Typical trickle-down claptrap. Taxation doesn’t destroy wealth, it spreads it around. Beyond that, government jobs are jobs and government subsidies are investments. The only difference is they’re investments stewarded by We The People and (hopefully) in our general interest rather than by one antisocial narcissist stictly for his own.
Does the following logic fallacy have a name?
Example 1:
[INDENT]A. Handling a kilogram of nitroglycerin is very dangerous.
B. Therefore you shouldn’t put 5 milligrams of nitroglycerin under your tongue when suffering angina.
Example 2:
A. A 90% wealth tax would be hugely disruptive to entrepreneurship.
B. Therefore a 1% wealth tax would also be hugely disruptive.[/INDENT]
I’ve no strong view on a wealth tax one way or the other, but the quality of debate would improve if we would avoid fallacies like the above.
Are you an advocate of “Modern Monetary Theory”?
The argument for a wealth tax is based on the notion that a society might want to afford food and education for poor children, and other services that the public wants; and want to obtain the funds without allowing debt or inflation to skyrocket. Many of us would want such “investment” even without attempting to quantize the “return on capital.”
That’s true of any tax. All taxes have deadweight loss. Pointing that out is insufficient to argue that a particular tax should not be implemented. You have to show that the loss will overwhelm the benefits. The benefits, again, are public goods provided by the government and the prevention of social bads that result from massive inequality.
I’m not following this logic. If the stock sale is anticipated in the near(ish) future, the value of the stock should decrease, because the expected result of a large future sale of stock is that there will be lots more supply for anyone who wants to buy Samsung stock which will drive down the price.
Yes but WAG : if they dump enough stock then the controlling share of the stock might be up for grabs, which means parties seeking to secure control of Samsung want to start stocking up right now ; while speculators might hope that said parties will pay a lot for the last few shares they’re missing.
Could be.
It’s not a very impressive point for the “wealth taxes will destroy value” side of the argument if a forced sale actually drives up the price in anticipation of a hostile takeover. If markets are efficient, that means that Samsung’s current use of capital is not the best way it could be used.
In that way, wealth taxes could actually increase economic efficiency, the same way that they do with real property.
One reason we tax property is to make sure that the land is used for a high-value use. You don’t want (for example) land in central Manhattan used as farmland, so you tax it enough that someone using it for a low-value purpose will be forced to sell it to a skyscraper developer who will make better use of it.
Apparently the same works for other property (which makes sense). Letting the main owner of a big company just pass all that wealth to their kids isn’t very economically efficient. Force some market transactions via taxation and other players come in to make better use of it.
Score one for the wealth taxers. 
Quick and rough run down of the major factors in calculating net wealth for a Norwegian citizen:
Public stocks: Valued at 75% of their market price as of january 1st of the tax year.
Non-public stocks: Valued at 75% of the of the proportional share of the stock company’s net wealth calculation as of January 1st of the tax year.
Stock pools and stock saving accounts: Valued at 80% of their value as of January 1st of the tax year.
Bank deposits and obligations: Valued at 100% as of january 1st of the tax year.
Cash: Amounts above $300 valued at 100%.
Debts: Deducted at 100% of value
Domiciles: Primary domicile valued at 25% of sale value, holiday domicile at 30%, secondary domiciles at 90%.
Net wealth of between 0 and 1 480 000* NOK (USD 162 000) is taxed at 0%.
Net wealth of between 1 480 000* NOK and over is taxed at 0,85% of the value over the overflowing amount. I.e if you have net wealth of 1 500 000 you pay 0,85% in wealth tax of 20 000 NOK.
- For spouses who file jointly, twice these amounts.
Missed my edit window.
Owned items: Initial appraisal at their insurance rate. (Replacement price) Deduction of 1 000 000 NOK, 20% value on the amount between 1 000 000 to 1 400 000 NOK and 40% value on any amount above 1 400 000 NOK.
Keep in mind that the value here is not the tax rate, it is added to your net wealth and your net wealth is what is taxed at 0,85% above a 1 480 000 NOK floor.
I.e. if I had a Munch valued at 1 400 000 NOK by the insurance appraiser and nothing else, it would add 20% of the value above 1 000 000 NOK, or 80 000 NOK, to my net wealth.
If that amount was what exceeded my 1 480 000 minimum deduction, I would be taxed 0,85% of 80 000 NOK, or 680 NOK, for it.