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Reading all the comments so far I have not seen one mention of taxing organized religious institutions. For something that (sadly) has so much influence of far too many lives it is far overdue to have them share the bounty from their tax-free windfall
I think if the churches wish to remain tax exempt then they need to not get involved in politics. No donation to any party, and no rallying for any politician on any level.
Technically this is already the law (in the US at least). And while Churches are generally careful about not donating, the rallying thing gets bent quite often. Arguments I’ve heard are generally of “free speech” and/or “churches are above the law, and we shouldn’t bind God to the laws of man.” Occasionally there are high-profile cases where the IRS does go after a church for boldly breaking the law, but it’s rare.
I think it’s perfectly fine for a religious organization to be tax exempt provided they provide the same level of service as other non-profit orgs. I also think we desperately need to overhaul the requirements and auditing practices of organizations claim to be non-profits.
I don’t think a religious organization on its face deserves to be tax exempt.
I feel like we need a general rule that if the head of your organization makes an appearance in or owns a room where everything is literally plated in gold then you immediately lose non-profit status.
Museuems?
Very few items in them are actually gold let enough to plate everything in there. I’m talking shit like the pope or queen of england giving some half hearted speech sitting on a golden chair/throne in front of a gold plated piano and holding a sceptre with enough gems in it to end world hunger.
From his wiki:
In the 1980s, Icahn developed a reputation as a “corporate raider” after profiting from the hostile takeover and asset stripping of Trans World Airlines.
One of the arguments by the rich is that excessive tax hampers progress. Now we can all see why that is a critical safeguard to have.
They like to say these things that don’t actually make any sense.
It’s the same with the crying around Europe’s mandatory USB-C connector. “Oh it stifles progress” Apple protested.
Forgetting they had the same unchanged connector, and in fact data protocol on their devices for twelve years before Europe decided they wanted a standard, with all the freedom to improve it.A standard, apple already adopted for everything not iPhone no less.
Honestly I can never tell if these tweets are real or not
Everytime I hear arguments against wealth tax, gift tax, property tax or inheritance tax. It’s the same argument, it’s unfair towards the people who has worked all their life and want to leave their already taxed money to their family.
In Norway we have no inheritance tax and no tax on gifts. Most people have no taxes on homes either. We do have some wealth tax.
My main issue with the arguments against it is that its is lacking imagination. We make the rules, we can decide to make it fair. We can set a limit for when taxation occurs at a really high number. Just so that 98% of Norwegians get zero taxes on these things.
Zero taxes for inheritance up to 1 000 000 euros and then 75% on every euro above. Is possible.
Zero taxes on gifts up to 50 000 euros a year is possible.
No taxes on homes worth less than 1 000 000 is possible.
Bringing wealth with you when you permanently move out of the country is possible for values less than 5 000 000 euros for instance.
Then adjust for inflation every year (like we do with many of our welfare systems)
If we do this we can get rid of the wealth tax that the rich hate so much (because they are disadvantaged owners compared to owners of businesses in other countries)
No regular people will feel these taxes at all, and they make sure that the wealth is distributed over time. It’s still possible to get rich, and remain rich. But your children can be rich but not insanely rich.
Exactly what the rates should be is up for debate, but this system is in my opinion a better one.
You can index the values to a multiple of the median salary instead of a fixed number.
This is in Norwegian, but most services is based on this number https://www.nav.no/grunnbelopet
Which currently is 124 028 NOK which is roughly 10 350 euros.
This number is referenced as G (Grunnbeløpet)
So for instance if I lose my job I can get up to 62.4% of a salary up to 6G. Which is the maximum.
Meaning the maximum payout is 744 168 (6G) * 0.624 = 464 360 NOK.
We have tons of calculations like this for all sorts of welfare services.
Every year in may this number is adjusted.
You can take this a step further and ask why we have this aggregation of wealth at all. Private wealth consolidation is a form of malinvestment resulting from a handful of individuals who are told they can effectively loot the economy unchecked.
Taxation “solves” the problem by clawing back some of that malinvestment. But if you recognize it as malinvestment from the outset, you can see arguments against having these private aggregators of wealth at all.
Instead of taxes, why not simply impose a maximum income? In baseball, you’d call it a salary cap.
Of course, but we are as a society so far away from that. It requires a bigger cultural shift than we are anywhere near. Even the thought of an inheritance tax is very unpopular.
Yes, even as a very social democratic country with a highly educated populace, we can be pretty stupid about taxes.
Also most really rich people have their wealth in assets and make their money as gains on those assets. So it does not really tax the most important people, except maybe some C-suites.
if there was a maximum income people would still bitch and whine about those with mansions aquired through non monetary means.
Perhaps the next step is to improve our land use policy, such that one individual isn’t afforded a mansion’s worth of real estate.
a farm uses more land than most small mansions though, and plenty of individuals own farms.
Farm collectivization isn’t a new idea
Not as many as you would think, actually. And that is not the same thing that is being talked about.
Just mandate a luxury tax on all things normal people don’t buy. You can have wealth, but you cannot have anything normal people cannot have without paying. Oh you want to acquire a whole ass business? You want to donate millions for political influence? You want a Ferrari? Want more land or a huge house? You pay demoralizing amounts of luxury tax.
In the U.S. gift tax is exempt on the first $14 million you give. You just have to submit a tax form when you file your taxes. So someone can gift each of their 5 grandchildren a million dollar house, and then give them $1.8 million dollars in cash each before they die. And avoid any gift tax on any of that. Then get taxed an inheritance tax. There is no Federal inheritance tax. Which if you live in a state like Tennessee where I live, the inheritance tax is 0%. So you have now avoided paying any taxes passing down any amount of wealth you potentially have. If you are a billionaire and have an accountant that can’t figure out how to bypass paying taxes you or they must be willfully choosing to do so in the U.S.
Harvard is missing from that list as well
Tax the rich? Its far too late for that
Not big enough. We have the technology…
I remember being in uni when George W got elected the first time. I recall my uni friends were saying there’s no point taxing the rich because they’ll always find another loop hole. I guess we should realize they’d never stop. They’re never like, “hmm that’s enough”.
Why do those who make the rules
Claim they have no control of the rules?
Quite simple, those that make the rules first had to get elected into that spot and needed money to get there, so now they are there the person ‘giving’ them comes calling saying they need the rules to look like such and such. But they promised something different to the voters, so they choose to lie so they can have their cake and eat it. Circle of
lifepolitics.
Too late we’re already an oligarch dictatorship
Taxes won’t work now anyway. A redistribution of wealth is required.
That’s what tax is.
Not through a dictatorial government it’s not.
Tax is a redistribution of new wealth. A redistribution of existing wealth is required.
Always has been
Where the wealth tax is measured in calibre.
That’s exactly how they win, by people going “well, it’s already bad, not worth doing anything to make it better.”
We are pushing back but so far things seem to be getting worse
You’re not pushing back, you’re picketing. This is not a situation that can be fixed by picketing.
Tax wealth, not work.
It’s not even all wealth that is the problem. The problem is their wealth is held in financial assets designed to strip wealth from workers and deliver it to hoarders.
We need a securities tax, payable not in dollars, but in shares of the security. Exempt the first $10 million held by a natural person. IRS liquidators will sell off the shares slowly over time, such that the liquidated shares will never consist of more than 1% of total traded shares of that issue.
Sound like the time to tax the rich was from 2016 to 2024. It’s now time to do something else
I posted it in another reply, but what the heck, why not do it again?
Making the rich pay their fair share works great for my slogan: Make American Work for Everyone.
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I paid thirty fucking thousand dollars last year.
the children amputees with no surviving relatives in Gaza who received your contribution thank you
