cups or reusable panties?
I don’t hate the idea, but it is complex. Like most tax schemes…
it does not if all transactions are taxed. every stock and bond sale for instance.
I think this approach is a good step along the way.
But I also think we need a permanent moratorium on IPOs. The stock market is a vehicle for the rich first and foremost, and it is an inherently anti democratic institution. It needs to die, and such a moratorium would lessen the chaos of it’s death.
We also need a ban on corporate mergers. The stock market at least has the pretense of helping the workers through retirement accounts, but the same cannot be said of mergers.
If you remove the stock market, you end up with over the counter or even worse total back room trading of company stock. That disadvantages small shareholders much more then big ones. So owning large companies will be totally exclusive to the super rich, making the situation even worse then it is today.
We need a ban of companies buying other companies. That takes care of mergers.
However the real problem is the lack of proper high taxes for the wealthy. That has to change, so the wealthy can loose their wealth more easily.
If you remove the stock market, you end up with over the counter or even worse total back room trading of company stock
The whole point is that there slowly becomes no such thing as company stock. A precursor step for this is a requirement for all new companies to be employee owned non profits/coops.
We need a ban of companies buying other companies. That takes care of mergers.
However the real problem is the lack of proper high taxes for the wealthy. That has to change, so the wealthy can loose their wealth more easily.
We need all of the above.
Seeing Westerners rediscover wealth taxes is kinda funny when Muslims have all this stuff in a 1400 year old book.
Knowing about something and implementing it are two different things. The wealth tax was actively suppressed by the wealthy and there was no democracy to appeal the decision of the decision makers. Your idea that a thing exists and therefore it is now the new normal is naive.
Uh… Okay?
Your idea that a thing exists and therefore it is now the new normal is naive.
My idea as stated where? I’m not treating wealth taxes as normal but rather as obvious, and am not sure how your reply is relevant to my comment.
Lots of religions have, Islam is not unique
Wait really? Which?
