Assuming billionaires were going to get a special tax, how would you actually determine how much to tax them? Sure some would be straightforward like Musk where it’s entirely derived from a few companies with known ownership stakes, but what about all the others?
We don’t even know the names of most of the billionaires. With all the games they can play to hide money, now made even easier thanks to the changes Trump made in his first few months, how would you even figure out who and what amount to tax? They don’t have a normal salary or easily documented income like everyone else.
Yes, but you’ll only pay like a thousand a year on those savings, and your costs will go down to 30,000 thanks to improved infrastructure, healthcare, etc.
That’s insanely stupid. You already pay taxes from your income and you pay taxes spending money. No ken should ever be taxed on money they have saved. Ever.
Nope, not only is it not stupid, it is pretty much the best possible taxation system unless your explicit goal is to keep poor people poor and rich people rich.
So YOU would be okay with the government taxing your savings account? Even though that money was already taxed? That is inssaaaaaane dude
So I actually currently live in a country which has this. Income taxes are correspondingly very low and public services are extremely good. So it’s not just that I would be okay with it, I am very satisfied with the arrangement, yes. You seem preoccupied with some kind of religious sanctity of your “savings account” without actually considering what the implications of such a policy are, that’s too bad.
I don’t think you understand then… see we get a paycheck which is taxed for states and federal. So that money was taxed already. In my example I said you can save $10,000 a year…you are saying that money should be taxed a second time. Which is absolutely wild to me and probably anyone who lives in the US. If that was the case people would be keeping cash in their homes in safes.
No, I understand just fine, we have income taxes here too, they’re just lower. This means that the tax system is fairer because richer people pay more. It also means that people are more incentivised to work, to contribute to the economy, and to invest. I don’t really see what something being taxed a first or second time has to do with anything. What matters is the overall tax burden, which although hard to calculate exactly, is lower here for the large majority of people but distributed more towards richer people - not those with more income but those with more wealth. It may be true that Americans would freak out about such a thing, but that is merely due to quasireligious ideas about taxation from national myth propaganda, not about the actual effect it would have on their lives, and it reveals fundamental defects in the American character.
If you could save 5,000 more but pay 2,000 more, why wouldn’t you want to take that deal? Putting it under your mattress and pretending you don’t have it is the worst idea, the wealth tax is less than the interest rate, so you can always just buy bonds and at least not lose any money like you would holding cash.