Quote:
Originally Posted by marsplasticeraser
The issue is that it's too easy to evade taxation. Ultra HNW already shield their assets in corporations in tax havens, but for personal taxation it's simply too easy move to where they pay less/no tax.
It's why Britain's richest man lives in Monaco, even though he owns a massive UK business.
Even guys with 'only' $100m move to tax free jurisdictions. Dave Portnoy of One Bite Pizza fame spends 6 months of the year in Florida to claim that as his taxation residence.
Even if somehow all developed countries had a tax on billionaires (which will never happen), Billionaires can just move to an island nation for their primary residence, and spend a month or two in London, Paris, NYC, Tokyo, San Fran and evade local taxation.
I don't see an easy way to eliminate loopholes, though I suppose you could make access to a country's market dependent on profits staying subject to that countries personal taxation laws, but eventually that means less access to capital for Canadian businesses, which could suck.
You'd also need someway to ensure when equity in a business is sold there is local taxation, which I think would be hard. For example, if I start an oil company in Alberta that extracts Alberta resources, but own the stock in this company through a Cayman Island numbered company, when I sell my company, the money never comes through Alberta, so there is no tax paid.
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Yeah this is the real problem with any tax the rich proposal. Wealth flight is real. You’d need to do it somehow at the market level at all major exchanges leveraging the the value of participating in major markets. It would have to be US led and likely still has huge amounts of evasion.
But it seems most of the support for the existence of billionaires is philosophical rather than practical. The world needs to change its mindset that the billionaire is representive of success as opposed to a failure in the economic system.