Forum Post: Tax Idle Wealth
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 26, 2011, 3:10 p.m. EST by SKGPhD
(0)
from Huntington Beach, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The one percent plus the additional top four percent hold some 67 percent of all of our nation's wealth. Much of this was earned; some of it was inherited. The banks sit on $2.5 trillion in assets, loaning much of it the federal government to glean a guaranteed rate that all tax payers are subsidizing. The resources they control have been entrusted to them by the rest of us and protected by our laws for the supposed reason that they know how to create additional wealth and, as a by product, jobs and opportunities for the remainder.
Today large amounts of the wealth held in trust by the top five percent sits idle due to market uncertainties and their lack of entrepreneurial endeavors. Instead they place their money in safe havens that produce little more than the protection of their wealth and their power. This hurts those of us who have supported the free enterprise system with our work and devotion to the employers because the idle wealth held by those of privilege is not being used to stimulate the system and create jobs.
It is not class warfare to expect those with the greatest wealth to use and to risk their troves to make the free enterprise system work as it touted to work best: through competition and creative use of capital. One does not compete nor work when one sits idle. If those who have the wealth chose to remain cautious, it slows recovery. If they fail to stimulate the economy with their idle and protected resources, tax their idle riches and government-protected assets to provide the government the means to build the much needed infrastructure that is requisite for securing a strong and rich future for all of us. Again, TAX IDLE WEALTH.
There is a tax plan suggested by someone that took this into effect. It was an interesting plan. According to him - Switzerland has some sort of net asset tax.
But I don't think taxing it is feasible. What you would incentivize is moving offshore and hiding.
What's next? Will you confiscate your neighbors truck because you decided that your need is greater than his since he has more than 1 vehicle? If those with the wealth refuse to spread it around you will confiscate it?
Uh, we live in an electronic society. That money can disappear rather quickly the minute before an onerous tax bill comes up for a vote. Contrary to popular opinion, those with that kind of money spend a lot of money on all kinds of things, which help employ people. They hire landscape companies to take care of their homes, nannies to take care of their kids, private tutors and coaches to educate and train their kids, hair and nail salons, department stores, restaurants, airlines, cruise ships, car dealerships, local school districts through taxes on their big homes, state sales taxes on their outsized purchases (relative to me and you), fine arts patronage, charities, and the list goes on. Most of the rest sits in some kind of income generating account, on which they pay 15% of any gains. I'm guessing this is not enough, so you maybe want to make it 35%-50%? I'm guessing that even if they kept it in the country, they could transfer asset classes to something like buying land, on which they would pay local property taxes, but no income taxes, and would be less than the 15% they were paying to start with. Give it up already unless you are proposing that we imprison them for their lack of contribution to our society. In which case, I'd say they'd have company.
I like it.