In 1960, the top marginal tax rate was 91%, applying to income over $200,000 for single filers — equivalent to roughly $1.5 million in today’s dollars.
Any type of wealth tax is fairly trivial to evade at that level.
Factually incorrect. Taxing a billionaire’s wealth wouldn’t be dissimilar from what we already do with property taxes. All it requires is an assessment and we already do that as a matter of policy in most states.
Secondly, none of this is meaningless. Billionaires are the single biggest problem for most of the human race, and they are the biggest drivers behind climate change. Holding them accountable is essential.
Right. It’s not like they can on paper move their assets to whatever organization, estate, jurisdiction, subsidiary, shell company, offshore account, or arcane vehicles we never heard of, to avoid paying wealth taxes!
Edit: I’m not saying that a wealth tax for extremely high net worth individuals would be a bad thing. I would support that. I’m just saying that a wealth tax would never be enough to rein in the wealth and power of an oligarch, because they would be able to evade it.
Factually incorrect. Taxing a billionaire’s wealth wouldn’t be dissimilar from what we already do with property taxes. All it requires is an assessment and we already do that as a matter of policy in most states.
Secondly, none of this is meaningless. Billionaires are the single biggest problem for most of the human race, and they are the biggest drivers behind climate change. Holding them accountable is essential.
Right. It’s not like they can on paper move their assets to whatever organization, estate, jurisdiction, subsidiary, shell company, offshore account, or arcane vehicles we never heard of, to avoid paying wealth taxes!
Edit: I’m not saying that a wealth tax for extremely high net worth individuals would be a bad thing. I would support that. I’m just saying that a wealth tax would never be enough to rein in the wealth and power of an oligarch, because they would be able to evade it.