If you want to raise money or reduce inequality there are better ways to do it. Income tax, capital gains, inheritance, etc...
That's not evidence. We have right-wing parties in Europe too. They introduce right-wing policies when they have power, such as the above.
So sure, the wealth tax would only be on "the rich" when it first starts out but I guarantee you the middle class will be hit by it eventually.
Plus, there's other reasons to be skeptical of wealth taxes, capital flight is a real thing.
Just on the face of it, sure if you're wealthier you have greater ability to move but that also means you probably like where you are because you chose to be there. Most of my high school friends dispersed around the country solely for job opportunities, not because they wanted to be somewhere.
[1] https://minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2011/02/documents...
> The New Jersey millionaire tax experiment offers a potent testing ground, given the magnitude of the policy change and the relative ease of relocating to a different state tax regime without leaving the New York or Philadelphia metropolitan areas. Using a difference-in-difference estimator, we find minimal effect of the new tax on the migration of millionaires.
Can anyone provide some examples of it happening in an economy like ours?
[0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1268381
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonhartley/2015/02/02/frances-7...
BTW, have you seen how expensive it is for high net worth individuals to renounce US citizenship?
God I hope not. How empty would we all be if we all wanted to have more money than the next guy.
Yep, that's why all of the rich people have left New York and California.
I hope to be wealthy and not pull up the ladder behind me.
It's possible for someone to think that it's unfair for some people to pay a huge amount of taxes unfairly, without they themselves thinking "one day I'll be rich".
And fairness aside, there's the purely pragmatic concern that multi-generational wealth concentration is bad for almost everything— bad for democracy, bad for fairness in media, bad for civil unrest, etc etc. Is taxing wealth an effective way to manage this? Maybe, maybe not. But anyone who wants to critique it should probably be willing to support _some_ plan for controlling wealth inequality over the long term.
I think the picture looks quite different if you look at things like quality of life indicators— and then it's (surprise!) nations like Denmark and Switzerland which top the list. I suspect it would be even more stark if you were able to measure class mobility— the number of people who have at least +x% inflation adjusted net worth over their parents at the same age.
So yeah, it's a little bizarre (and a very US-centric view) to just assume that "success" on a national level and socialist policies are mutually exclusive.
