this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Honestly I can never tell if these tweets are real or not
I'll make the same argument that I made in another thread, but now that I've got Bernie on my side, maybe people will listen.
TAXING THE RICH DOESN'T MEAN RAISING THE TAX RATES.
It means regulation, oversight, and accountability. You can set the tax rate to any number you want, but it won't matter if no one is making them pay it. We have to hold them accountable first, and then we can bring the rates back up to something from the pre-Reagan era.
Funny that trump is trying to get rid of regulation, oversight, and accountability.
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I agree the rich aren't being taxed right now, but why argue on what the phrase does or doesn't mean instead of argue how it can best be achieved? Or like Bernie does, argue why it is necessary?
Also
Tax wealth, not work
That's kinda why the rich are called "the wealthy" and not "the worky"
TAX WEALTH, NOT WORK
Everytime I hear arguments against wealth tax, gift tax, property tax or inheritance tax. It's the same argument, it's unfair towards the people who has worked all their life and want to leave their already taxed money to their family.
In Norway we have no inheritance tax and no tax on gifts. Most people have no taxes on homes either. We do have some wealth tax.
My main issue with the arguments against it is that its is lacking imagination. We make the rules, we can decide to make it fair. We can set a limit for when taxation occurs at a really high number. Just so that 98% of Norwegians get zero taxes on these things.
Zero taxes for inheritance up to 1 000 000 euros and then 75% on every euro above. Is possible.
Zero taxes on gifts up to 50 000 euros a year is possible.
No taxes on homes worth less than 1 000 000 is possible.
Bringing wealth with you when you permanently move out of the country is possible for values less than 5 000 000 euros for instance.
Then adjust for inflation every year (like we do with many of our welfare systems)
If we do this we can get rid of the wealth tax that the rich hate so much (because they are disadvantaged owners compared to owners of businesses in other countries)
No regular people will feel these taxes at all, and they make sure that the wealth is distributed over time. It's still possible to get rich, and remain rich. But your children can be rich but not insanely rich.
Exactly what the rates should be is up for debate, but this system is in my opinion a better one.
You can take this a step further and ask why we have this aggregation of wealth at all. Private wealth consolidation is a form of malinvestment resulting from a handful of individuals who are told they can effectively loot the economy unchecked.
Taxation "solves" the problem by clawing back some of that malinvestment. But if you recognize it as malinvestment from the outset, you can see arguments against having these private aggregators of wealth at all.
Instead of taxes, why not simply impose a maximum income? In baseball, you'd call it a salary cap.
if there was a maximum income people would still bitch and whine about those with mansions aquired through non monetary means.
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Of course, but we are as a society so far away from that. It requires a bigger cultural shift than we are anywhere near. Even the thought of an inheritance tax is very unpopular.
Yes, even as a very social democratic country with a highly educated populace, we can be pretty stupid about taxes.
Also most really rich people have their wealth in assets and make their money as gains on those assets. So it does not really tax the most important people, except maybe some C-suites.
You can index the values to a multiple of the median salary instead of a fixed number.
This is in Norwegian, but most services is based on this number https://www.nav.no/grunnbelopet
Which currently is 124 028 NOK which is roughly 10 350 euros.
This number is referenced as G (Grunnbeløpet)
So for instance if I lose my job I can get up to 62.4% of a salary up to 6G. Which is the maximum.
Meaning the maximum payout is 744 168 (6G) * 0.624 = 464 360 NOK.
We have tons of calculations like this for all sorts of welfare services.
Every year in may this number is adjusted.
In the U.S. gift tax is exempt on the first $14 million you give. You just have to submit a tax form when you file your taxes. So someone can gift each of their 5 grandchildren a million dollar house, and then give them $1.8 million dollars in cash each before they die. And avoid any gift tax on any of that. Then get taxed an inheritance tax. There is no Federal inheritance tax. Which if you live in a state like Tennessee where I live, the inheritance tax is 0%. So you have now avoided paying any taxes passing down any amount of wealth you potentially have. If you are a billionaire and have an accountant that can't figure out how to bypass paying taxes you or they must be willfully choosing to do so in the U.S.
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What irks me the most is that you have more than you could ever want or need. Like water. You are sitting on a well of decalitres. In a desert. And everyone is dying of thirst. And some guy says “hey man, you need to give back like 20% of that. And that’s kinda lowkey generous tbh.” And their response is literally like “no.”
Just. When is that rocket to the sun scheduled for completion already???
Uh I don't thing deciliter is the unit you want lol
I’m stunned people still do this. In 2025.
What does have to do with it? I had no idea what scale you meant because I'd forgotten the extremely rarely used prefix deca. Plus even decaliters isn't really a lot when talking about hoarding water. Maybe literal cubic meters.
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the importance of charity is that it is voluntary, taking advantage to tax loopholes is the closest that tax ever gets to charity.
And some guy says “hey man, you need to give back like 20% of that. And that’s kinda lowkey generous tbh.” And their response is literally like “no.”
Beyond every great fortune is a great crime.
Why would you think the modern day Robber Barons could be swayed by social need? If they cared about social need, they wouldn't be billionaires to begin with.
Why would you think the modern day Robber Barons could be swayed by social need?
If they need say first aid or a blood transfusion or the mob to stop beating them to death I think they could be persuaded to understand that we live in a society.
Oh sure. But then they wouldn't be Robber Barons so much as they'd be French Aristocracy on Bastille Day. Totally different position.
And even then, when Robespierre had King Louis by the balls, what did Marie Antoinette do? Austrian mercenary jailbreak.
"I'd rather fight to the death to keep my yacht than let anyone else have public health care" is just hardwired into some of these people.
That’s even stranger to me. That the one true sign of immorality and a lack integrity is literally wealth. Oh you got wealth? Yeah you’re 99.5% probably a POS. And there is a .5% chance of error.
I think you gotta check your math there. I think you meant to say 100.5% with a 0.5% error.
From his wiki:
In the 1980s, Icahn developed a reputation as a "corporate raider" after profiting from the hostile takeover and asset stripping of Trans World Airlines.
Tax the rich? Its far too late for that
I remember being in uni when George W got elected the first time. I recall my uni friends were saying there's no point taxing the rich because they'll always find another loop hole. I guess we should realize they'd never stop. They're never like, "hmm that's enough".
Sound like the time to tax the rich was from 2016 to 2024. It's now time to do something else
I posted it in another reply, but what the heck, why not do it again?