Taxes on everyday Europeans bring in 13 times more revenue than taxes on wealth

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/taxes-everyday-europeans-bring-13-times-more-revenue-taxes-wealth

by pera • 2 years ago

23 13 2 years ago

A petition supported by 0.06% of the population... Doesn't seem like it's popular... They're also mixing together income and wealth taxes.

pera• 2 years ago

Maybe people are not aware of it? My previous two submissions regarding this initiative were quickly flagged, while this submission (which only mentions the initiative) was demoted.

Taxing great wealth to finance the ecological and social transition https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/20...

rlpb• 2 years ago

When the author says "ordinary Europeans...bring in 13 times more revenue than taxes on wealth", they seem to use this to justify a conclusion that we should therefore tax wealthy people more.

But I think what this reasoning misses is the minor effect increasing taxes on the wealthy would actually have. I think the proportion of people who are wealthy is so exceedingly small (in proportion) that even if they were to pay tax at 90%, the majority of tax revenue would still come from the average income masses. There are too few of them to move the needle.

Therefore, the argument that we should tax the wealthy more because of this statistic doesn't hold water.

gjsman-10003• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, people are often ignorant of both how wealthy the billionaires literally are... and at the same time, how much of a drop in the bucket it is to government spending.

If we seized 100% of every billionaire's net worth and managed to liquidate their stock at market rates without causing a shock (impossible), we would theoretically gain $14.2 trillion. Note that this is for all billionaires worldwide, not just the US.

$14.2 trillion is a mountain of money. On the other hand, it's only enough to pay for US government operations for a little over 2 years.

bombcar2• 2 years ago

There's also the consideration that taxing the milk lasts a lot longer than taking the cow and selling it, once.

DEADMEAT• 2 years ago

It's not the proportion of the population that is wealthy that matters, it's what proportion of the total wealth that they have. From the article, "In 2022, the wealthiest 1 percent held a quarter of the net personal wealth in the EU." So if you are taxing the 'poor' 99% of people, you are only accessing 75% of the taxable wealth.

tharmas2• 2 years ago

What about LOWERING taxes on productive activities (e.g. making things) and RAISING taxes on asset acquisition (e.g. buying up real-estate, land)?

And no more QE for asset acquisition, only for productive activities.

tharmas2• 2 years ago

Tax speculation not productive activity. Tax asset accumulation.

Taxes on everyday Europeans bring in 13 times more revenue than taxes on wealth

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