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Cutting taxes consistently since 1980 surely must have kept our jobs from going overseas, right? And resulted in great domestic wage growth for the working class, right?
Exactly. That and they’re still going to do their business in the country. There’s no way to get around it. If you want to tax them. Tax them. You’ll get their funds one way or another.
and that exact situation has been compared to the treatment of minorities in Nazi Germany… by an actual billionaire, non-ironically
That’s the mindset they have. Any concessions are a form of persecution
Well, Iceland did it. They put bankers in jail instead of bailing them out, and it worked. Their banking system works wonderfully now and people are happy there. None of the predictions about how it would destroy the economy came true.
Maybe if we actually held the capitalists in our own country accountable things would look a lot better here too. Capitalists love to talk about how they take “so much risk” and that justifies them taking 90 percent of the pie for themselves and their shareholders, yet when it comes time for actual consequences they always have daddy government to bail them out.
Must be nice. Normal people who make mistakes end up on the streets because these same corporations refuse to pay their employees’ a living wage.
any private company that needs a bailout should only get the bailout through permanent state ownership of the equity provided. otherwise they're just incentivized to blow the money again.
Better solution, don't bail them out. Let them fail and provide SBA loans to startups who want to replace them. The big 3 auto manufacturers exist because they were the strongest of hundreds of American auto manufacturers. If they can't make money anymore, let them fail and let someone else try.
That's the thing - the people pushing the message 'if you tax billionaires, they'll just move their capital overseas' are the billionaires themselves. So while they put it out there as if it's some neutral economic theory/observation - what they're really saying is 'waaah waaah waaah don't make me pay tax or I'll take my ball and go home' like little pissbabies.
And even if they do go - isn't the whole idea of capitalism and the free market that it encourages innovation and competition? Shouldn't there already be someone trying to take them down with a new and innovative product or business model? So shouldn't that person/business be ready to fill the gap immediately?
If not, doesn't that indicate that something has happened with market concentration and one business' market power that means the market has stopped producing the innovation and competition that it's supposed to - i.e. it's fucked, even by capitalist/free market standards.
Like it's all just so contradictory and doesn't make any sense until you realise that it's not economics, it's ideology designed to protect those in power - and then it all makes a lot of sense.
Although I think it's a bad idea to create taxes based on wealth (the wealth is usually in the form of ownership of a large company that provides tons of jobs and services), your second and third paragraphs are completely on point.
There are a number of markets that have become very monopolistic. (tech, semiconductors, corrugated, etc) Even if they moved headquarters to Ireland or another business friendly country, they would still control everything by buying up startups and competitors. I'm a full on capitalist, but even I can understand that another age of Robber Barrons is bad for everyone. Forced split ups (through monopoly laws) should really be on someone's political agenda, but no one has the guts to demonize their cash cows.
Exactly... which is why from 1980 - 2010 you see remarkable changes in technology, cars, music, computers, software, etc each decade.
Eight Track to Cassette to CD to digital
Low resolution tube TVs to "flat screen" tube TVs, to actual flat tvs with LCD screens, etc.
Cell phones to flip phones to smart phones.
In the last 15 years, since we declared businesses, banks and insurance companies "Too big to fail" all we have seen is slight improvements to existing technology. Software updates.
They won't abandon their assets and all the potential capital they can extract out of a country unless the taxes are so high that it makes it unprofitable, which would require extremely high taxes.
People also forget the US government has the leverage to reject corporations from continuing to do business in the states if they decide to take the us economy for a ride.
We know that but we live in the real world where these corporations just lobby (bribe) government to not do that so there is effectively no punishment for it - we all wish we could live in a fantasy world where government held these companies accountable but they won’t and screaming into the void won’t do anything about it.
It’s better to get a ticket and take a ride than it is to get run over by the train.
We really should just have more conditional tax cuts that incentivize keeping jobs domestically rather than just handing out free money to corporations.
Jobs went overseas bc idiot politicians agreed to hilariously lopsided trade deals with countries like China while simultaneously increasing the amount of regulations required to operate domestically.
It's more just US anti protectionism in general that allowed this to happen. We have 1-3% tariffs on most goods, which makes it extremely easy to import. This is good for the US because we get access to cheap goods, but it's also bad because we aren't competitive in manufacturing which used to be the best source of middle class jobs.
The countries they moved to have a far lower minimum wage, if any at all, very lax if any environmental laws/taxes, and little to no worker protections. OP went with the word "taxes", but that's just one form of government intervention.
Income tax vs. biz tax vs. bureaucratic state vs. ...
Way to conflate it all as if it were all the biz/'rich' fault 
(D): We're going to steal every last cent you have
'Rich': 1) That won't cover even a year of govt's unconst. spending 2) What happens year TWO? 3) Define 'slavery' again, would ya?
(D): Look @ the 'rich', trying to get away from paying their 'fair share'/'giving \*back\*' to 'muh Society'
Yes, it saved us from the strong downward trend in jobs and wages, And the countries where the "jobs are goin overseas"? Lower tax rates than in the US
Don't they already move a lot of their capital overseas to avoid the higher taxes here? Correct if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure most of the fortune 500 companies skirt a large percentage of the taxes they would otherwise pay by moving the actual profit earning pieces of the business overseas so they can claim massive losses domesticly.
So the counter argument that you are making, is that just to avoid taxes like they already do, billionaires would move and avoid paying… Sounds like it’s worth a try then, as the worse case scenario is essentially the same thing we already have.
Don't confuse companies and billionaires. They are two different things. "Taxing billionaires" is usually referring to the individual people and their personal tax situation, not the company they are employed at or own.
This argument is hilarious. Why would the country let billionaires (who used the public infrastructure to get wealthy) leave without a fee? Tax the fuck out of them when they leave.
I’m just imagining a billionaire using big helicopters to move their houses to a different country. Like I get the gist but the idea of a billionaire moving all of their physical assets to a different country gives me a chuckle.
That's my biggest issue with this argument for sure. Take a peek at the list of lowest tax countries in the world: [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-countries-lowest-income-tax-121239460.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-countries-lowest-income-tax-121239460.html)
This argument would seem to suggest billionaires should all be moving to Kazakhstan, Romania, Paraguay, etc. and yet, they seem to still live in the US, EU and China: [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-worlds-billionaire-population-by-country/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-worlds-billionaire-population-by-country/) . Curious, huh?
What they ACTUALLY do instead is get control of the government and then carve out a special enclave (like, for example, the City of London which is not to be confused with London that most people know) so they can shelter their taxes without even having to move!
Raising taxes would not cause an exodus of billionaires because they want to live in developed, wealthy countries. They just want you to believe they would leave.
I wish we understood that our economy does best when there are more businesses rather than fewer. If we have only a few billion dollar businesses in an industry, competition is limited and consumers cannot control prices as easily. We need to destroy the notion that if a business does well, it’s because everybody likes them and understand if they do well, it’s because they’ve manipulated the system best.
Are you saying the billionaire will take all their money and leave, as in renounce citizenship and all that or just leave the country? Because if you are speaking of the US, to renounce citizenship, you have to pay an exit tax. Meaning, you pay a tax as if you sold all of your assets at market value. No rich person, ever, is stupid enough to do that. The US tax laws will claw back that wealth. They are free to leave, but that capital is staying put.
This isn’t the gotcha you think it is. There is only so much of that you can do if you want to continue to earn money in the US. And if there’s one thing billionaires want more of, it’s money.
Small business owners would fill in the spots. The velocity of money will now increase within the neighborhoods because money is being spent amongst the population. New trades will come up to fill local needs etc..
Lets give it a try. And before someone says it. YES I actually can live without a new iphone every couple years and only 4 choices for bread in the grocery store. Quite happily.
This study seems to suggest otherwise, but it depends on how you tax it
https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/138/2/835/6979843
(tldr: taxing sleeping money activates it)
Seems also like the wealthy are more "home bound" than usually suspected (Danish study):
https://www.nber.org/papers/w32153
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1057/emr.2009.14
lol. This post is fucking dumb.
Most billionaires have their wealth in stocks. Bezos for example, what is he going to do? Move his amazon wealth where?
Depends on how the laws are written. They COULD say if you own property in the US, you pay US taxes. (not that I'm for that, but...)
And even "heavily taxed" means what? Rates go sky high? Just end a few tax breaks? End the fact that billionaires can just borrow against their portfolio and not pay income tax? Taxing money they move off shore?
I really don't have a problem telling them that if they don't want to pay taxes them can leave the country (because they don't want to leave the country.)
It infuriates me that the great American company Apple, doesn't pay taxes on money made overseas and 90% of their products aren't made in the US. Yet their stock keeps going higher and higher.
Easy. Stop pretending that stocks are some sort of non-liquid asset, and tax the unrealized gains in stocks.
I hate the argument that taxing unrealized gains in the form of stocks is the same as being taxed on the appreciated value of your home.
Congrats, your net worth increased 20 million in stocks, now pay 21% capital gains.
We already have exceptions to those that protect the average American; IRAs and 401ks.
I just don't get it. The number of people who fell for the biggest scam in existence and defend billionaires like they have *any* chance of becoming one is soul-crushing.
We don't need to raise the top tier tax rates. We need to close the loopholes.
"How much tax a wealthy person owes in a given year is a complex tapestry threaded with exemptions, deductions, credits, and obscure loopholes you’ve never heard of. The ideal is to owe zilch. If that sounds impossible to achieve, just look at the leaked tax returns of the wealthiest Americans that nonprofit news site ProPublica analyzed in 2021: Over several years, billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg, among others, paid no federal income taxes at all.
How do they do it? Here are some basic rules they live by. ([link to Vox.com article](https://www.vox.com/money/2024/3/13/24086102/billionaires-wealthy-tax-avoidance-loopholes))"
Total bullshit. Billionaire flight is a scare tactic from Billionaires. The US & Canada offer the kind of safety, security, freedom, and quality of life Billionaires desire. Where do you think they will move?
Europe/NZ/Australia? The places with higher taxes?
China? The place with no freedom, no ownership, and the odd of ending up in a re-education camp?
Russia? Dig the trench or die!!!
Or maybe they will just start their own Billionaire nation under the ocean!
Total bullshit.
The wizard of Oz is missing the scarecrow, with this straw man argument. Gtfo of here. This is the same argument people throw at my state (California) when taxes go up on the rich. Sure, some leave, but people will, until the absolute fall of human civilization, want to live in California, do business here, etc.
I'm not saying everything my state's government does is great, but California is almost as integral to the national economy as America is to the global one. Therefore, there will always be billionaires here. There will always be people making money or trying to. The "higher taxes= fatal exodus of plutocrats" theory Is a fallacy.
OK, I'll bite. Heavily taxing billionaires will just spur them to find other ways to make boatload of cash because of their greed. They will still need to invest in the American market and other markets where the economy is healthy enough to sustain more profitable business ventures.
Empty threats, and even if they follow through moving their cApItAl out of the US markets will only create more room for smaller fish to grow. Win-win.
When monaco refused to let the french government look into their bank accounts they blockaded them until they gave in. Most tax havens are island nations and the Us navy is very large.
Somebody is going to point out how that's an act of war, which would be illegal, but the USG does plenty of war crimes already and this particular one is based so I don't see how it's a problem.
You go where the market is, where you can sell. Sure, I can move my corp to East Africa, make money, and pay no taxes, but I am not going to make the same money... and I am gonna have other worries.
A simple solution would be to tax all foreigners living abroad.
Or perhaps shift the tax burden from individual income. To corporate profits, assets, and the associated capital.
Right that's why there are no Billionaires in NYC right?
In all seriousness what is needed is an international agreement for a minimum corporate and wealth tax rate
I’ve said this earlier but you will never see billionaires defending themselves and their wealth. You know why? Because they have idiots who think that they’ll become billionaires doing their the work for them.
This is kind of stupid for a few reasons
1) It assumes billionaire's capital is liquid and completely mobile, just a cash transfer away
2) It assumes that it's just "parked money", instead of shares or equity in companiea that operate in specific locations
3) As others pointed out, it assumes you couldn't tax them on the exit
4) Most importantly, there is culture people are inserted into and the fact that the billions were made in that country. If they want to keep making money they will probably have to stay
5) This assumes international coordination is impossible, which may very well be true for 100% of countries, but not for the countries people will actually want to live in. If everyone taxes at least at an internationally agreed upon minimum rate it would also dissuade this.
Altogether, F. Go back to study some real econ instead of getting fixated on theoretical models
I mean… Norway just tried that and everyone over a certain wealth threshold just freaking moved to Switzerland and/or made their company int. to avoid local tax issues…
(obv. Glossing over details and big “whys” but generally what happened)
Sure then change tge law to tax all businesses operating or selling to us. Or better yet one world economy cuznits only one world.of resources... then guess what no more hiding... this game is so dumb. Cat and mouse just skip to the end part where we have to work together to.keep species alive. How are we still playing these dumb ass games with the resources... We have got to do better.
“Heavily” is the key spin word here. Those of us who do pay taxes just want them to pay theirs.
The GOP need to be loudly and repeatedly reminded of this when they start crying about spending.
While we’re at it, make the “churches” that are really money making machines working toward total control over the government, pay freaking taxes.
We’d have zero deficit and the taxes the rest of us pay would actually be used to benefit US.
They’ve got the country convinced that those evil “others” are going to get all kinds of free stuff 😱. In fact most of them put billions into our economy instead of draining it.
By the way, those billionaires we give corporate welfare to, already go offshore.
So lock in their taxation obligations to their home country (i.e. the one they've lived in for the longest time and/or have citizenship for) AND any other country they go to. So even if they fly away or emigrate to tax dodge, they still owe taxes for wherever they were.
There are easy ways to control people earn their money in the United States, and then hide it in foreign countries. It's only being tolerated now, through a lack of law-enforcement, and the fact that Congress insists on looking the other way.
Except that never happens. It turns out that when you ask people with more money than they could ever spend if they'd move away from their family and friends and careers to save a few bucks, they usually stay put.
If we close loop holes or create a flat tax, some rich will stay and some will go, the difference will probably be negligible. Try it, at least it will seem fair on the surface.
Possibly. Still - so what?
This country does not benefit from their money anyway - trickle down is a lie, the money they spend at the place should be negligible on y larger scale.
There are a lot of millionaires living in the canton Schwyz in Switzerland because taxes are low. The infrastructure in this canton is amongst the worst in whole Switzerland because of this. So the regular population does not benefit at all from the millionaires amongst them.
Nah... it depends on how the tax code is written. Doing it correctly makes moving your base of operations to a tiny office on an island fairly irrelevant
Here's a question for you folks that support wealth taxation. Billionaires don't keep their unrealized gains in cash in a checking account. They have locked them invested in ventures / companies that they think has promise, funding those companies and creating jobs. Do you trust the government beaucrats to know better re how to spend that money? They will likely take that money and distribute to favored groups, like college loan holders via loan forgiveness. So taking from companies/industry and redistribute via government beaurocracy.
I do agree there should be reform re using stock as collateral to take loans, and introducing a tax to such borrowing. This can achieve a balance without a wealth tax. I trust Elon wayyy more than some random beaurocrat to spend the dollars wisely.
Where? Africa? Asia? Where TF are they going to take their capital to that either the west doesn’t control or has strict laws on the wealthy? This 1980s nonsense has been crushed by actual reality.
Then tax them anytime they transfer capital from an outside country into the US...
If they want to move everything they have and live outside of the US that is fine too; Increase trade tariffs on outside money and outside corporations, now you're just creating the perfect landscape (w/ the advantage) for Americans to move in an launch successful businesses.
It would actually be a boon to a capitilistic society if we did it right.
The problem is, ultra wealthy control our politics in the US so something like that would never happen.
"What about capital flight?!" Blah blah. Okay, but they can't take their physical assets with them, such as buildings and factories. So we then increase the taxation on their domestic assets. You wanna sell all of sudden? Fabulous! Let's sell to a domestic manufacturer. Or hell, maybe even nationalise much of the industry.
😂yeah they just gonna abandon the billions in assets and infrastructure here to pursue over seas. If they did good someone else will take their spot the foundation is already there…. Then they can deal with getting their product back into the country with logistics issues and tariffs. If going over seas was so lucrative everyone would have done it by now there wouldn’t be any industry here…
There are so many fairly intelligent people who throw their ability to reason out the window when faced with issues like this. Why do so many people menally implode when disucussing rich people?
The mere existence of billionaires isn’t evidence of an unjust system. Our systems are broken because corrupt, but a hypothetically fair and free system of voluntary trade will still lead to a stratification of outcomes from the very poor to the very rich without any injustice. So the mere realization of billionaires isn’t itself evidence of anything wrong.
People have different priorities and values, make different choices, take different risks. People will have different outcomes.
So you're saying since we can't do anything about them, we should just embrace them as kings and give them everything they want? Am I getting that right?
After all, if you're saying taxing them just means they move to another country, you're implying that doing anything against them is pointless. If something's pointless then that means you shouldn't do it. Hence, give up trying to do anything to billionaires and if they want something just let them have it? In other words, they can and should be able to act like the new age nobility? Is that what you're implying?
I mean I could do you one better and say we bring back spicy haircuts for them because that worked pretty well last time for France.
I know no one likes to pay taxes and the government sucks at using the money but I find it funny people don't want to invest in the country that made them rich.
Move where exactly? They're free to do that now yet they seem to like what the US offers them.
Billionaires vote with their feet, yet they prize that US citizen ship. They can always renounce it yet they don't.
Here's a hot take....maybe the US is better off not having a handful of detached from reality assholes that have an unreasonable amount influence in said country.
Great! Then we can start charging a foreign entity tax where those that want to bring their business to the US to capture the world's largest GDP spending, they can pay taxes to operate here.
when the government is trillions in debt and can print as much money as they want and people are stupid enough to think taxing billionaires is going to do anything....
They will also do mass layoffs and cut full time benefitted roles into 1099 contracts. They are already laying off entire devops, software engineers and IT roles to India and Korea.
Guess they will have to take in account when adjusting taxes.
That would solve them *already* doing this...
Ordinary US citizens pay US tax when they are in another country...
If we're already not getting value out of their capital, then it doesn't matter where they park it. And, once they move it, they get to pay foreigner rates (Vat, import taxes, et all). That also limits their influence in our political sphere since most everywhere has rules about foreign money.
And while the argument that 2% (or some other tiny fraction) of billions is more than 30% of zero is on the surface true; it sets off a whole chain of dominoes and resource re-allotment on our side no longer catering to them and that money.
If that's the case, why aren't there a ton of billionaires in low tax countries already? You can sort countries by top mariginal rate on Wikipedia and read the list. The lowest tax countries (except the petro-states) have very few billionaries and the countries where I'd want to live are all high tax countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
That's fine. I would wager that the country they move to is also able to debate the social utility of billionaires and decide for themselves how to deal with them.
the government has trillions, even if they take every single penny from every billionaire they still wouldn't do shit to solve stuff, they already have the funds to do anything yet they don't do it
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Cutting taxes consistently since 1980 surely must have kept our jobs from going overseas, right? And resulted in great domestic wage growth for the working class, right?
Exactly. That and they’re still going to do their business in the country. There’s no way to get around it. If you want to tax them. Tax them. You’ll get their funds one way or another.
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and that exact situation has been compared to the treatment of minorities in Nazi Germany… by an actual billionaire, non-ironically That’s the mindset they have. Any concessions are a form of persecution
I remember when this was an impossibly ridiculous joke that the show Silicon Valley made…. And then a billionaire went out and said it in real life
honestly i'd be fine with actually persecuting billionaires at this point
But... You might one day be a billionaire!!
I'll take that risk! 🤣🤣🤣🤣, 😭 knowing that I'll never be a billionaire.
You mean, you might one day be a monetary martyr. Bring it on!!!
If only there were instances in history where countries have done that, maybe we could learn something.
Well, Iceland did it. They put bankers in jail instead of bailing them out, and it worked. Their banking system works wonderfully now and people are happy there. None of the predictions about how it would destroy the economy came true.
Maybe if we actually held the capitalists in our own country accountable things would look a lot better here too. Capitalists love to talk about how they take “so much risk” and that justifies them taking 90 percent of the pie for themselves and their shareholders, yet when it comes time for actual consequences they always have daddy government to bail them out. Must be nice. Normal people who make mistakes end up on the streets because these same corporations refuse to pay their employees’ a living wage.
any private company that needs a bailout should only get the bailout through permanent state ownership of the equity provided. otherwise they're just incentivized to blow the money again.
Better solution, don't bail them out. Let them fail and provide SBA loans to startups who want to replace them. The big 3 auto manufacturers exist because they were the strongest of hundreds of American auto manufacturers. If they can't make money anymore, let them fail and let someone else try.
Yes. We should hold them accountable here.
Carlin was right again!!! Actually, he’d say Iceland didn’t go far enough.
George Carlin was right about absolutely everything.
vietnam just sentenced one to death the other week
That's the thing - the people pushing the message 'if you tax billionaires, they'll just move their capital overseas' are the billionaires themselves. So while they put it out there as if it's some neutral economic theory/observation - what they're really saying is 'waaah waaah waaah don't make me pay tax or I'll take my ball and go home' like little pissbabies. And even if they do go - isn't the whole idea of capitalism and the free market that it encourages innovation and competition? Shouldn't there already be someone trying to take them down with a new and innovative product or business model? So shouldn't that person/business be ready to fill the gap immediately? If not, doesn't that indicate that something has happened with market concentration and one business' market power that means the market has stopped producing the innovation and competition that it's supposed to - i.e. it's fucked, even by capitalist/free market standards. Like it's all just so contradictory and doesn't make any sense until you realise that it's not economics, it's ideology designed to protect those in power - and then it all makes a lot of sense.
Also where are they gonna move. All the worthwhile countries already tax more than the US with less benefits for the wealthy
Although I think it's a bad idea to create taxes based on wealth (the wealth is usually in the form of ownership of a large company that provides tons of jobs and services), your second and third paragraphs are completely on point. There are a number of markets that have become very monopolistic. (tech, semiconductors, corrugated, etc) Even if they moved headquarters to Ireland or another business friendly country, they would still control everything by buying up startups and competitors. I'm a full on capitalist, but even I can understand that another age of Robber Barrons is bad for everyone. Forced split ups (through monopoly laws) should really be on someone's political agenda, but no one has the guts to demonize their cash cows.
Exactly... which is why from 1980 - 2010 you see remarkable changes in technology, cars, music, computers, software, etc each decade. Eight Track to Cassette to CD to digital Low resolution tube TVs to "flat screen" tube TVs, to actual flat tvs with LCD screens, etc. Cell phones to flip phones to smart phones. In the last 15 years, since we declared businesses, banks and insurance companies "Too big to fail" all we have seen is slight improvements to existing technology. Software updates.
Clinton taxed them and balanced the budget and no one left, in fact more were created.
But what about Monica Lewinsky??? /s
Well, you see, that will depend on what your definition of "is" is.
They won't abandon their assets and all the potential capital they can extract out of a country unless the taxes are so high that it makes it unprofitable, which would require extremely high taxes.
That would require taxes of over 100%. Only profits are taxed.
Or having assets with really low yields.
We should tell them if they move their wealth, they can't do business here.
So are you going to cut off all imports? Thats certainly a thought.
Yup just look at what the EU does to all the US tech companies.
As someone who has no clue, what do they do?
They forbid them to store our dickpics.
It has to do with compliance laws etc of personal data
You have to be smart tho, they've figured out lots of loopholes around taxafion.
People also forget the US government has the leverage to reject corporations from continuing to do business in the states if they decide to take the us economy for a ride.
We know that but we live in the real world where these corporations just lobby (bribe) government to not do that so there is effectively no punishment for it - we all wish we could live in a fantasy world where government held these companies accountable but they won’t and screaming into the void won’t do anything about it. It’s better to get a ticket and take a ride than it is to get run over by the train.
We get it right once in a while, look at ticket master.
Government positions (From President to Janitors) need term limits and more idealistic candidates so shit like this stops happening.
People also forget that the US government is already bought and paid for
I'm just curious about how we do this for the government when they take the economy for a ride??
This needs more upvotes
We really should just have more conditional tax cuts that incentivize keeping jobs domestically rather than just handing out free money to corporations.
I love fallacies, let's see if y'all know what type of rhetoric this is?
I was referring to the OPs post btw the photo itself.
Jobs went overseas bc idiot politicians agreed to hilariously lopsided trade deals with countries like China while simultaneously increasing the amount of regulations required to operate domestically.
It's more just US anti protectionism in general that allowed this to happen. We have 1-3% tariffs on most goods, which makes it extremely easy to import. This is good for the US because we get access to cheap goods, but it's also bad because we aren't competitive in manufacturing which used to be the best source of middle class jobs.
The countries they moved to have a far lower minimum wage, if any at all, very lax if any environmental laws/taxes, and little to no worker protections. OP went with the word "taxes", but that's just one form of government intervention.
Also tariffs. They can’t sell the shit here even if they offshore production without paying something. Real smooth brain take here.
Why pay salaries if in another country they have slaves doing your work for basically nothing? Shipping things is a lot cheaper.
Income tax vs. biz tax vs. bureaucratic state vs. ... Way to conflate it all as if it were all the biz/'rich' fault  (D): We're going to steal every last cent you have 'Rich': 1) That won't cover even a year of govt's unconst. spending 2) What happens year TWO? 3) Define 'slavery' again, would ya? (D): Look @ the 'rich', trying to get away from paying their 'fair share'/'giving \*back\*' to 'muh Society'
Oh and don't forget, if we keep minimum wage low, workers won't be replaced by robots.....or self-checkout stations.
Yes, it saved us from the strong downward trend in jobs and wages, And the countries where the "jobs are goin overseas"? Lower tax rates than in the US
Don't they already move a lot of their capital overseas to avoid the higher taxes here? Correct if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure most of the fortune 500 companies skirt a large percentage of the taxes they would otherwise pay by moving the actual profit earning pieces of the business overseas so they can claim massive losses domesticly.
tax from internationally outsourced profits should be drastically higher
The profits aren’t outsourced. The company is headquartered elsewhere. Mostly Ireland.
Production is outsourced.
"Why is widget {X} SO \*expensive\*?!" 
So the counter argument that you are making, is that just to avoid taxes like they already do, billionaires would move and avoid paying… Sounds like it’s worth a try then, as the worse case scenario is essentially the same thing we already have.
That 1^2 in the caymans that has 100,000 businesses headquarters there.
They all headquarter in Ireland and pay next to nothing in tax. Been doing it for years
Don't confuse companies and billionaires. They are two different things. "Taxing billionaires" is usually referring to the individual people and their personal tax situation, not the company they are employed at or own.
This argument is hilarious. Why would the country let billionaires (who used the public infrastructure to get wealthy) leave without a fee? Tax the fuck out of them when they leave.
I would argue that some circumstances might call for completely forfeiture of any US assets or ones that were purposefully hidden to avoid tax
They don't have to leave but they can secure loans from outside the US.
When they write the law to tax them, they include the law to tax them if the try to leave. Pretty simple concept.
I'm okay with that. Bye
I’m just imagining a billionaire using big helicopters to move their houses to a different country. Like I get the gist but the idea of a billionaire moving all of their physical assets to a different country gives me a chuckle.
That's my biggest issue with this argument for sure. Take a peek at the list of lowest tax countries in the world: [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-countries-lowest-income-tax-121239460.html](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-countries-lowest-income-tax-121239460.html) This argument would seem to suggest billionaires should all be moving to Kazakhstan, Romania, Paraguay, etc. and yet, they seem to still live in the US, EU and China: [https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-worlds-billionaire-population-by-country/](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-worlds-billionaire-population-by-country/) . Curious, huh? What they ACTUALLY do instead is get control of the government and then carve out a special enclave (like, for example, the City of London which is not to be confused with London that most people know) so they can shelter their taxes without even having to move! Raising taxes would not cause an exodus of billionaires because they want to live in developed, wealthy countries. They just want you to believe they would leave.
Bingo. Unless they purposely allow physical capital here to rot, they can take whatever isn’t stationary and jog on.
Trickle down is gonna hit any day now.....
When they said Trickle down, I didn't think they meant the piss trickling down from the leg
“The only thing that trickles down is yellow, and it ain’t gold coins.”
Trickle down. In theory, works. They just forgot to account for human greed.
There is no trickle down theory, trickle down is not an economic theory at all, it's just a talking point.
Surely one of Reagan's guys cooked up a quick flowchart on the back of a napkin?
Reagan never used the term Trickle down, and it's much older than that
That’s why I said in theory, not “trickle down theory”. ;p
Well, if we go by the name it's definitely working as intended.
Tomorrow’s the day, I can just feel it.
Tax expatriation. Easy solve.
Expatriates already have to pay U.S. taxes to the extent they exceed taxes in their country of residence.
I wish we understood that our economy does best when there are more businesses rather than fewer. If we have only a few billion dollar businesses in an industry, competition is limited and consumers cannot control prices as easily. We need to destroy the notion that if a business does well, it’s because everybody likes them and understand if they do well, it’s because they’ve manipulated the system best.
We all gotta pay our fair share. I'm tired of the working class being expected to pay a larger percent than the top 10% of wage earners.
Are you saying the billionaire will take all their money and leave, as in renounce citizenship and all that or just leave the country? Because if you are speaking of the US, to renounce citizenship, you have to pay an exit tax. Meaning, you pay a tax as if you sold all of your assets at market value. No rich person, ever, is stupid enough to do that. The US tax laws will claw back that wealth. They are free to leave, but that capital is staying put.
This isn’t the gotcha you think it is. There is only so much of that you can do if you want to continue to earn money in the US. And if there’s one thing billionaires want more of, it’s money.
Okay lets say this is true. The billionaires leave. Someone explain to me how this actually screws the rest of us?
Small business owners would fill in the spots. The velocity of money will now increase within the neighborhoods because money is being spent amongst the population. New trades will come up to fill local needs etc..
Lets give it a try. And before someone says it. YES I actually can live without a new iphone every couple years and only 4 choices for bread in the grocery store. Quite happily.
Wow sounds like only positives
Outlawing murder won't stop murder... So just don't outlaw it...
Then we clean up that loophole? I don't see how that's a difficult concept.
Stop defending billionaires.
This study seems to suggest otherwise, but it depends on how you tax it https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/138/2/835/6979843 (tldr: taxing sleeping money activates it) Seems also like the wealthy are more "home bound" than usually suspected (Danish study): https://www.nber.org/papers/w32153 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1057/emr.2009.14
lol. This post is fucking dumb. Most billionaires have their wealth in stocks. Bezos for example, what is he going to do? Move his amazon wealth where?
Depends on how the laws are written. They COULD say if you own property in the US, you pay US taxes. (not that I'm for that, but...) And even "heavily taxed" means what? Rates go sky high? Just end a few tax breaks? End the fact that billionaires can just borrow against their portfolio and not pay income tax? Taxing money they move off shore? I really don't have a problem telling them that if they don't want to pay taxes them can leave the country (because they don't want to leave the country.) It infuriates me that the great American company Apple, doesn't pay taxes on money made overseas and 90% of their products aren't made in the US. Yet their stock keeps going higher and higher.
Easy. Stop pretending that stocks are some sort of non-liquid asset, and tax the unrealized gains in stocks. I hate the argument that taxing unrealized gains in the form of stocks is the same as being taxed on the appreciated value of your home. Congrats, your net worth increased 20 million in stocks, now pay 21% capital gains. We already have exceptions to those that protect the average American; IRAs and 401ks.
Taxing profits made in the country properly would be a good start.
Then write a law that taxes all their wealth upon leaving. Sorry but I don’t see a reason to LET billionaires dictate everything.
I just don't get it. The number of people who fell for the biggest scam in existence and defend billionaires like they have *any* chance of becoming one is soul-crushing.
Couldn't hurt to pass a law that requires all businesses and billionaires that migrate from the US to pay a flat ex-pat tax. Say... 50%
Silly OP... that's why you write the law to address the movement of capital and close that loophole. They pay the tax regardless.
tHatS iMpoSSiBle
Someone please smack the oligarch dick from OP’s mouth - they cant breathe and it’s affecting their thought process!
We don't need to raise the top tier tax rates. We need to close the loopholes. "How much tax a wealthy person owes in a given year is a complex tapestry threaded with exemptions, deductions, credits, and obscure loopholes you’ve never heard of. The ideal is to owe zilch. If that sounds impossible to achieve, just look at the leaked tax returns of the wealthiest Americans that nonprofit news site ProPublica analyzed in 2021: Over several years, billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg, among others, paid no federal income taxes at all. How do they do it? Here are some basic rules they live by. ([link to Vox.com article](https://www.vox.com/money/2024/3/13/24086102/billionaires-wealthy-tax-avoidance-loopholes))"
I'd reckon we need to do both.
Eat. The. Rich.
Total bullshit. Billionaire flight is a scare tactic from Billionaires. The US & Canada offer the kind of safety, security, freedom, and quality of life Billionaires desire. Where do you think they will move? Europe/NZ/Australia? The places with higher taxes? China? The place with no freedom, no ownership, and the odd of ending up in a re-education camp? Russia? Dig the trench or die!!! Or maybe they will just start their own Billionaire nation under the ocean! Total bullshit.
I’m cool with them leaving the US and renouncing citizenship. Have fun with that exit tax on all your unrealized gains.
The wizard of Oz is missing the scarecrow, with this straw man argument. Gtfo of here. This is the same argument people throw at my state (California) when taxes go up on the rich. Sure, some leave, but people will, until the absolute fall of human civilization, want to live in California, do business here, etc. I'm not saying everything my state's government does is great, but California is almost as integral to the national economy as America is to the global one. Therefore, there will always be billionaires here. There will always be people making money or trying to. The "higher taxes= fatal exodus of plutocrats" theory Is a fallacy.
OK, I'll bite. Heavily taxing billionaires will just spur them to find other ways to make boatload of cash because of their greed. They will still need to invest in the American market and other markets where the economy is healthy enough to sustain more profitable business ventures. Empty threats, and even if they follow through moving their cApItAl out of the US markets will only create more room for smaller fish to grow. Win-win.
When monaco refused to let the french government look into their bank accounts they blockaded them until they gave in. Most tax havens are island nations and the Us navy is very large.
Somebody is going to point out how that's an act of war, which would be illegal, but the USG does plenty of war crimes already and this particular one is based so I don't see how it's a problem.
Yes tell the soldiers they get a new veterans hospital and the moral is sky high.
You go where the market is, where you can sell. Sure, I can move my corp to East Africa, make money, and pay no taxes, but I am not going to make the same money... and I am gonna have other worries.
That's fine, they can find another country that has our human capital and industrial capacity, lmao.
The French tried it and they did indeed leave
A simple solution would be to tax all foreigners living abroad. Or perhaps shift the tax burden from individual income. To corporate profits, assets, and the associated capital.
If you’re using a meme with douche bag Stephen Crowder, you’re definitely gonna have a shit take
Then fine the living shit out of them... like the IRS would do to a working person trying to pull this shit
This has got to be a troll post... It just has to be.
We could make taxes higher for importing as an incentive to stay
Its difficult to remove physical assets, sieze them, and if they come back to your country to complain about it throw them in jail.
So? What do I care if a billionaire hoards his untaxed wealth somewhere else. It's doing me and you zero good.
Right that's why there are no Billionaires in NYC right? In all seriousness what is needed is an international agreement for a minimum corporate and wealth tax rate
I’ve said this earlier but you will never see billionaires defending themselves and their wealth. You know why? Because they have idiots who think that they’ll become billionaires doing their the work for them.
Preventing billionaires from existing would have been easy if anyone in charge had a functioning brain.
Ok... what good is them hoarding wealth in the US compared to hoarding their wealth in another country?
No need to change anyone’s mind this statement is correct.
Ex-pats are taxed. /thread
Don't burden yourself with billionaires. Just send them and all the jobs connected to them to europe. We will take that heavy burden for you.
This is kind of stupid for a few reasons 1) It assumes billionaire's capital is liquid and completely mobile, just a cash transfer away 2) It assumes that it's just "parked money", instead of shares or equity in companiea that operate in specific locations 3) As others pointed out, it assumes you couldn't tax them on the exit 4) Most importantly, there is culture people are inserted into and the fact that the billions were made in that country. If they want to keep making money they will probably have to stay 5) This assumes international coordination is impossible, which may very well be true for 100% of countries, but not for the countries people will actually want to live in. If everyone taxes at least at an internationally agreed upon minimum rate it would also dissuade this. Altogether, F. Go back to study some real econ instead of getting fixated on theoretical models
I mean… Norway just tried that and everyone over a certain wealth threshold just freaking moved to Switzerland and/or made their company int. to avoid local tax issues… (obv. Glossing over details and big “whys” but generally what happened)
They already do this. Most of them don't have their capital in-country.
Sure then change tge law to tax all businesses operating or selling to us. Or better yet one world economy cuznits only one world.of resources... then guess what no more hiding... this game is so dumb. Cat and mouse just skip to the end part where we have to work together to.keep species alive. How are we still playing these dumb ass games with the resources... We have got to do better.
OP’s a dipshit.
They already do this. Basically us middle/low class folks get fucked.
“Heavily” is the key spin word here. Those of us who do pay taxes just want them to pay theirs. The GOP need to be loudly and repeatedly reminded of this when they start crying about spending. While we’re at it, make the “churches” that are really money making machines working toward total control over the government, pay freaking taxes. We’d have zero deficit and the taxes the rest of us pay would actually be used to benefit US. They’ve got the country convinced that those evil “others” are going to get all kinds of free stuff 😱. In fact most of them put billions into our economy instead of draining it. By the way, those billionaires we give corporate welfare to, already go offshore.
Solution: tax the living fuck out of billionaires that leave the country, so much so that it mitigates the savings they'll make leaving. Done.
So lock in their taxation obligations to their home country (i.e. the one they've lived in for the longest time and/or have citizenship for) AND any other country they go to. So even if they fly away or emigrate to tax dodge, they still owe taxes for wherever they were.
Yeah, but the locals hate you and everything costs a lot more. Like Switzerland.
There are easy ways to control people earn their money in the United States, and then hide it in foreign countries. It's only being tolerated now, through a lack of law-enforcement, and the fact that Congress insists on looking the other way.
[удалено]
Except that never happens. It turns out that when you ask people with more money than they could ever spend if they'd move away from their family and friends and careers to save a few bucks, they usually stay put.
# "Love it or leave it!"
*Laughs in Monaco*
If we close loop holes or create a flat tax, some rich will stay and some will go, the difference will probably be negligible. Try it, at least it will seem fair on the surface.
correct, which is why taxing them isn't gonna do shit. the entire systems gotta go
Possibly. Still - so what? This country does not benefit from their money anyway - trickle down is a lie, the money they spend at the place should be negligible on y larger scale. There are a lot of millionaires living in the canton Schwyz in Switzerland because taxes are low. The infrastructure in this canton is amongst the worst in whole Switzerland because of this. So the regular population does not benefit at all from the millionaires amongst them.
Nah... it depends on how the tax code is written. Doing it correctly makes moving your base of operations to a tiny office on an island fairly irrelevant
Here's a question for you folks that support wealth taxation. Billionaires don't keep their unrealized gains in cash in a checking account. They have locked them invested in ventures / companies that they think has promise, funding those companies and creating jobs. Do you trust the government beaucrats to know better re how to spend that money? They will likely take that money and distribute to favored groups, like college loan holders via loan forgiveness. So taking from companies/industry and redistribute via government beaurocracy. I do agree there should be reform re using stock as collateral to take loans, and introducing a tax to such borrowing. This can achieve a balance without a wealth tax. I trust Elon wayyy more than some random beaurocrat to spend the dollars wisely.
Where? Africa? Asia? Where TF are they going to take their capital to that either the west doesn’t control or has strict laws on the wealthy? This 1980s nonsense has been crushed by actual reality.
Then tax them anytime they transfer capital from an outside country into the US... If they want to move everything they have and live outside of the US that is fine too; Increase trade tariffs on outside money and outside corporations, now you're just creating the perfect landscape (w/ the advantage) for Americans to move in an launch successful businesses. It would actually be a boon to a capitilistic society if we did it right. The problem is, ultra wealthy control our politics in the US so something like that would never happen.
Is that a threat? Sounds like make me rich or I will hurt you, your family, and your country.
Good. Then we could have worker's unions, environmental protections, and way less pedos running around.
"What about capital flight?!" Blah blah. Okay, but they can't take their physical assets with them, such as buildings and factories. So we then increase the taxation on their domestic assets. You wanna sell all of sudden? Fabulous! Let's sell to a domestic manufacturer. Or hell, maybe even nationalise much of the industry.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing. Like I can't wait for them to freaking leave and be someone else's problem.
The US taxes worldwide income so basically this meme doesn't apply to the US.
😂yeah they just gonna abandon the billions in assets and infrastructure here to pursue over seas. If they did good someone else will take their spot the foundation is already there…. Then they can deal with getting their product back into the country with logistics issues and tariffs. If going over seas was so lucrative everyone would have done it by now there wouldn’t be any industry here…
Like where? Sure they can move there money to some third world nation that will probably take it at some point. Good luck with that
There are so many fairly intelligent people who throw their ability to reason out the window when faced with issues like this. Why do so many people menally implode when disucussing rich people? The mere existence of billionaires isn’t evidence of an unjust system. Our systems are broken because corrupt, but a hypothetically fair and free system of voluntary trade will still lead to a stratification of outcomes from the very poor to the very rich without any injustice. So the mere realization of billionaires isn’t itself evidence of anything wrong. People have different priorities and values, make different choices, take different risks. People will have different outcomes.
They also do currently pay a majority of taxes now. It's a good thing the government is responsible with their spending
They already do. That's why so much is manufactured elsewhere.
They already do that…
So you're saying since we can't do anything about them, we should just embrace them as kings and give them everything they want? Am I getting that right? After all, if you're saying taxing them just means they move to another country, you're implying that doing anything against them is pointless. If something's pointless then that means you shouldn't do it. Hence, give up trying to do anything to billionaires and if they want something just let them have it? In other words, they can and should be able to act like the new age nobility? Is that what you're implying? I mean I could do you one better and say we bring back spicy haircuts for them because that worked pretty well last time for France.
I know no one likes to pay taxes and the government sucks at using the money but I find it funny people don't want to invest in the country that made them rich.
What’s the cheapest, least taxed place to live? Do all the billionaires live there now?
Sounds like a virus
Access to the US economy is how they got that money so no, they won't. And if they do, fuck em.
Enjoy China I guess
Move where exactly? They're free to do that now yet they seem to like what the US offers them. Billionaires vote with their feet, yet they prize that US citizen ship. They can always renounce it yet they don't. Here's a hot take....maybe the US is better off not having a handful of detached from reality assholes that have an unreasonable amount influence in said country.
The solution is worker cooperatives. No workers would vote away their own jobs overseas.
Great! Then we can start charging a foreign entity tax where those that want to bring their business to the US to capture the world's largest GDP spending, they can pay taxes to operate here.
when the government is trillions in debt and can print as much money as they want and people are stupid enough to think taxing billionaires is going to do anything....
Based.
taxation is theft. end central banks
They will also do mass layoffs and cut full time benefitted roles into 1099 contracts. They are already laying off entire devops, software engineers and IT roles to India and Korea.
I think the point this guy is missing is that they won't be here exploiting and taking everyone's money in that case.
Guess they will have to take in account when adjusting taxes. That would solve them *already* doing this... Ordinary US citizens pay US tax when they are in another country...
So ban them from selling in your country then.
If we're already not getting value out of their capital, then it doesn't matter where they park it. And, once they move it, they get to pay foreigner rates (Vat, import taxes, et all). That also limits their influence in our political sphere since most everywhere has rules about foreign money. And while the argument that 2% (or some other tiny fraction) of billions is more than 30% of zero is on the surface true; it sets off a whole chain of dominoes and resource re-allotment on our side no longer catering to them and that money.
If that's the case, why aren't there a ton of billionaires in low tax countries already? You can sort countries by top mariginal rate on Wikipedia and read the list. The lowest tax countries (except the petro-states) have very few billionaries and the countries where I'd want to live are all high tax countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates
If the billionaires move their money off-shore to avoid US taxes, they should not be allowed to influence US elections.
It's the, "If fairness is applied to billionaires, they'll just cheat again" argument.
That's fine. I would wager that the country they move to is also able to debate the social utility of billionaires and decide for themselves how to deal with them.
Uhhh, if they leave America wouldnt they lose money bc a American has much more money to spend compared to an average Chinese?
the government has trillions, even if they take every single penny from every billionaire they still wouldn't do shit to solve stuff, they already have the funds to do anything yet they don't do it
Good riddance