Donald Trump (yes, i know he’s a boob, and doesn’t stnad a chance of being elected…) has proposed the following: a one-time 14.5% tax on the net worth of the wealthiest americans. He claims this would raise trillions of dollars and eliminate our country’s debt.
Disregarding your political philosophies, would this work? I would gather that most of the wealthiest peoples’ assets are tied up in various assets of one sort or another. This would require liquidizing them. Wouldn’t a mass liquidation (tons of real estate, stock, etc cashed in at once) devalue these assets to such an extent as to cause havoc in the economy? a stock market crash? who would be able to buy all this stuff? bill gates would be too busy trying to unload hundreds of millions of shares of microsoft stock to buy one of steve wynne’s casinos.
It would “work” for a while, in that it would raise a given amount of money, but giving poor people money doesn’t make them rich. - It’s flashy, but has no substance: typical “The Donald” brainwork, as I understand it. - MC
“Does this mean women will all get paid in dresses?”
Interesting, but not really equal taxation now is it ? A one time net worth tax could be applied over a number of years so that the rich didn’t have to liquidate everything at once. But still you’re taking that amount of money out of the economic circle and applying it towards the debt, which in some cases means it is going to go to overseas financial institutions that are holding the debt. So instead of Gates money being invested in US stocks it gets sent overseas. The question is will the same amount of money that is taken from the rich still be used as investment capital or spending capital in the domestic market or will a sizable enough amount be sent overseas to cover debt that the economy will suffer? I would like to see the numbers of US debt holders that are foreign institutions and individuals and their holdings. If this is a large percentage then much of this tax will be going overseas, not that it wouldn’t if it was paid off at the current schedule anyway. I still don’t like the idea that the rich have to pay a one time tax on net worth. It would definately discourage capital investment for the time that it would take for the tax to be paid and that can’t be a good thing either. The reason he proposed this is that he knows the only way to rid the country of debt is to raise taxes and the only way to get elected on a platform like that is to tax the smallest portion of a democracy. The problem is that the smallest in this regard is one of the strongest in financial terms, which leads me to believe that he really has no chance of getting elected.
Such a plan would be a complete disaster. If you forced the rich to liquidate their stocks, bonds, real estate, etc., all of these markets would suffer IMMEDIATE and major declines. In fact, this madness would probably bring on a massive crash in the stock market. Yes , Virginia, there are rich people-but VERY few of them are like Daddy Warbucks (with vaults full of cash!)
If it were on a one-year basis, the very rich would find ways to “hide” their assets (most of those assets are now in trusts, anyway, to avoid estate taxes). So the measurement would have to be over several years, and the tax itself imposed over several years (at 2% per year over five years, for instance, to avoid the market crashes).
No question that a one-time tax of that magnitude would be a crushing blow to the economy.
Also, is there not a matter of principle here? (Not to mention principal)… Namely, those assets were taxed at one time when they first appeared as income; isn’t this double taxation? and does that set an ugly precedent (and Mr Trump would himself be an ugly president)
I earlier had a plan to pay off the national debt.
It involves the businesses of this country. The total gross revenue of all the businesses in this country was something like 100 Trillion for a year. If we did a 5% total tax of this revenue for one time, it would net over 5 trillion dollars or so to pay off the debt. The problem is even if it worked, small businesses would get soaked and some would have to go out of business. Also, if it worked once for gov’t what is to stop them from doing it again.
Also, we know that whenever we tax businesses we are really taxing ourselves, because the businesses will pass the tax on to us.
I do not like this plan either. Of course Donald will not get elected, but will some other politicians run with this idea.
Do you really believe that the vast majority of voters would not vote for such an idea. After all, they are no where near the $10 million mark. What do they care? It is like free money.
I read in the paper the other day that 62% of all income tax payed to the federal government is payed by 8% of the population. Now, I am nowhere near this bracket, and I would still not support any such kind of capital tax.
However: there is no reason to think any more capital would leave the country. Most of the debt of this country is owned by Americans (we pay interest to ourselves). Also, the richest people all have very diversified holdings so when they liquidated they would be taking money out of foreign markets as well as domestic and paying it in taxes. I suspect that a number of US citizens would renounce their citizenship, however. This is actually fairly safely accomplished, and I believe Cecil wrote an article on it. The gist of it is you go to Canada, renounce citizenship at the embassy, and cross back into the States. You still have your state drivers license so you will get back in, and you don’t need a SS# cause you are stinking rich and don’t need a regular job. You could still pay capital gains taxes on your equity (I think, at least some of it) but you wouldn’t pay this flat tax.
http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Basics/Balanced_Budget/How_Bad_Is_the_Deficit.html
“In 1995, 23.5 percent of the $3.6 trillion Debt Held by the Public, more than $848 billion, was held by central banks and private investors overseas. The percentage of “the public” that is foreign has risen dramatically over the past decade, and shows no signs of subsiding.”
“Last year we paid an estimated $11 billion or more in foreign debt service. In other words, $11 billion went out of the country, and out of the hands of our children”
It also goes on to say this isn’t necessarily a bad idea according to some economists.