New poll finds overwhelming support for an annual wealth tax

[Hassin Bin Sober]

This is from February but ....

New poll finds overwhelming support for an annual wealth tax

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/428747-new-poll-americans-overwhelmingly-support-taxing-the-wealth-of


A new poll is finding broad support for an annual wealth tax on people with assets of at least $50 million, underlining support for taxing the rich.

The Hill-HarrisX survey released Wednesday found that 74 percent of registered voters back an annual 2 percent tax on people with assets over $50 million, and a 3 percent tax on people with assets in excess of $1 billion.

The poll showed support for the idea among people of all ages and races and from both political parties.

[guillaumeb]

1. But the job creators.

And socialism.

And being "realistic".

Recommended.

So if 74% back this long overdue idea, it would seem a natural way to motivate the liberal/progressive base.

[CentralMass]

3. Yes, and the constitutionality of it, and it won't pass etc..

[guillaumeb]

4. Exactly.

And this is accepting a conservative world view as the "realistic" approach while incomes for the working people stagnate or regress.

[Red Oak]

2. I would really like to hear from Joe Biden on this topic.

I would like to know what VP Biden thinks about taxing the super, beyond belief, wealthy families in America.

[Demsrule86]

12. I believe this is unconstitutional and would never pass muster in any court much less the right

wing courts we have now...so I would be very surprised if he supported it. And I am against taxing money multiple times...it will trickle down to the rest of us in time.

[Buzz cook]

14. In what way is it unconstitutional?

Our government does have tax authority. A wealth tax is no different than a gas tax or a luxury tax, both of which are constitutional.

[Demsrule86]

19. The income tax require an amendment in order to be implemented.

The Constitution prohibits federal direct taxes that are not apportioned by population, except for the income tax which is specifically permitted by the Sixteenth Amendment. So the issue is what is a direct tax? Other taxes such as the estate tax and business income tax were found constitutional for different reasons...the estate tax was upheld as an indirect tax on the transfer of wealth. The business income tax was upheld as an excise tax for the privilege of doing business. None were ruled constitutional as direct taxes. Also, all involved some sort of business enterprise.

This doesn't exist in the wealth tax...and we have an unfriendly court towards progressive policy...thus I believe the wealth tax would be found unconstitutional as it violates the apportion aspect that must be present in order to make a direct tax permissible and an unfriendly SCOTUS makes this very likely too.

Now this has nothing to do with the constitutionality of a wealth tax, but I would not be in favor of multiple taxes on the same money and assets . I think eventually we will all pay such a tax...just like we all pay income taxes today...even though it began as a tax on the wealthy.

[Buzz cook]

22. A wealth tax apportioned by class

Just as the progressive income tax is apportioned by class.

Just as a gas tax is paid only by those who only use gasoline and a tax on carriages is only paid by those with carriages.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/taxation/publications/abataxtimes_home/19aug/19aug-pp-johnson-a-wealth-tax-is-constitutional/

The Constitution, Article I, section 9, clause 4, requires that a “direct tax” must be apportioned among the states by population.3 For the Founders, a necessary element to be a direct tax is that apportionment among the states by population must be reasonable and just. Thus import taxes (the impost), excise taxes, duties, carriage taxes and now real estate and wealth taxes have been expelled from the definition of direct tax, sometimes by the operation of ordinary language and sometimes by Supreme Court decision.

snip

Hamilton put it quite clearly.

A constitution cannot set bounds to a nation’s wants; it ought not, therefore, to set bounds to its resources. Unexpected invasions, long and ruinous wars, may demand all the possible abilities of the country. Shall not your government have power to call these abilities into action? The contingencies of society are not reducible to calculations. They cannot be fixed or bounded, even in imagination.7

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Hassin Bin Sober.

[world wide wally]

6. When these idiots cry about people no longer wanting to achieve anything, ask them to name one

person who gave up their billion dollars to drive a school bus for minimum wage because their taxes were too high on the billion.

[BeyondGeography]

7. It was popular earlier this year and it remains popular

[redqueen]

8. Should at least take the word "new" out of the subject line.

Still don't understand why people expect it to work here when it didn't elsewhere. Or how they'll get it through Congress.

[Buzz cook]

16. Asked and answered.

In Europe, thanks to the European Union, tax evaders could move their wealth across a border at no cost or emigrate to another European Union country while still doing business in the taxing country.

That is not the case with the US.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax-is-an-old-idea-and-its-time-has-come

Part of the problem is that other countries have shown that wealth taxes create incentives for rich people to evade them by sheltering or hiding assets, or, in extremis, by emigrating.

In fact, some important preventive steps have already been taken, particularly relating to the use of offshore tax havens. Not very long ago, rich people could simply set up bank or brokerage accounts in places like the Bahamas, Panama, and Switzerland, secure in the knowledge that they would be beyond the reach of the I.R.S. But, since the passage of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), in 2014, foreign financial institutions are legally obligated to identify accounts held by U.S. citizens and report details about them to the I.R.S.; failure to do so can lead to heavy fines.

To deter the ultra-rich from fleeing to countries without a wealth tax, it also includes a punitive “exit tax” of forty per cent on “the net worth above $50 million of any U.S. citizen who renounces their citizenship.” Tax avoidance “is not something that happens out of the blue,” Zucman said. “It is something that policymakers can encourage or discourage.”

[Hoyt]

9. I would bet you'd get strong support for increasing taxes on everyone making more than the pollee.

An appropriate wealth tax makes sense, but in the month since Warren proposed 2-3%, she's doubled it. It will likely be tripled or quadrupled before it's over.

I'm not sure that is to our long-term advantage, but nowadays people live in a short-term world.

In any event, we are going to need a lot of million and billionaires to tax for all the stuff Warren and Sanders are promising.

[tirebiter]

10. The burden will fall on the middle class to prove their value annually

We can’t afford the lawyers and accountants. They’ll already be working to hide the values of the same .01% who will be moving everything to the Cayman Islands. Plus the constitutionality is dependent on however a current Supreme Court feels on the day they see it. Wanna play the table on this one? Snake eyes can be a winner occasionally, I guess.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. Yeah, why bother having laws when the crooks will get away with stuff.

[tirebiter]

15. Why create a problem for those of us who are neither the cause or the cure

Ever been audited?

[Buzz cook]

17. The IRS is woefully underfunded.

Warren's wealth tax inculdes increases to funding for the IRS to impliment it.

If they are smart any of the democrats will increase IRS funding once in office. The only question is what they have the IRS do.

[tirebiter]

20. They can't have them do anything

Ever heard of ethics?

[Buzz cook]

21. Ever hear of regulations and laws?

You seem to think democrats would use the IRS in the manner that Nixon did; as a tool for personal vengeance and political gain.

Why did you go there? Is it all democrats you think are unethical or just some?

[colsohlibgal]

11. Not So Scary After All

Again we had a so called “Wealth Tax” from FDR till Reagan”. So it wasn’t unpopular for nearly 5 Decades.

Why that is never or almost never brought up by candidates or progressive TV is beyond puzzling.

And the tax was way more than 2-3%.

[Gothmog]

18. A wealth tax may be unconstitutional and will be tied up in the courts for a long time

I personally doubt that the proposed Wealth Tax is constitutional. The direct tax clause of the US constitution is clear and the 16th Amendment does not authorize this tax

Link to tweet

Additionally, a wealth tax would almost certainly face a legal challenge from well-funded conservative opponents. And it’s genuinely unclear whether it would ultimately be ruled constitutional. The issue isn’t that Congress can’t enact a wealth tax. It’s that if a wealth tax counts as a “direct” tax, Congress would have to ensure that the amount of money coming from each state was roughly the same on a per-capita basis, as there is a provision of the Constitution that bans direct taxes unless the amount collected is drawn equally from the states based on their populations. Given that wealth is not evenly distributed across the states, that equal distribution would be functionally impossible to ensure.

The fate of a wealth tax, then, would hinge on whether it counts as a direct tax. That’s a tough question to answer, because the Constitution itself doesn’t really define what a direct tax is, beyond the fact that the category includes a poll tax, which is a fixed amount charged for every person. Taxes like tariffs and certain others that can’t be fairly distributed on a per-person basis are generally not considered direct taxes. But how all of this would apply to a wealth tax isn’t entirely clear. The Supreme Court weighed in on this question more than 100 years ago — and not in the wealth tax’s favor. In 1895, the court struck down a federal income tax law because it taxed income generated from property, including land and other kinds of personal property, like stocks and bonds. The decision was controversial, and Congress and the states effectively reversed part of it 20 years later with the passage of the 16th Amendment which allowed Congress to tax income without worrying about how evenly it was distributed. But Congress’s authority to tax wealth wasn’t addressed by the amendment, and the Supreme Court hasn’t really returned to the issue in the past century.

Warren’s defenders argue, however, that the court simply got it wrong back in 1895, and that a modern wealth tax wouldn’t count as a direct tax. But the court’s right-leaning justices might approach the tax with a less favorable eye. And the existence of the old precedent could give the court’s conservative justices a way to dispatch a wealth tax relatively easily, which gives experts like Daniel Hemel pause. “A wealth tax could raise trillions of dollars — or, if it’s struck down by the Supreme Court, it could raise nothing,” said Hemel, a law professor at the University of Chicago. “That’s a really big risk if you care about the redistribution of income and you’re trying to figure out how to get it done.”

This tax is not likely to survive legal challenge

[tirebiter]

23. Renaming progressive taxation that is very different in consruct from your wealth tax

Last edited Sat Nov 9, 2019, 11:11 PM - Edit history (1)

is not honest. It's like renaming an Edsel a Mustang.