A more fair and Democratic tax system

[CaTeacher]

One of the sad facts about our society is that by 2005 millionaire households will control 59 percent of America's personal wealth.

We need to ensure that these people pay a greater share of the tax burden so that we can cover government spending and reduce the federal deficit.

I would like to propose a wealth tax. Each year, citizens would list all the financial assets they own--and a tax would be levied on stocks, bonds, time deposits, and so on. It would not be difficult to set this in place--since the federal government already knows how to tax capital before it becomes realized income.

(our present policy of taxing income and estates would be retained--and made more "progressive" in their application)

There are two things that must be done in order for this to be successful--

1) we will need to increase the authority of the IRS--the wealthy WILL try to avoid paying their fair share--and we need the IRS to have the authority to pursue them VERY aggressively.

2) we will need to pass some rules and regulations to hobble "tax attorneys" whose only purpose is to help wealthy clients hide their money and avoid paying their fair share of the tax burden.

[ProfLefty]

1. A Tax on Wealth.

Is a fine idea cateacher. The simple and incontrovertible fact is that we desperately need to find additional revenue sources in order to meet our increasing societal obligations as well as to address the tremendous bush budget deficit. This would be an equitable way to help accomplishing those very worthy objectives.

[Protected]

2. Why punish people for saving money?

People already pay taxes on interest and dividend income, so isn't that enough? I can't see anything more annoying than having a down year in the stock market and then having the government tell me that it's time to pay taxes on these losing (or winning) stocks.

[dumpster_baby]

3. I am good with that! More taxes on the wealthy!

Let's tax the wealthy and use it to improve the quality of life for the rest of America.

THey have taxes on wealth in countries like Denmark, and the quality of life there is much higher.