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Be brave and impose minimum tax on world’s billionaires, urges Spanish minister (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave to c/world

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

Spain’s economy minister, Carlos Cuerpo, is urging G20 nations to support a global wealth tax on billionaires, targeting a 2% minimum tax on assets to raise $250 billion annually.

Backed by Brazil, France, and Germany, the initiative aims to fund climate action and green investments.

Cuerpo highlighted growing public demand for wealth redistribution, especially as climate crises worsen, like Spain’s recent deadly floods.

The proposal mirrors the global minimum tax on multinationals and seeks international coordination to overcome political resistance from wealthy elites and lobbyists.

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[–] givesomefucks 56 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

Everytime we talk about taxing them, we hear "they'll leave if we tax them!"

But they fucking won't, and even if they do, it's as simple as a "tax dodger law" when the wealthy enter the country.

There's not many billionaires. If first world countries said if you have a billion in net worth, it now costs 100k/day in taxes to be in their country...

It's not like the billionaires will really live in isolation. Hell, they won't even really go thru with moving legal residence out of the country that made them a billionaire.

Either they move the permanent residence where they'll actually spend their time, or they can pay the 100k/day to be there and not pay the taxes they should be.

Edit:

For America specifically, we have the "exit tax" already...

https://1040abroad.com/blog/exit-tax-explained-a-us-expats-guide-to-expatriation-tax/

It's not the best, and it doesn't stop millionaires from leaving, but it's a big reason US Billionaires never renounce US citizenship, even tho we're like the only country who taxes income from foreign countries.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Also never understood the “they’ll leave if we tax them!” argument

If they stay and we keep tax laws minimal and unenforced or easily evaded ... then billionaires don't pay tax

If they leave ... then billionaires don't pay tax

All the incentive is there to just tax them because no matter what you do with them .. they won't pay tax ... so its better to just give them a good excuse to leave because they are just a drain on the economy

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

“You owe us money!”

“No”

“Oh, okay”

[–] fcuks 2 points 1 month ago

Competelly agree with your points' intention here, but if billionaires leave a country and take their wealth elsewhere, then it's not being invested in that country, which is detrimental. Also they're not spending money on luxury items or lots of whatever billionaire stuff, paying tax on that and circulating a portion of their wealth in that country etc.

So it's more like:

billionaires stay in the country, spend and invest in the country and don't pay tax vs billionaires leaves they dont spend invest, nor pay tax.

My 50pence is there shouldn't be billionaires in the first place, why does any one individual need that much wealth, it just accumulates more wealth and a lot gets hoarded away from anything productive.

[–] FlashMobOfOne 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Solid points all around.

Further, even if it would be largely ineffectual (which it won't), we should make it inconvenient for billionaires to dodge taxes, just as some states make it inconvenient to obtain guns.

[–] givesomefucks 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yep.

It's been a busy couple years, but the Panama Papers never really led to anything.

We know "they" are doing this, it's not even an ambiguous "they" because of that story, we have names and evidence of the wealthy breaking laws to dodge taxes. But we just didn't do anything because those people also tend to give a shit ton of money to both parties.

A single unimportant person got four years in the US and two lawyers got four months in Brazil.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/panama-papers.asp

But none of the wealthy dodging taxes was held accountable. Hell, the leaks named dozens of former and current world leaders.... Why would they hold themselves accountable?

As much as I care about politics, we need to start coming to the hard realization that it's just a distraction so the wealthy can stall till they can just buy robots instead of paying people.

That's the clock for taxing the wealthy. The need for human soldiers and manufacturing.

If we don't beat that clock, then humanity as we know it is fucked.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

This is also a proposed wealth tax not just an income tax, the US would probably do something like tax US citizen ultimate beneficial ownership of assets held which can be traded on US exchanges, so unless someone entirely divests there isn't a legal tax avoidance strategy apart from the exit tax.

Honestly 2% on billionaires is too low imo. I'm in favor of starting lower and having a progressively increasing marginal wealth tax, like 1% on all assets over $10M, additional 1% on all assets over $100M, etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

And importantly, isn't that the point of proposing a global wealth tax? Unless they plan on taking their wealth to Mars, they'll be stuck paying in, were everyone to play along.

Yes, I know, wishful thinking, but that is the proposal.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Citizens of rich countries are too busy bickering about refugees. They are so easy to distract.

[–] undergroundoverground 5 points 1 month ago

Tbf, those same billionaires are pretty powerful but yeah, you're right and it's tragic.

[–] homesweethomeMrL -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Brave

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Thoughts and prayers 🥰