Time to start taxing them on perceived income, based on lifestyle.
How do they get credit cards?
Because the years between jobs where my income is $1, I can’t get cards. And the companies don’t care that I have over 1 million dollars in the bank. The algorithms just see the dollar income and DENY.
People who have the money to do these tricks also have financial advisers and lawyers and they just call up the card companies and get special cards. They do not have to follow the same rules that you do.
I guess you speak to them in person instead to their algorithms?
I call. The person just says “computer says no”
They’d just call or more likely text the ceo of the bank. Then their respective teams would figure out the rest.
They don’t. They take out loans for money.
I don’t believe they don’t have credit cards
Often they don’t actually use the cards themselves, paying is the job of an assistant so its more likely to be some sort of company credit card.
Heres Rishi Sunak completely failing to get how contactless works, literately the simplest process to pay for something, you don’t need a PIN or put the card into the machine, you just tap the card reader. Its like hes never paid for anything in his life before.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/rishi-sunak-contactless-fail-video-b2043035.html
to keep their riches
Avoiding paying taxes is different than keeping your own wealth. What they do is more like stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars every year, literally from hungry kids in need.
the solution is to eliminate income taxes, and replace them with a national Land Value Tax on business properties, excise taxes and fines on anything that causes “negative externalities” (aka pollutants), and fees on every equities market transaction. That way these are way harder to avoid, and don’t depend on self reporting
Georgism? On my Lemmy? Based
While I agree with taxing the rich more, I think placing a recurring tax on static assets is the wrong way to do it.
I mean it already happens to ordinary folks. Even after paying off your mortgage, you still have to pay property taxes every year, and if you fail to comply they can seize the land that you supposedly own. Not only is this a detriment to the working class (at least, if we can manage to fix the system to the point where the working class can afford to buy houses again), but it also cultivates this mentality in which “landowners pay the public coffers, so the local governments are here to serve the landowners.”
I think a radical tax reform bill which shifts the burden of taxation back to the ultra-wealthy and corporations should have a one-time wealth tax that’s assessed to equalize the playing field and make up for decades of cronyism and corrupt supply-side economic policy letting businesses and oligarchs get away with not paying their fair share. After that, the bulk of tax revenue each year should come from capital gains.
i.e. if your net worth was a million dollars last year and you didn’t do any profiteering activities so it stays a million dollars this year, you don’t get taxed on the same wealth a second time. Otherwise rich people would never be able to abandon the toxic “grow or die” mindset, which is a false dichotomy as long as static wealth is only taxed once.
But if you have a billion dollars, and you make ten million dollars this year, then you’re taxed on those ten million dollars. You keep five million, the public gets five million, everybody’s happy. If any billionaire isn’t satisfied with making $5,000,000 in one year after taxes, then they’re irredeemably greedy and just need to get over it.
(Realistically if they have a billion dollars then they’re probably making at least fifty million (5% APY is a fairly conservative investment), and should pay the same tax bracket or higher).
There could also be a wealth cap, say at ten billion. There’s no legitimate reason anyone would even need that much, so they can’t complain that they’re being oppressed when anything above that amount gets seized by the public at the end of the tax year and used to fund education, healthcare, affordable housing, social work, job coaching, and nutritional assistance for all those people they’ve impoverished by exploiting in order to build their corporate empires on the backs of.
In addition to that, I agree that there should be hefty fines for any “externalized” costs, at least enough that it actually costs them less to comply with regulations and so there’s no incentive to just continue breaking the law and write off the fines as the cost of doing business.
Several repeated violations egregious enough should also result in prison sentences. Billionaires shouldn’t be allowed to get away with white collar crimes just because they can afford to get away with it.
your first concern is exactly why I noted that only business properties were to be taxed - in my idealistic proposal no ones primary residence (aka homestead) would ever be subjected to this, although perhaps secondary vacation homes could be. Noting that a Land Value Tax only taxes based on assessments of the market value of the unimproved land, so that it does not disincenttivize businesses from making improvements or developing on their land, as the tax stays the same regardless. In fact an LVT incentivizes businesses not to just sit on empty or decaying lots.
Billionaires aren’t the only ones who do that. Anyone that owns their own business, plumbers, carpenters, electricians and etc do things to reduce their salary. Have the company buy your vehicle, rent them their house etc.
Not the same. The working class works/contributes for a living by definition. Billionaires live off others money via loans they pay off… with more loans.
Hard-working people are just taking advantage of the immoral tax legislation that Sociopathic Oligarchs have bought, not the other way around. They’re using it, why shouldn’t we? If they don’t like us using their tax rules, they are welcome to give them up.
So any shareholders who do not need to sell can make a profit from their stock going up in value and do not need to pay taxes on this profit.
Uh, they do when they sell it, bucko
They don’t sell, they take loans instead:
At some point, one might expect that the ultrawealthy would have to sell their shares to finance their lifestyle. Do they? In selling those shares, wouldn’t they have to pay a capital gains tax?
For most of us, when we own property or stock that has increased in value, it doesn’t mean anything to us unless we sell it. But those with great wealth can access that wealth without paying taxes by simply borrowing against their assets. And that is what our richest Americans do.
Billionaires like Larry Ellison and Elon Musk borrow huge sums of money to support their lifestyle, pledging their stock as collateral. This borrowing is entirely tax-free and comes at good rates. In addition, in recent years the growth in stock value more than compensatesfor any interest that might accrue. To pay the interest and pay back the loans, they simply borrow again.
Sounds like that loophole should be addressed, then.
“WHY WOULD I PAY INTEREST ON MONEY I ALREADY HAVE MIKE?!?” - a moron
Great. Let them pay now instead, bucko. Surely if there already going to pay taxes they won’t mind.
