To think the world should have a 100% tax rate

[notanothernamechange24]

On anyone with assets or income over 1 billion pounds. Nobody needs to hoard money / wealth to that degree. There is no justification for it.
The world would be a far better place without billionaires let alone trillionaires.

I know it will never happen. But it should. AIBU?

I take your argument seriously.

You can save a life for about $5,000.

If you personally have more than $5k and you haven’t given it away, are you also guilty of manslaughter?

What the line?

Keeping your own children safe and healthy, maybe. But once you’ve acquired more that that, what’s your (our) excuse?

Anyone remember Beckham not taking a salary when he moved to Paris St Germain? It wasn't philanthropy. It reduced his tax bill.

Actually ideally that would be what I would advocate for. Surplus wealth being distributed out to causes such as the Red Cross, world food program, doctors without borders etc.

They key would be making sure the money ended up where it was most needed and not in the hands of criminals or corrupt governments.

The loss of USAID, other countries overseas aid and the destruction of the Middle Eastern economies will and already is resulting in mass starvation and death from preventable diseases. This current Ebola outbreak in Africa is at serious risk of becoming a far larger pandemic as a direct result of lack of money. Historically the Uk and USAID put funds in place to help. That’s gone now. Who is going to step up and help?

And what will the consequences be of us not stepping in?

Even if people don't have that in the bank, many would have the option of downsizing their home to raise that (and more).

If we're talking redistribution at a global level, most of the uk would be the ones with the surplus.

So how would you address is then? Bearing in mind that a huge percentage of wealth is in the hands of a tiny minority of people?

No suggestion as way way way above my pay grade

but that doesn’t mean I can’t think that a mumsnetters suggestion as to how to address it is daft and unrealistic

Would income and assets of £999,999,999 not be enough of an incentive?

The thing for me is, "wealth" at this level is mostly decided by how much other people value your stuff. So you start a company, people think it has enormous potential and want to buy shares in it, the value sky rockets, and suddenly you're on the hook for enormous amounts of cash?

Elon Musk is actually a good example of this. Spacex is running at a loss. Tesla is profitable now but wasn't for a long time despite the shares being hugely "valuable". Focusing on one company for simplicity because obviously he has roles in others - Elon became very rich because people wanted to buy Tesla. But Tesla wasn't actually making any money. How do you tax that?

Most of the on paper wealth of billionaires etc is in company stocks and shares. Often from companies they have started themselves. You can't take those shares away if someone legally owns them.

And it is really difficult to tax on the value of an unrealised share. Capital gains etc works only once the share is sold. Some countries have tried to tax the unrealised value of stocks and it has been a disaster.

So you'd have to limit their value to keep under the threshhold or forceable remove their property from them.

But who benefits from publically traded stocks being high? PENSIONS! We'd all be up the creek if the stock market was massively hit.

Instead, perhaps by better regulating the way that these billion-dollar companies become so highly valued in the first place would be better? 15-20 years ago, companies went public early on in their growth, in order to gain access to capital to grow more. Many businesses flopped but some made meteoric rises and overall, the markets grew.

Now companies delay going public. Therefore the early explosive growth is not accessible to pension funds or average investors. Only the uber-wealthy can access venture capitalist funds which now has replaced public funding. And that is how the ultra rich are getting richer in todays world - because they are the only ones who can access these super lucrative funds and super high growth.

I dare say many achievements around the world have been called daft and unrealistic.

The moon landings for example. Or conquering Everest.

Just because something seems daft or unrealistic to you doesn’t mean it is. Nor does it mean it shouldn’t be attempted.

I’ve seen it all, now…

Don’t worry OP - if AI has it’s way - income tax will cease to exist soon enough.

As to wealth redistribution - which you propose - good luck with that.

You are relating your suggestion here to landing on the moon or conquering Everest?

okay

Yes you would probably have to set a value at which a company has to go public or become some other entity.

I’m saying that many things could be possible if people want them to be.

By all means continue to belittle the thread if you wish. But as you are not coming up with any suggestions yourself I can’t really take you seriously.

I am not belittling
but like the majority - I am saying a bit silly and wholly unrealistic

I’m not sure that I understand your last sentence.

It wouldn’t be in the interests of Jersey to harmonise its fiscal policies. Part of what makes Jersey rich is that it is very attractive to the rich. It has laws and policies which are quite different from ours - for instance the state pension is far more generous.

Why would they have an incentive to create these large companies that provide thousands of people with jobs if they're going to have 100% of their profit taken away? You do realise 100% tax means they are working for free?

Or another way to look at it is huge companies that prevent competition. Have such large monopolies and buying power that simply force smaller companies to fail.

If a billionaire chooses to walk away and not continue then that just creates a vacuum for other businesses to thrive.

What do you think is going to happen to these enormous businesses once they have sucked the life out of all of us? When we simply have no money left to pay them?

While not nice to think about that's only just over 3% of the worlds population.

🙃

Usually these massive corporations don't just operate in a single market.

Facebook isn't just social media, it is also a tech firm.
Amazon isn't just shopping, it is in entertainment (Audible, Amazon TV etc)

Boeing isn't just into holidays, they produce jets for the military

they aren't going to run out of customers because they have diversified.

Quite easy to reach just under that value and open multiple companies with different brand names to sell the exact same or very similar thing.

They are people. All human. And didn’t want to make music that would take pretty much all of their earnings.

And yes, they still are producing music. A new album is out or coming out soon.
Best band ever.

That's such a childish, immature comment!
The OP is talking about billionaires who wouldn't even notice if some of their wealth was actually syphoned off and gifted to the poor because they will pay people to manage their money for them - they probably don't realise exactly how much they have and have more money than they can physically spend in their lifetimes.

That is not the same as saying that every ordinary person has to give their money away too or just buy the "absolute basics" and give the rest to the poor and you know it isn't.

Come up with a decent argument or don't bother.

I think what the OP is really hinting at or suggesting is Limitarianism. Ingrid Robeyns has written a good book about it.
Maybe read it and see what you think?

I agree that billionaires could do more. They cannot spend their money in their lifetime.
But taxing the world at 100% is simply mad. Why? Because you are discounting human nature. The need to achieve, the need to be rewarded.
That too many billionaires do so little good with their money is another matter.