The poor and middle class have their wealth or " property" taxed every year but the wealthy hold their "property" in stocks, bonds, and foreign accounts. Like our wealth, their wealth should be taxed in the same manner. In fact if their top wealth were taxed that alone could end all the rest of us having to pay a tax on our houses and cars. Plus it would never produce a hardship on those paying it. If you have $48 billion you could pay a billion a yr and never miss it. AOC's and Bernie's wealth tax plans could bring relief to the nation while still funding our governmental operations. Only the very greedy stand against it.

Another purely Conservative Utopia would be Somalia, it's a dream for them, no regulations for the environment or labor. No rules or taxes. Guns everywhere.

In Russia, something like 112 families control over 90% of the wealth. It's crazy, engineers in Russia might make like $8 an hour. And here's the kicker, the state run propaganda machine is so powerful there that they think they have it good.

wealthiest in this country. Your property tax analogy is a very good example to use.

Our cars are taxed the same way here in MO, it's called a personal property tax, and it's a fixed rate too, like your 2% example. I don't know about where you are at, but we have these two tiers of taxes in MO, just for owning property. As you say, a 'wealth' tax.

Take care!

In North Carolina, our home is taxed, our property is taxed, our vehicle is taxed, any farm equipment, and you list your damn dogs. I have a 25 year old 14 foot little Jon boat with a fifteen horse power motor and I guarantee you I pay more taxes on that than any of two yachts or personal jets every billionaire has.
We have already seen that trump paid zero taxes and bragged about it. So, how much of his taxes will built the god damned wall?

The wealthy get tax breaks and loopholes. We get to pay full tax rates on everything we own.

but not expressing it as nearly as well as you have.

Thank you.

wish you could be interviewed on TV so this message could get out there. Send it to media? You really nailed it.

And thank you for explaining this perfect:

"And while we're at it, will you billionaires STFU about Venezuala being an example of a 'socialist country?' It's not. It's an example of a kleptocracy that CALLS itself a socialist country."

Well done.

...and none of the so-called journalists call them on their bullshit. Mainly because they, themselves, are equally brainwashed.

So, if you believe that Venezuala is a 'socialist' country, you must also believe that North Korea is a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC, because it says so in the name, right?

After all, it was the National Socialist Party, right?. The only thing they "Socialized" was the property/wealth/freedom of oppressed minorities.

Any of the talking heads would push back on the Nazi claim, why is it so hard to call BS on Venezuela?

Although, admittedly, that network has nothing to do with journalism.

But I encounter morons every day on the internet who claim Nazi Germany was an example of a 'socialist' country because it had the word socialist in the party name. However, if you combine extreme nationalism with racism and xenophobia, and combine it with religion and militarism, you've got classic Fascism, not Socialism.

And, from the other side, if you combine all those things with state-control of the economy, you've got Communism.

The one thing both Fascists/Nazis and Communists have always had in common is a visceral hatred for liberal, social democrats. Liberal intellectuals who support democratic socialism (or even Fabian socialism) are usually the first ones they come after, because they're not perceived to be 'patriotic' enough.

Those people are usually surprised when I point them to Mao's essay on fighting against 'liberalism.'

Their purpose is to maintain the status quo because it benefits them to do so and most people don’t have a clue about what socialism is as an economic system, so they do not provide a counterargument. We need to call such labels what they are—distortion and utter nonsense.

Please send this on as an oped. You're an excellent writer!

We grew up in the military. The wages are all fixed. There is government supplied healthcare. Total socialism. And people who grew up in the military think it was a great life.

It's not terribly democratic, but it does have those other things going for it. Subsidized base housing, a non-profit PX where you buy essentials, universal healthcare, and a merit-based promotion system.

There are limits on who you can criticize publicly, and what you can say about them. You cannot get tatoos on certain parts of your body. You are even told what to wear. Changing jobs is next to impossible, and you have very littl say in where you live.

Don't get me wrong. My father was a career Air Force officer, I served as a whitehat in the Navy, and I loved every bit of it, but utopia it is not and it is by no means everyone's cup of tea.

Truer words were never spoken. thank you!

Shit, man, how did you do that >>

make an OP every other day !!!!

send to CNN
MSNBC
'FOX, yeah Fox,
NBC CBS ABC XYX NY tines, WaPo LA Timnes, Boston Globe BALT SUN,,

It's only 1 station!

but I checked that. I see that the State capital gains tax is either 0%, 15%, or 20%, depending on income. That makes perfect sense to me as a true progressive capital gains tax. It encourages low income people to invest, and recognizes that wealth generates wealth (the 'snowball rolling down hill' analogy), and that higher incomes are taxed more. It recognizes that investment is a good thing, but also distributes the tax burden in a better way.

If I had my way, small businesses, with less than 5 employees wouldn't pay corporate taxes, but gigantic, multinational corporations would pay more corporate taxes. That would encourage wealthy plutocrats to invest more in small businesses, and encourage more start up companies, which are the grass-roots innovators. They generate both wealth and innovation.


(PS-in either case, it doesn't seem to have stopped the Californian economy dead in it's tracks. The Californian economy is a great model for others.)

Democrats need to say this over and over and over again until people get it. We need to own this narrative.

Thank you!

and bookmarked

Thanks for illustrating Alaska as an example of democratic socialism. And Russia as a capitalistic country, too. Spot on, TrollBuster9090!!!

While more expensive homes incur higher property taxes, modest homes have their lesser value set off by homestead exemption. In Florida, where I live, a $25,000 exemption is applied to the first $50,000 of your property's assessed value if your property is your permanent residence and you owned the property on January 1 of the tax year. This exemption applies to all taxes, including school district taxes. The median home value in Florida is $231,000.

Period. End of story. They cannot in any way, shape or fashion relate to the people they govern and should be disqualified immediatly. I know there's no constitutional basis for that....but there should be.

Will use that with GOPers.

You said that you pay 2% property tax on your house....and that that amount is about 20% of your net income. I'm assuming that when you say you pay 2% property tax on your house, you mean that you pay 2% of it's taxed value.

Unless I'm mistaken, that means:

If your house is worth $100,000, you are paying $2000 in property taxes on it, and your net income is $10,000/year.

If your house is worth $200,000 you are paying $4,000 in property taxes on it, and your net income is $20,000/year.

If your house is worth $500,000 you are paying $10,000 in property taxes, and your net income is $50,000/ year.

That just doesn't seem right.

Four stars!

Most people do not own their house outright so they are effectively paying a higher percentage on their equity in their house.
For example, If I pay $4000 per year on the $200,000 assessed value of my home but the mortgage I owe to the bank is $150,000, I am really paying 8% per year on the $50,000 equity (or wealth) I have in my house.

I fully understand that property taxes are needed to provide various govt. services, but 2% across the board? Here, 2% of the benchmark home price would be over $17,000. How could most people afford that???

Given that there are usually homestead exemptions that knock off a considerable amount, as well as limitations in place for senior citizens, is this really an issue?

He pays taxes on all his properties...yachts, houses, whatever.

So the argument is that some want a progressive property tax, sort of.

He pays a lower % of taxes on his wealth than many lower and middle class homeowners do.

The percentage for property taxes is the same. The rate doesn't decrease the higher the appraised value. In fact, you don't get a homestead exemption if your income is over a certain amount. And there are no exemptions for other than the main residence.

So what I'm saying is...the proposal is that the property tax (which is, say 2% for middle class on a $250,000 house, should be maybe 10% on a $5,000,000 house)?

My understanding is that the proposition is based on property...not cash. Or maybe it includes inherited cash? That's hard to separate, since the heir takes the cash and maybe does things with it, like invest it, buy a house (which is already being taxed at 10%)?

For most people, their home is their biggest asset, so they are paying a de facto wealth tax on large part of their wealth. Bloomberg's biggest asset is probably stock in his company. It never gets taxed until he sells, then he pays income tax at a reduced rate. If he never sells, it continues to appreciate without ever getting taxed.

which includes the stock. That would fall under his business income taxes. He invested a lot of money in the first place, plus there are expenses & other deductions, and revenue.

Businesses don't pay taxes on the value of a business, except to the extent that revenue and costs are taken into account on net income of the business for the year.

So stock isn't an inherited property. If you tax it, you have to take out his COST in creating it, in the first place. What takes that into account is his cost basis, which is calculated when he sells. Not sure how it works for his business taxes every year.

Business officers/owners who are granted additional stock annually (bonuses or whatever), have to pay tax on that. For Bloomberg, his initial stock wasn't given to him. He created it. So he didn't GAIN...he got what he created. This is very complicated.

There is talk on taxing capital gains, stocks, etc. Many middle class people own these things. I do. I am retired and started a retirement account years ago, and also a small taxable account. I have stocks in both. A capital gains tax would hit ME, and I'm far from wealthy. A tax on stocks would hit ME, and I'm not even close to being wealthy. I just read some investing books years ago and put some of my savings into stock investments. If that is taxed more, people won't do that, which will lower the income of seniors AND lessen the money available to businesses (buying a stock = loaning capital to the company), which will affect businesses, which would affect the economy (unlike trickle down economics).

I already pay taxes on my dividends, unless qualified. If qualified, the dividend still is including in determining my income for tax rate purposes. I already pay a tax on short term capital gains that is more than my regular tax rate.

People make assumptions that only wealthy people have stocks, capital gains, and such. That's simply not true. I'm just an average working woman who worked for decades as a paralegal, making little in the beginning to merely a decent salary at the end. I sacrificed in order to save for my senior years. I've never been on a vacation in my adult life, never bought the latest electronics, never bought a smartphone. All so I could save that money and invest it for my retirement. IF there are taxes on these things, it should be clear that it's only on the wealthy.

The tricky thing is...how do you determine how wealthy a person is? It's tricky. It's not like income. It's value, which changes year to year.

You pay taxes in the assessed value of your house. It doesn't matter how you got it, what you paid for it, or how much money you put into it. A wealth tax works the same way, except it would count all your assets.

Stock isn't like a house. The value changes daily. The wealthy are already taxed when selling their stock.

So I'm not sure how stock being included as an add'l tax works. Since it already is taxed, and cost basis pulled out.

And owning stock, when you are the creator of it, is different from one who bought it, like an average investor. He CREATED it. What is that worth? Who knows? He didn't buy it. It was essentially worth ZERO when he got the initial stock.

That is distinguishable from officers who get stock as bonuses. There is a value of that stock on that date they receive it. It is INCOME. (BTW, industry workers also receive stock. My brother did, when he worked at Conoco.)

Stocks can be valued as of the close of the market on Dec. 31. Businesses can valued bashed on cash flow analysis. Non-income generating assets can be valued at replacement value (as insurance companies do), or by comparing to comparable sales (as houses are valued). If you have an asset, it can valued as of a certain date. Any accountant can do it. I can do it based on a single accounting class.

The Quran imposes a wealth tax of 2.5%, so it's got a 1500 year history. Saudi Arabia still has this tax, probably other Muslim countries too. If billionaires here make a fuss about it, their friends in Saudi Arabia will laugh at their stupid arguments against it, even if they sympathize with their desire not to pay.

With all that exra time he has on his hands?

A tax on stocks that one creates is unfair, IMO. It is not like a stock that someone GIVES you in payment of your work for the company.

But for the creator, the business would not exist, or the stock. There is no way to value that. The increase in its value is because of the work done by the owner. It's not like buying a stock that then increases in value. If I own a stock I bought, I had nothing to do with increasing or decreasing its value.

I think some people don't understand how business works. And we certainly don't want to follow the Middle East as regards to anything.

What will happen is what has happened in a smaller way, currently: They'll start their business in another country and do what they can not to pay the tax. Like they do in Great Britain...the mega wealthy own their biggest homes outside of the country, and run their businesses from out of the country.

What they can also do is lessen their philanthropy. I read that Bloomberg gave $5 Billion to the gun control effort. He could simply pay his tax bill out of that, lessening the philanthropy but keeping his costs the same.

I'm okay with a wealth tax, but it IS complicated. Maybe a tax on INHERITED property for someone whose income is over a certain amount. Income is easier to determine than wealth.

Arguing that something is "unfair" is completely different from arguing that we aren't asking accountants to do anything they aren't doing right now, or that you can't do yourself with accounting software.

But I am unsympathetic to arguments from billionaires about "unfairness." They got more than their fair share of life's goodies. If his wealth goes from $40 billion to "only"
30 billion I'm really not that concerned. I'd rather that money give $10,000 to 1 million destitute people, who will immediately spend it on necessities and it will end up back in his pocket anyway.

I don't remember the highest income tax marginal rate but I think it was over 70,000

I love the idea of a wealth tax,

For the great majority of us, our wealth (such as it is) is tied-up in our homes. Why should the wealthy avoid paying taxes on their wealth because it is in the form of stocks, bonds, fine art, diamonds, etc.?

This idea is not radical. It's only common sense.

OK, so doing the math that means that either you're on Social Security or working for Walmart, which would entitle you to food stamps and/or other forms of gov't assistance (i.e., secondary support for The Walmart Co.). Thank God you "crossed the finish line" to achieve a home, which 90+% of Gen X-ers NEVER realistically hope to achieve in their lifetimes.

God Bless America, or at least what it used to be in your lifetime.

Not the federal government. The constitution does not apply to states and cities in the same way that it does to the federal government.

I don't know if a wealth tax is constitutional or not, but citing a state tax as precedent is not a valid argument.

The Scandinavian countries are not "democratic socialist" countries. As they will tell you, they are free market democracies with strong safety nets. Our safety nets are so barren that their safety net looks like socialism. It's not. And Russia is not a capitalist free market economy. Russia is a kleptocracy like Venezuela.

But you are absolutely right about property tax being a wealth tax and you make a powerful argument as to why there should be a wealth tax. As usual, the US middle class gets hit hardest with that tax, like we are with income taxes and sales taxes. We used to have a progressive tax system, but no more.

this year.

Rec

in addition to the actual registration fee, I pay a Property Tax of several hundred dollars based on the current value of the car. When I had an RV, I paid the same tax on it.Many states have this, but do not make clear that it’s a tax, preferring to hide it under the cloak of “registration”. Many people have no idea that they’re already paying a wealth tax.

and magically, pols can brag about how they "cut" taxes

Luckily I have a very low mortgage payment..

For 33 years in So Cal we had Prop 13, so our taxes were kept low, but WA has only escalating prop taxes ( no income tax)...

This is a huge burden for fixed income oldsters like me.

...I kept looking for a link thinking this was published somewhere as an editorial. It should be.

that makes it a very high percentage in the early years when your payment is mostly interest
rich people should pay on their other wealth also
stock traders should pay a fee one every stock they trade
we should raise the limit for Social Security
along with a 75% bracket
the rich are getting off to easy it is hurting our country
there should be no national debt, health care for all and free schooling
this how we pay for it