# Do conservatives genuinely not understand the liberal position on wealth? (Fox News oped) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337 "2019-08-27T21:21:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/141 "2019-09-02T14:50:03Z")
Speaking for myself: > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > • People should be allowed to keep the majority of the income they earn. There’s nothing special about a majority. However, somewhere between 70% and 90% there will be impacts to economic productivity, but studies don’t show that lower tax rates will cause people to work any less hard and thus drag down the economy. > [@](#): > > • Wealth, which is different than income as noted above, should not be taxed. > • Unrealised gains should not be taxed. We already have a wealth tax. I don’t see anything special about liquid assets as opposed to real estate. Unless we can eliminate the real estate tax which disproportionately hits the upper middle and lower upper classes, I don’t see a moral issue with doing the same for the ultrawealthy’s equities. > [@](#): > > • Some people are good at, and enjoy, making money. Absent other information about wrongdoing, there is nothing inherently wrong with these people. I think this is a double barrelled question, because financial success is a mixture of talent and opportunity. I don’t think that asking the ultrawealthy to pay their fair share of tax requires proving that they are worse people than the rest of us. > [@](#): > > • The creation of new wealth is chiefly through innovation and not exploitation. I agree. I think that the theoretical underpinnings of both capitalism and socialism are incorrect in these days of innovation. > [@](#): > > Also, while this is not a principle, I think that a lot of liberals think that taxing the ultra-high income earners a few percentage points more will reap a huge tax bonanza. Any meaningful income tax increase is going to have to hit the upper middle class. Depends on what you mean by “meaningful”. A tax increase on the ultrawealthy will not cure the deficit, but it would meaningfully reduce it. I agree that to solve American budget issues you do need to expand the tax increases beyond the ultrawealthy. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/142 "2019-09-02T16:25:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > “Pass the For the 99.8 Percent Act to establish a progressive estate tax on multi-millionaire and billionaire inheritances.” Unless we’re going to consider inheritance gained through murder as “earned”, this is about as clear a distinction between the OP’s two categories as one can imagine. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/143 "2019-09-02T16:30:11Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > New drinking game. > > Watch a Bernie Sanders speech. Every time he mentions something “free”, chug the other persons beer. New drinking game. Watch a Trump speech. Every time he lies, take a shot of everclear 190 proof. By the end of the speech, either what he’s saying will make sense or the person playing the game will be far beyond the point of caring about worldly affairs. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/144 "2019-09-02T16:47:22Z")
One little-mentioned aspect is that many conservatives view personal wealth as…personal, whereas many liberals view it as a public utility. Which is not to say that conservatives don’t believe the rich need to pay taxes, but many liberals view a billionaire’s wealth as “going to waste” if it’s sitting in his investment portfolio or bank accounts as opposed to being used to build highways, schools, hospitals, etc. They see someone’s wealth and think, “Imagine all the good we could do with that.” ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/145 "2019-09-02T16:51:46Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > One little-mentioned aspect is that many conservatives view personal wealth as…personal, whereas many liberals view it as a public utility. Which is not to say that conservatives don’t believe the rich need to pay taxes, but many liberals view a billionaire’s wealth as “going to waste” if it’s sitting in his investment portfolio or bank accounts as opposed to being used to build highways, schools, hospitals, etc. > > They see someone’s wealth and think, “Imagine all the good we could do with that.” Well… yes. Imagine that you could personally end world hunger without taking even the slightest hit to your standard of living. Even if you’re a totally amoral sociopath, surely just going down in history as “the guy who ended world hunger” should be enough of a carrot dangled in front of you, considering that your net worth is so obscene that even such an act would not significantly diminish your fortunes, right? Now imagine not doing that. Then you can sort of get into the headspace people like me get into when we see people like Jeff Bezos say [things like this](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jeff-bezos-thinks-his-fortune-is-best-spent-in-space-2018-05-01): “The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it.” Frankly, I think it’s obscene, but that’s just me. I think that if someone is in a position to do a great amount of good at very little personal cost and insists on _not_ doing it, they’re a shitty human being. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/146 "2019-09-02T18:05:53Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Speaking for myself: > > There’s nothing special about a majority. The majority is the point where I’m retaining more of my income than the government is taking. I don’t believe I should be paying miniscule taxes, but I think that every person, regardless of their level of income, is entitled to a greater share of their income than the government. > [@Ludovic](#): > > We already have a wealth tax. I don’t see anything special about liquid assets as opposed to real estate. Unless we can eliminate the real estate tax which disproportionately hits the upper middle and lower upper classes, I don’t see a moral issue with doing the same for the ultrawealthy’s equities. While I recognise it’s not a mainstream view, I’m personally opposed to property taxes. For one reason, the asset value of the property isn’t a measure of the wealth of the owner. If person A buys a property with cash, and person B takes out a 90% mortgage, person A has much more property wealth than person B, but they pay the same property tax. Person C buys shares instead of a property, and person D buys a Bugatti. Neither pay property tax. You can try and level the field by taxing equities and creating a luxury tax, but you’re ultimately going to be punishing savers and investors rather than spenders. > [@Ludovic](#): > > Depends on what you mean by “meaningful”. A tax increase on the ultrawealthy will not cure the deficit, but it would meaningfully reduce it. I agree that to solve American budget issues you do need to expand the tax increases beyond the ultrawealthy. I don’t feel like doing the math at the moment (maybe later), but suppose we define the rich as the top 1% of income earners, and set an income tax threshold at the level where the 99% top out. Suppose we raise the tax rate of this threshold by 5% over the next lower tax band. We’re getting an increase of 10’s of billions of government revenue, which I’m sure would be helpful. However, against a 4.75 trillion budget, we’re only paying for 1%-2% of that budget. And this is working at the highest margins of income above threshold. Expanding the definition of the rich to the top 2% is not going to double those 10’s of billions of government revenue. It would probably be a 10-20% rise. Each time we increase your percentage of what qualifies as rich, we’re getting a lower margin of income above threshold. At a guess, to achieve a tax revenue increase of 5% of that 4.75 trillion budget, we’d have to increase taxes on the top 10% of income earners. At that point, we’re hitting far more than the ultra-wealthy and we’re hitting the upper middle class earners. That might be a reasonable fiscal decision, but we’re not going to get huge government tax revenue increases by only going after the super-rich. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/147 "2019-09-02T18:26:08Z")
I calculated that we could get a similar amount just from the multibillionaires that are a small fraction of the 1%. The list of American billionaires is almost 1000 long so it wouldn’t surprise me if they had $2 trillion total net worth, and by assuming they earn around 5% on that money (probably more for stocks, less for other categories) they have an income of $100 billion which would yield taxes of $10 billion, since right now they’re paying _less_ on this money than everyone else, so we could easily alter it so they are paying only slightly _more_. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/148 "2019-09-02T19:48:39Z")
How do you think the multibillionaires, with their armies of tax attorneys and accountants, might react to your plan to extract more of their money from them? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/149 "2019-09-02T19:54:35Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > How do you think the multibillionaires, with their armies of tax attorneys and accountants, might react to your plan to extract more of their money from them? Of course I do know that some will fund more Trumps in the future, but there are multibilionares that are aware that not paying enough is leading to the end of what we understand as what America is actually great about and becoming more so. > **[Please Tax Us More, 19 U.S. Billionaires Plead In Letter To Presidential...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/billionaires-wealth-tax-letter_n_5d118736e4b07ae90da25162)** > > We "enjoy uncommon fortunes, but each of us wants to live in an America that solves the biggest challenges of our common future," notes the plea. > [@](#): > > Please Tax Us More, 19 U.S. Billionaires Plead In Letter To Presidential Candidates > We “enjoy uncommon fortunes, but each of us wants to live in an America that solves the biggest challenges of our common future,” notes the plea. > [@](#): > > “Instituting a wealth tax is in the interest of our republic … The next dollar of new tax revenue should come from the most financially fortunate, not from middle-income and lower-income Americans.” > > Signers included liberal philanthropist and financier George Soros and his son Alexander Soros, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, heiress Abigail Disney and “Anonymous.” > > They argue that the money raised — about $3 trillion over 10 years — could “substantially fund” investment in programs including clean energy, universal child care, infrastructure overhauls and tax relief for low-income families. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/150 "2019-09-02T19:58:57Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > How do you think the multibillionaires, with their armies of tax attorneys and accountants, might react to your plan to extract more of their money from them? Why should we, or you, be concerned with the welfare of those who can afford armies of tax attorneys and accountants? ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/151 "2019-09-02T21:51:30Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I calculated that we could get a similar amount just from the multibillionaires that are a small fraction of the 1%. The list of American billionaires is almost 1000 long so it wouldn’t surprise me if they had $2 trillion total net worth, and by assuming they earn around 5% on that money (probably more for stocks, less for other categories) they have an income of $100 billion which would yield taxes of $10 billion, since right now they’re paying _less_ on this money than everyone else, so we could easily alter it so they are paying only slightly _more_. How is that 5% being determined? Dividends? Definitely that income should be taxed. I’m pretty sure it currently is, at least for direct payments to the investor. Wealth from stock price increases? You’re going to force people to realise they’re investments - sell their shares before they’re wanting to - in order to pay for the stock going up. Probably that would lead to some sort of rebalanced equilibrium between share increases and dividends, but if there’s any volatility in the stock market, which there will be, finding that equilibrium on tax day is going to be impossible. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/152 "2019-09-02T22:04:07Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > How do you think the multibillionaires, with their armies of tax attorneys and accountants, might react to your plan to extract more of their money from them? There is no outcome that I can imagine that will be worse than the current state of things. To me, the worst case scenario is “they don’t pay it.” Tax attorneys and accountants are highly unlikely to set forest fires in protest - that’s not their style. Not even when they’re part of an army of CPAs & JDs. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/153 "2019-09-02T22:17:57Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > Wealth from stock price increases? You’re going to force people to realise they’re investments - sell their shares before they’re wanting to - in order to pay for the stock going up. Probably that would lead to some sort of rebalanced equilibrium between share increases and dividends, but if there’s any volatility in the stock market, which there will be, finding that equilibrium on tax day is going to be impossible. I’m not sure whether to tax unrealized gains, but if so then those effects for fungible equities could be tolerated (except the odd case of where an employee, even a high level one, has options that they are prevented from selling, which would make it not quite right to force them to pay taxes on them prematurely.). ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/154 "2019-09-02T22:29:58Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Of course I do know that some will fund more Trumps in the future, but there are multibilionares that are aware that not paying enough is leading to the end of what we understand as what America is actually great about and becoming more so. > > [Please Tax Us More, 19 U.S. Billionaires Plead In Letter To Presidential Candidates | HuffPost Latest News](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/billionaires-wealth-tax-letter_n_5d118736e4b07ae90da25162) OK, first off, what is a “2% marginal tax on assets”? Is that a 2% tax on the increase in the value of the assets? That’s an unrealised capital gains tax, not a wealth tax, although I suppose that’s quibbling. Nevertheless, if that’s what’s being proposed, are there any numbers to back that up? "The richest one-tenth of the richest 1%” raising their assets by 50 times $300 billion a year doesn’t pass the smell test. If the “marginal” is just a fluff adjective, and it’s an actual wealth tax, Warren’s basically proposing taking 20% of a person’s wealth above $50 million over the course of 10 years. So if someone has built up a successful business worth $150 million which has plateaued, Warren will force them to sell off $20 million in that business over a decade to pay their taxes. So someone earning only their salary is losing massive amounts in tax because their business has peaked. At that point, the owner would seek to divest the business in whatever way would disperse the ownership. Which sounds great in communistic terms. However, changes in ownership are fraught with risk. Warren’s proposal would basically devalue any family owned business above $50 million unless it was undergoing growth above 2%/year after tax. Also, where would the valuation come from? The stock market? ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2019, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/155 "2019-09-02T22:52:54Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I’m not sure whether to tax unrealized gains, but if so then those effects for fungible equities could be tolerated (except the odd case of where an employee, even a high level one, has options that they are prevented from selling, which would make it not quite right to force them to pay taxes on them prematurely.). I’m thinking more in terms of new money than old money, but the principle is the same. The government shouldn’t be forcing Mark Zuckerberg to sell his Facebook shares until he’s ready to. When he’s ready to diversify his holdings, he should pay tax on his realised gains. But based on ups and down in the stock market, where he’s not receiving any dollars? No. The same goes for the Waltons, owner of a large portion of Walmart corporation. If their stock is doing nothing from a price perspective, they shouldn’t be paying any taxes on that lack of price volatility. But if the price shoots up, the idea that they should pay taxes on a notional profit, without actual receiving any cash from a sale of stock, is simply penalising them for having money in equities, rather than cashing out and spending it. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/156 "2019-09-03T02:01:37Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > OK, first off, what is a “2% marginal tax on assets”? Is that a 2% tax on the increase in the value of the assets? That’s an unrealised capital gains tax, not a wealth tax, although I suppose that’s quibbling. Nevertheless, if that’s what’s being proposed, are there any numbers to back that up? "The richest one-tenth of the richest 1%” raising their assets by 50 times $300 billion a year doesn’t pass the smell test. > > If the “marginal” is just a fluff adjective, and it’s an actual wealth tax, Warren’s basically proposing taking 20% of a person’s wealth above $50 million over the course of 10 years. So if someone has built up a successful business worth $150 million which has plateaued, Warren will force them to sell off $20 million in that business over a decade to pay their taxes. So someone earning only their salary is losing massive amounts in tax because their business has peaked. At that point, the owner would seek to divest the business in whatever way would disperse the ownership. Which sounds great in communistic terms. However, changes in ownership are fraught with risk. Warren’s proposal would basically devalue any family owned business above $50 million unless it was undergoing growth above 2%/year after tax. > > Also, where would the valuation come from? The stock market? You know, this point sounds nonsensical when one takes into account that it is normal to give business owners a break if theirs efforts do peak. As in losing money. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/157 "2019-09-03T02:20:49Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > OK, first off, what is a “2% marginal tax on assets”? Is that a 2% tax on the increase in the value of the assets? That’s an unrealised capital gains tax, not a wealth tax, although I suppose that’s quibbling. Nevertheless, if that’s what’s being proposed, are there any numbers to back that up? "The richest one-tenth of the richest 1%” raising their assets by 50 times $300 billion a year doesn’t pass the smell test. Oh, and about this, saying insipid things such as not “passing the smell test” are silly when one can find with little effort who else does smell it positively. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/warren-wealth-tax-would-cost-bezos-4-1-billion-in-first-year](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/warren-wealth-tax-would-cost-bezos-4-1-billion-in-first-year) > [@](#): > > Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, would have to pay $4.1 billion in the first year under U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s soon-to-be proposed wealth tax, based on his current net worth of $137.1 billion. > > … > > Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, plans to propose a tax of 2 percent on those with assets of $50 million to $1 billion and 3 percent on all fortunes exceeding $1 billion, the Washington Post reported Thursday. The tax would raise $2.75 trillion over a decade from about 75,000 families, the newspaper said, citing an economist advising Warren on the plan. > **[Column: How much would Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax raise? Economists battle...](https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-wealth-tax-20190626-story.html)** > > One of the most pointless exercises beloved of our policymakers is nitpicking at a novel proposal in its earliest stages, as though the details are vastly more important than the concept. > [@](#): > > As Saez and Zucman observe, “It is not appropriate to assume that a Warren wealth tax would be as poorly enforced as the estate tax currently.” That’s true: A Congress and White House that enacted the wealth tax would make sure that enforcement would be part of the package. > > To some extent, the actual revenue numbers being debated by economists are beside the point even if, by the most minimalist figures offered by Summers and Sarin, the wealth tax would bring in a mere $250 billion over 10 years. > > The real point is that our tax structure has become a major contributor to wealth inequality in the U.S., as the signatories to the tycoons’ open letter acknowledge. > > We’ve relentlessly cut the top marginal rate on the richest Americans and endowed them with exemptions and loopholes that have fostered aristocratic family fortunes utterly alien to the America envisioned by our founding fathers. This trend hasn’t made America richer; it has just contributed to the stagnation of economic opportunity for the 99%. > > Warren’s concept is right: It’s time to stop allowing the rich to evade their fair share. The details will be worked out soon enough. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/158 "2019-09-03T05:09:45Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Oh, and about this, saying insipid things such as not “passing the smell test” are silly when one can find with little effort who else does smell it positively. > > [Bloomberg - Are you a robot?](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/warren-wealth-tax-would-cost-bezos-4-1-billion-in-first-year) > [Column: How much would Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax raise? Economists battle over the number](https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-wealth-tax-20190626-story.html) A wealth tax is so impractical and such a deal breaker I wouldn’t vote for any candidate who talks about one on total net worth. Even if they were against someone twice as nutty as Trump. If you own copyrights, patents, art, or other forms of wealth why would you pay a yearly tax on that? It’s bad enough paying real estate and car tax. If anything perhaps we should work on the repeal of all forms of wealth tax. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/159 "2019-09-03T05:18:57Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > A wealth tax is so impractical and such a deal breaker I wouldn’t vote for any candidate who talks about one on total net worth. Even if they were against someone twice as nutty as Trump. > > If you own copyrights, patents, art, or other forms of wealth why would you pay a yearly tax on that? It’s bad enough paying real estate and car tax. If anything perhaps we should work on the repeal of all forms of wealth tax. Again, this is really missing a lot just by noticing that a lot of people will not pay this tax. Are you a billionaire or a millionaire? ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2019, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337/160 "2019-09-03T06:14:19Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > You know, this point sounds nonsensical when one takes into account that it is normal to give business owners a break if theirs efforts do peak. As in losing money. You don’t really understand geographical analogies do you? Plateaus, peaks, and downward slopes are all different geographical features. Creditors will go after business owners if their business declines into unprofitability such that the business can’t pay its loans. Note the word decline. A feature that occurs beyond a peak. If the business owner is smart, he’ll diversify his holdings before that happens. Ideally, when the business is at a high point and has maximised its profit potential. In other words a peak. A wealth tax based on share price could force owners to sell their stock while the business was still increasing in value. The government is forcing the business owner to realise gains in share value at tax time, not when the owner makes the decision on when it’s best for himself and the business. I’m against that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-conservatives-genuinely-not-understand-the-liberal-position-on-wealth-fox-news-oped/839337.md?page=9)