World’s billionaires should pay minimum 2% wealth tax, say G20 ministers

Brazil, Germany, Spain and South Africa sign motion for fairer tax system to deliver £250bn a year extra to fight poverty and climate crisis

The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2% tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise £250bn a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested.

In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and Spain say a 2% tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East.

They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year’s extreme weather events.

“It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods,” the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece.

Disaster,

Billionaires should pay 100% tax over $999,999.99 of personal wealth.

Some people still get to be wealthy. Problem solved.

VinnyDaCat,

Fuck that. Eat the rich, eat the rich!

ME5SENGER_24,

What about billionaires paying a 50% tax until there are no more billionaires?? I like that a lot more!!

rimjob_rainer,

Why not 20%? It’s not like they need all that money.

Delusional,

Nope there is no reason anyone should have a billion dollars.

rmuk,

Such a shortsighted view. How do you expect us to get out much-needed class of Trillionaire God-Rulers if you make life so difficult for those hardworking Billionaires?

to be clear.../s

Tryptaminev,

Meanwhile every Party of the current German government, as well as the opposition former conservatives now far-right populists and the fascist party are furiously rejecting wealth taxation.

I don’t buy it for Germany, because the government leading social democratic party has been focusing exclusively on income taxation and blocked any advances towards reimplementing wealth taxation over the past 26 years of which they only were 4 years not in the government.

tal,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

say G20 ministers

Kind of a misleading headline. That’s not the G20. That’s three countries that are in the G20.

Luisp,

Or solve it the Vietnamese way

Jimmycakes,

Until we get politicians who will spend it properly and actually help the people there’s no point. We collect enough taxes now to have everything we need but they squander it on bullshit. Let’s get better representation then raise taxes. 30 trillion in debt is shameful

twei,

the raw number of debt is nothing to build a conclusion on. you always have to see it relative to other values like the GDP of the US, which was 27.3 trillion in 2023 Statista. that’s an okay ratio.

Sam_Bass,

2?? Dont stroke em too hard you might get a rash

Silentiea,
@Silentiea@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s infinity billion times more than 0

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In,

2% per year on all weath (not just income) above 1bn. Seems good to me.

Etterra,

2% make it 80%. Eat the rich.

Lemzlez,

Should be 99% for everything above a certain threshold. Any money you make above that number is pretty much guaramteed to have come from exploiting others, so they shouldn’t get to keep that.

jj4211,

2% might actually be possible. 80% would collapse the nominal value of the “wealth”. E.g. who is going to give Bezos 160 billion actual dollars for his stock to cover such a tax bill, especially when every other billionaire is trying to get trillions of real dollars at the same time. The aggregate nominal value of the s&p 500 is way way more than actual dollars that exist.

thejynxed,

When you see a bunch of comments suggesting ideas that make it obvious the commenters don’t hold any grasp on economics or finance whatsoever.

Maalus,

Most of it is populist catchphrases without any thought behind it.

DreamlandLividity,

Here is a conspiracy theory for you. This bullshit is pushed by the people not wanting meaningful reform. Just like oil companies try to distract with Carbon capture.

“We need this simple reform.” "No, we need Communist revolution! Eat the rich!”

fine_sandy_bottom,

Or even how to levy taxes?

There’s a reason billionaires pay the least tax - because it’s legit hard to do.

It’s not as though no one has thought of a wealth tax before. It’s that no one has been able to figure out how to do it.

Obviously, you can only tax the wealth you can identify and value, and therein lies the problem.

dan42O,

As a person from a diff cultural background, people and relatives who have more money always help and pave the way for a smoother future for the folks who don’t. As example, my maternal family had distant family member help out in the house. And know we have strong relationships and continued support both emotionally and financially and gateway to other aspects for a smoother life.

tearsintherain,
@tearsintherain@leminal.space avatar

That’s nice but kinda pollyanaish and not a model of how economies should work. In fact the gross inequity between the wealthiest sliver of human beings against the majority is outrageous and immoral.

Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Try 90%, and they’d still have obscene wealth afterwards.

mememuseum,

Exactly, 10% of a billion dollars is one hundred million. That’s more than enough to live a cushy stress free life without ever working again if you’re not an idiot blowing it all on dumb shit.

That puts you in the same net worth bracket as a lot of celebrity actors and musicians.

Valmond,

0.018 Billions is 3.000 a month for 500 years.

Not what people think usually.

twei,

if you’re not an idiot blowing it all on dumb shit

I’d argue that 100 Million, if invested with like 5% annual growth, would be enough even if you’re an idiot blowing it all on dumb shit

Ulrich_the_Old,

If taxation were done properly there would be no billionaires. They are a symptom of a broken tax system.

Daxter101,

So, I’m assuming you are in support of a 2% wealth tax?

Sorry if I sound paranoid, just checking. Tone is hard to convey in text.

chiliedogg,

2 percent for those who would dip below a billion.

Just make a billion dollars a hard limit. Once you achieve that wealth, you aren’t allowed anymore. If it’s because of stock values, then any shares after you hit a billion are distributed among employees (including “contract workers” who they pretend aren’t employees).

If it’s in cash money anything over a billion goes to the government.

If it’s in real estate properties are seized and sold at auction according to the land use. For housing, it’s only sold to individual people who will use the property as a sole homestead. For small offices it’s sold to businesses with a single location.

If it’s art it’s donated to a museum in the art’s place of origin.

DreamlandLividity,

So what I am hearing: buy shit in a different country than the one you are running, where you can’t tax it. No investment and jobs for your economy.

Also, how do you determine the value of an ltd? Not all companies have shares and share price.

EurekaStockade,

Private companies are valued all the time, typically it’s by calculating a multiple of EBITDA, with some variations for particular industries

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Twitter is a private company. Has been since Musk bought it and took it private.

And yet, we can still calculate that its value has fallen substantially since that happened.

theguardian.com/…/x-twitter-stock-falls-elon-musk

DreamlandLividity,

First of all, the article clearly states Fidelity owns shares, hence it is not fully private. Second of all, you are talking about the assessment of the company that holds the shares. Are you suggesting an honor system where everyone estimates their own wealth?

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Private companies can still sell shares. They’re just not publicly traded.

DreamlandLividity,

Ok, technically you are right although since Fidelity is publicly traded, it is a somewhat special case IMO. That is what I meant by it not being fully private. If it was owned ultimately by an individual, there would be no reason for such disclosure.

More importantly, this does not change my argument about it being a self reported value.

force,

More like a symptom of a broken broad economic system. In all forms of capitalism, it is a given that much wealth accumulates in the few. It’s a system where resources are distributed based on capital, and capital is a resource, and it’s a system where those with more capital have more voting power both economy-wise and politics-wise. There is no such thing as a capitalist economy that has even wealth distribution long-term, it was quite plainly a system created for the sole purpose of keeping those with power in power – this isn’t an exaggeration, the guys who basically created/popularized modern capitalism and are the basis for all the writings and philosophy of the “founders of capitalism” were post-french revolution aristocrats who wished to push a system where they could keep their power instead of having it taken while also not having their heads chopped off.

Even with the best taxation capitalism can offer, there is no solution to the capitalist problem. It’s a system that requires there to be suffering underclasses and carefree upperclasses. It requires an immoral social hierarchy to exist. The systems that reduce the damage of this innately bad hierarchy while still maintaining it (welfare corporatism, for example) are incredibly unstable over the long-term and inevitably result in a populace that want to tear it down. The people who receive the most benefits from welfare & social safety in a capitalist society are often the ones that are the quickest to tear it down (them, and the elite) and guide us back to right-wing feudalism.

Billionaires might maybe go away if we “properly” tax, but there is only so much you can do to patch up a fundamentally broken system. The countries with the most wealth equality and highest wealth taxes also happen to be countries with a ton of megacorporations and/or billionaires… Switzerland, Scandinavian countries, Finland, Germany, Australia all have the highest wealth equality while all being on the top 15 for billionaires per capita excluding extremely small nations. Plus those countries have a tendency for alt-right movements to pop up, a few even more by proportion than the US…

TL;DR capitalism bad socialism good eat the rich

danc4498,

It’s weird to think I can be given stocks and have to pay real taxes for the value of those taxes. But somebody who starts a business and owns a large number of shares never has to pay taxes on those shares even though they got them when they were worth $0 and now are worth possibly billions.

Often times those shares can be used as leverage for a loan providing the shareholder with the quality of life of a billionaire without ever paying the taxes on earning the billions.

This feature of taxes ONLY benefits the super wealthy and everybody else just has to pay taxes for every dollar of wealth earned.

jj4211,

You only pay taxes when it comes in as “income” or when you sell it. You can hold onto stocks without being taxed on it indefinitely.

Stocks as collateral needs reform.

Syntha,

Often times those shares can be used as leverage for a loan providing the shareholder with the quality of life of a billionaire without ever paying the taxes on earning the billions.

How are those loans repaid?

danc4498,

Either with a paycheck from the company, or selling shares. They will pay taxes on that small portion of their wealth over the life of the loan.

But this is a million times better than having to pay taxes on 100% of their wealth before getting to use it like the 99% of us do.

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