It needs to be a federal tax or they'll just move to another state. Not saying this isn't a good thing, but it won't produce anything until the taxman has teeth in every other state.
chabes•23m ago
This is a myth, perpetuated by the wealthy. Very few people would actually go through the trouble of moving from California. Be serious.
seanmcdirmid•21m ago
Billionaires are definitely mobile and can easily move states, many already have. It will be hard for a single state to get focused revenue from the really rich, and that federal intervention is required. Parent was right.
lokar•11m ago
The Google founders left
lokar•20m ago
And that seems unrealistic.
IMO we would be better off closing other loopholes:
- various special carve outs (real estate stuff, carried interest, etc)
- enforce the estate tax for real
- ban stock buy backs, make companies return cash via dividends, which are easy to tax
- remove special treatment for capital gains
- hire lots more auditors and lawyers for the IRS to go after high wealth returns, where all the fraud is
lokar•9m ago
I wonder what it would look like if the federal income tax was removed, and instead the amount needed was assigned to the states to produce proportional to population, however they want.
1970-01-01•1h ago
chabes•23m ago
seanmcdirmid•21m ago
lokar•11m ago
lokar•20m ago
IMO we would be better off closing other loopholes:
- various special carve outs (real estate stuff, carried interest, etc)
- enforce the estate tax for real
- ban stock buy backs, make companies return cash via dividends, which are easy to tax
- remove special treatment for capital gains
- hire lots more auditors and lawyers for the IRS to go after high wealth returns, where all the fraud is