[clickety_clack]

I don’t agree with wealth taxes. The ultra wealthy will find the ways to avoid them and it will end up disproportionately landing on the middle class like everything else.

If it has to be done, it should be at the sources of the wealth so that they can’t be dodged. Things like property taxes, corporate taxes, taxation of stock buybacks (which is a way to pay dividends without paying income tax on them). The middle class will still be paying these, but at least the ultra wealthy will be contributing on their share of the wealth generation too.

[andriamanitra]

I don't see how a wealth tax that starts at $100M could possibly disproportionately (or at all) land on the middle class.

I'm sure the parasitic class will always find ways to partially dodge taxes but compared to income and capital gains taxes a strongly worded wealth tax would be much more difficult to avoid. We just need to be careful with the wording of the law to make sure lobbyists are not allowed to carve out any loopholes that can be abused by tax planners.

[EPWN3D]

1. Wealth tax happens on assets > 100M 2. Wealth > 100M flees jurisdictions where it could be taxes 3. No receipts on wealth tax 4. Wealth tax boosters need something to brag about, so they dial the limit down to 50M 5. Wealthy keep dodging 6. 50M becomes 25M, becomes 10M, becomes 1M 7. Definition of "wealth" is expanded to include things like home equity lines or credit, unexercised stock options, unvested RSUs

[clickety_clack]

Exactly. I think income tax was 1% when they introduced it and it impacted the top 1% to 2% of earners. Now look how much they’re taking from the rest of us.

[coredog64]

> taxation of stock buybacks (which is a way to pay dividends without paying income tax on them

I don't think you've got the mechanism correct here. If a corporation has cash, they can pay dividends which lands in the pocket of every shareholder equally. Or they can buy those shares back from shareholders who are willing to cash in. If I hold shares and don't sell in the face of a buyback, I'm not getting a dividend. Instead, my on-paper wealth has increased by the amount that the buyback juiced the price of my shares. If I do sell, then I pay short term capital gains (which are effectively the same rate as income tax) or long term capital gains (which are lower but probably not low enough to offset the extra tax created by inflation)

[clickety_clack]

No, I know exactly how the mechanism works. Right now if you get a dividend and reinvest in the stock, you pay income taxes, then you pay capital gains on the stock you buy with those dividends, albeit at a higher cost basis. Both buybacks and dividends are a means of transferring wealth to an investor, and buybacks are used because they are tax advantaged for investors, and investors like that.

It’s easier to “avoid” capital gains than it is to “avoid” income taxes by using things like trusts, borrowing against the stock, changing tax residency etc. Those loopholes should all be closed too, obviously, but a stock buyback is effectively a dividend under another name. It could be taxed that way if we wanted to do it. Then you’re taxing the wealth at source rather than trying to trace billionaires’ wealth around the world.

[lifestyleguru]

Middle class in Europe where?! In Germany in 1990s?