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Anti-Poverty Campaigners Cheer Spain-Brazil-South Africa Plan to Tax the Grotesquely Rich
(www.commondreams.org)
Make billionaires middle class again.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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The depressed cynic in me says the billionaires will just find new tax havens and other embezzling ways around it. But it's a good initiative and I pray it actually leads to something tangible.
So if they want to be active in your country they need to pay an 'activation tax' or something, that counteracts removing the majority of their profits tax-free from the country.
Yep, I'm sure some corrupt African country will do just that...
Grotesquely rich sounds good, this "billionaire" has a too good ring to it IMO.
"To achieve this, it is necessary to foster international cooperation in multilateral forums to promote and facilitate the implementation of evidence-based reforms and ongoing experiences regarding the taxation of large fortunes in different countries." [the Spanish government explained.]
Really glad they've decided to counter the ability of the grotesquely rich to just move to another country. If we want them to pay taxes, we need international cooperation.
Ohh, so this is why those people are always shouting about globalism being bad.
Yeah, capital flight tax has to be implemented first to ensure that increasing taxes on the rich will be foolproof.
I once heard a theory we should not tax incoming money but outgoing money. So with income tax it is not that you pay over what you receive but your employer pays tax before you get it (like you pay vat when you buy something). I am no expert but it sounded like it would really work on big corps and rich people because the bank would have to pay taxes when they pay you interest, the broker would pay tax when they pay your profits on shares. Can't imagine it be easy to overhaul the whole system, but it would take away the 'responsibility' of paying taxes from the person who owns the money and puts this responsibility on the person who's parting from the money.
There's no way that's ever gonna happen, rich people are too powerful and influent, even poor people are treating them as demigods.
Well it sure won't change with that attitude
Believing in a fairytale don't make it real either. We know since decades that ultrarich people are a nonsense, but we're still not remotely close of a universal wealth tax, so it's unlikely it will happens someday, especially in the current political context.
"It never happened before, therefore it will never be."
That's what people keep saying. And then shit happens, because it always does.
If there is a god they thought the Titanic's marketing as an "unsinkable ship" was a glorious challenge.
Believing doesn't make a thing real.
But you can get a hell of a lot done because you believe in something.
Choose what you believe in carefully, but you really should choose.
we're still not remotely close of a universal wealth tax
No, but this is a step towards it.
It's unlikely it will happen someday, especially in the current political context.
My brother in Christ, YOU and EVERYONE around you has the power to shift the political context.
And that doesn't mean shifting it overnight. It will take actual effort from you, not just whinging online to other apathetic souls having an "all is lost" collective wank.
You'll have to speak with friends, family, coworkers, random strangers at the bar, and anyone and everyone who'll engage with you about wealth inequality and taxing wealth not work. That's the bare minimum.
Next is organising in your community or at least going to meetings and marches.
Finally you have to more actively engage with political people as an activist.
I'll be the first to admit that I only do the first one, but it sounds like you're not even doing that.
So either start doing that with me and everyone else here, or sit down, shut up, and go back to sucking your thumb and crying in your corner of the internet.
My brother in Christ, YOU and EVERYONE around you has the power to shift the political context.
You are really downplaying the situation. Fascists are in power in an increasingly number of countries and are currently at the head of the most powerful and influential one. It's only a matter of time before any action against them will be illegal, if not virtually infeasible. Counter-powers are already dying fastly, and any way to protest may be outdated tomorrow.