"Pretending to propose his own national solution is clearly a cynical smoke screen to let California billionaires off the hook," argues the Billionaire Tax Now campaign as it seeks to counter "5 tricks" being deployed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies.
His proposal is basically just to tax income at a higher rate on people who have a billion dollars of wealth, which is not a wealth tax, it’s an income tax.
Which is meaningless because people with a billion dollars in wealth don’t really take taxable incomes, they take out loans against assets, or dump enough money in to a money loosing enterprise to counter the income they take from their assets, or they donate all their income to a “charity” which they’re on the board of and basically pays for their lifestyle. Or a million other things you can get away with assuming you have enough money to higher a good tax dodge specialist. Says he wants to patch those loop holes, but there will always be more.
The whole point of a wealth tax is that it’s supposed to create a passive downward pressure on their accumulation of wealth, which income tax doesn’t do, because people don’t build wealth through income, they build wealth through assets.
His proposal is basically just to tax income at a higher rate on people who have a billion dollars of wealth, which is not a wealth tax, it’s an income tax.
Which is meaningless because people with a billion dollars in wealth don’t really take taxable incomes, they take out loans against assets, or dump enough money in to a money loosing enterprise to counter the income they take from their assets, or they donate all their income to a “charity” which they’re on the board of and basically pays for their lifestyle. Or a million other things you can get away with assuming you have enough money to higher a good tax dodge specialist. Says he wants to patch those loop holes, but there will always be more.
The whole point of a wealth tax is that it’s supposed to create a passive downward pressure on their accumulation of wealth, which income tax doesn’t do, because people don’t build wealth through income, they build wealth through assets.