Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduces "ultra-millionaire" wealth tax bill

I doubt you on that.

In my state of WA, i'm pretty sure that kind of tax goes to the general fund.

You can be realatively confident that these taxes are NOT used to help people that directly.

I mean heaven forfend that some family that is food insecure gets some help back onto its feet.

 

exactly. it all goes into the general fund.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...settlement,state's general fund, Fradkin said.

 

again, your desire to support all things Democrat appears to drive you to not discussing the topic

Allow me to make it as clear as possible

Do you support the Warren proposal where the govt determines who has "too much", and to take some of that wealth?

Do you understand that this is not income tax, but taking wealth which was already accumulated?

If you really believe that to be the role of govt, then come right out and say it and discuss the proposal.

 

So, Item 2.

No one is restricted from having access to the 'loopholes' that you claim are 'unavailable'. However, people ARE restricted from access to certain tax credits available to lower income groups. Just saying.

3. According to your phrasing on #3, you believe it is the government's right to decide how much wealth someone is entitled too. Not by a percentage of income, but the same wealth, taxed over and over again. What happens if someone has to sell the 'wealth' to satisfy the tax upon it? Is it still taxable?

 

Allocating that money for Medicaid/Medicare for smoking related disease is probably a good expenditure.

However, there ARE other valid expenditures, such as working toward ending smoking.

Funding the slow, agonizing deaths of smokers isn't solving the real problem.

 

And why? They are NOT a highly profitable company, you do know the difference between it's value and it's profits? We tax one but not the other. They are also a company that takes those profits and expand with them. When you do that, build new buildings, buy new sortation equipment, buy new trucks, buy new computer systems to operate everything you write off those EXPENSES. There is nothing nefarious or illegal or unethical or even unfair about it.

 

The arrogant greed is on the part of Warren and those who support this idea. What is wrong, it will require a constitutional amendment like the income tax did. It is virtually unenforceable and would have things tied up in courts for decades trying to assess all these net worth's to tax. It would be ripe with avoidance. Those few countries who have tried this most including France ended them because of the afore mentioned problems.

And how is she going to fund this huge boondoggle?

"IRS Funding The bill proposes to increase the IRS’s funding by $100 billion over the next ten years. To put this in perspective, the IRS’s FY 2021 budget is $11.92 billion, up by $409 million from FY 2020. Warren’s bill would nearly double the agency’s funding for FY 2022, and leave it nearly ten times bigger by 2031.

What’s more, the bill stipulates that 70 percent of the new money must be used for tax-law enforcement, compared to just 10 percent allocated for “taxpayer services” such as pre-filing assistance and education, filing and account services, and taxpayer-advocacy services. Again, for perspective, the IRS’s FY 2021 budget allocates $2.556 billion for taxpayer services and $5.213 billion, or just about twice as much, for enforcement activities such as audits, collections, litigation, and criminal investigations. Warren’s bill would give the IRS seven times more money for enforcement than for taxpayer services....

...While it’s admittedly naïve to believe that enforcement is unnecessary, the fact is that 98 percent of every dollar owed to the IRS is paid without the need for any agency intervention. People screw themselves into the ground working to comply with our massive tax code. In 2019, over 67 million Americans sought some form of compliance help from the IRS in some capacity; just 1,800 were charged with a tax crime....

...Under her bill, within twelve months of enactment, the IRS must create a palette of new regulations designed to force the reporting of “any information concerning the net value of assets” that the agency deems relevant. The reporting burden may be based on “ownership, control, management, claim to income from, or other relationship to assets” subject to taxation under the law, including “financial institutions, business entities or other persons” with any connection whatsoever to persons liable for the tax. Moreover, business entities owned by persons subject to the tax must “provide estimates of value of the [business] entity itself.” And in case you’re planning on avoiding the new requirements, the bill further provides that the IRS is empowered to write new regulations specifically deemed “necessary to prevent taxpayers from avoiding the purpose of information reporting.”"
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/like-the-irs-then-youll-love-elizabeth-warrens-new-tax-bill/

So she wants to make IRS a law MAKING agency that can just tax whatever it's unelected government bureaucrats want to tax.

 

Why when they are no equally obtained? Why when taxing the capital gains at higher rates reduces the income derived from those taxes? What is your purpose here, punish investment income or raise tax revenues?

 

Your first paragraph was unnecessary, as I originally stated that the tax loopholes "are UNAVAILABLE to non-wealthy citizens." All you've done is just provide another aspect with the EXACT same conclusion. Just saying.

Your second paragraph is flat out WRONG. I have said NOTHING in respect to the federal government limiting the accumulation of wealth. Remember what was stated in #1. Also, your supposition and conjecture is based on a non understanding of the Warren tax proposal, as the tax is geared to essentially the 2nd (or sometimes 3rd) tier of wealth accured. In other words, nothing in the tax would bankrupt the economic class it's aimed at. If you can find in her proposal where it does otherwise, then please produce the quote. Otherwise, you're just wishful thinking.

 

I agree - there nothing illegal that corporations use tax loopholes to pay taxes as little as possible. There is nothing illegal to lobby for additional tax loopholes. I was consultant too and following advice of my accountant in order to pay as little taxes as legally allowed.
But... there is bigger and bigger inequality between the wealthy and the rest of Americans. Many Americans are leaving the middle class, and not to the upper class. Our deficit and the national debt is growing - and someone has to pay it. Our government will decide who will pay it - the wealthy, the rest of us of the children of the rest of us.

 

You are right - I am just leaning from the experience that a simple solution rarely work. Our tax code was created by the wealthy for the wealthy so I suspect the simple solution like "tax the wealthy" has very positive effect of the voters. I hope the tax will became the law, but I suspect it will not create the revenue Elizabeth Warren is promises.

 

Yep, and there lies the rub...because if you want all the benefits of the society you live in, you can't profit at the expense of those who provide the grunt work for that society's quality of living.

 

They aren't loopholes anymore than deducting your medical expenses, you mortgage interest, charitable donations etc etc etc. It helps the economy and growth and job creation. And you conflate corporate taxes with personal income taxes now and then conflate that with wealth. We, the federal government which is the issue here, don't tax the wealth of individuals except for a VERY limited few and only after they die. What do I care what about the wealth of someone else it has no bearing on me. I don't have some claim to their property and wealth. Certainly the government doesn't just because they have it and some politician wants to spend it. We have had the greatest advances of people into the middle class and from the middle class to upper middle class and wealth not because of government taxation but by government NOT engaging in punitive tax policies and getting out of the way so people work and EARN their incomes and can save themselves and build wealth.

 

What exactly is that supposed to mean. Labor is an expense, PERIOD. Any company large or small, private of corporate. Labor is an EXPENSE. Profits come AFTER labor.

 

Could Sen. Warren be considered a taxable rich person? She grew up selling Indian blankets for her tribe on the side of the road but I understand she has sizeable taxable assets up for bid in her old age.

 

Here's why Europe has mostly ditched wealth taxes over the last 25 years — even as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seek them for the US

...Twelve European countries had a wealth tax in 1990, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But now the number stands at four: Spain, Switzerland, Norway, and Belgium, which just introduced a limited wealth tax of its own.

It's never been a significant driver of government revenue across the continent for several key reasons.
https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-when-the-wealth-tax-was-implemented-in-europe-2019-10

They are difficult if not impossible to enforce.
How do you come up with the total asset value, the total net worth of these very wealthy people and do so every year?
They never raise the anticipated revenue and the cost of compliance and enforcement eat up what revenues they do bring in.

And if our tax system was created by the wealth for the wealthy then why do the top 1% or earners pay almost 40% of income tax revenues, the top 20% almost 90% and the bottom 50% virtually no federal income or FICA tax revenues and in fact many if not most actually MAKE money off the tax system. Seems to me if the high earners were writing the tax code for themselves it would be the opposite of that. And it was the Trump administration and Republican Congress that limited the mortgage interest deduction the high earners take on their expensive homes and it was the Democrats that protested and Biden who vows to reenstate that tax break.

 

If top 1% have 60% of total income and pay only 40% income tax revenue - it means our tax system was created by the wealthy for the wealthy. Why the top 1% or earners pay almost 40% of income tax revenues? Warren Buffet explained - he is paying lower tax rate than his secretary and for sure he makes more money then her. President Trump did not pay taxes for about 10 years, and there are more examples. So who wrote the tax code? Do you think the wealthy spent millions on lobbying in order to pay fair tax share?

 

Okay then, so let the tax become law and not stand in it's way, and s...unless there is a better solution other than another cluster-f*** version of reaganomics.

 

Stop acting silly.

 

Someone who uses 'fauxcahontas' in a sentence shouldn't quote prominent intellectuals.

 

Ahh, not quite right, let's clarify that point:

As for the rest:

1. It's not about revenue.
2. It's about who should shoulder the burden--the top 1% have $37 Trillion in wealth, and the bottom half have $2.6 trillion,
(source Fed Reserve wealth distribution chart, 2020 Q3)
therefore, the top 1% should shoulder the burden since they are the ones with all the wealth, AND the system is rigged in their favor.
3. Its not about total percentage, it's about percentage of income. 25% of a billionaires' income might be 40% of taxes, but it's not a burden, whereas 25% of a middle income wage is.
4. I believe that no individual should have as much economic power as some smaller nations.

Biden vowed to repeal the tax cut above $400k.

If the wealth tax doesn't work, we'll opt for raising taxes on the rich. I'd support tax breaks for CEOs who can structure their pay to 60x ( or less ) the lowest paid in the company.

 

It's not an act.