ELIZABETH WARREN PROPOSES ANNUAL WEALTH TAX ON ULTRA-MILLIONAIRES

[Autumn]

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/24/elizabeth-warren-proposes-annual-wealth-tax-on-ultra-millionaires/?menu=1

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN’S presidential campaign has rolled out a proposal for an annual tax on wealth, becoming the first major Democratic candidate to follow a recommendation outlined in Thomas Piketty’s blockbuster book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”

The proposal, according to two University of California, Berkeley, economists who are leading experts on wealth and inequality, would shrink the wealth of the superrich by $2.75 trillion over a 10-year period, while only affecting around 75,000 U.S. households.

A paper distributed by Warren’s campaign announcing the proposal notes that the United States contains “an extreme concentration of wealth not seen in any other leading economy.” As UC Berkeley’s Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman have demonstrated, the top 0.1 percent has had their wealth share nearly triple between the late 1970s and 2016.

Warren actually endorsed the concept of a wealth tax five years ago, in an interview with Piketty and The Intercept’s Ryan Grim. Asked how a bill to tax wealth would sound after Piketty described it, Warren said, “Oh, I’m in, I’m in, I’m in — in on the notion that we have to rewrite our tax code.” She added that the tax code “has to reflect the importance of work and people who achieve and people who accomplish, over being born into wealth.”

to allgood33 for the link

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211722063

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

1. YESSS Elizabeth... WAY the fuck overdue!!

[delisen]

2. Warren's tax plan is bold and the right thing to do.

If any of the super rich want to leave the US in lieu of paying a wealth tax, we may well be better off so long as we put an end to their ability to put foreign money into our elections.

[Autumn]

3. It's very bold, $2.75 trillion dollars worth of bold. Long overdue and just what we need.

[c-rational]

4. Bingo.

[unblock]

5. i like the idea in theory, and talking about it might be good, but it's not constitutional.

and even if we somehow could muster a majority in both houses and have a president who would sign it, we'd never get a constitutional amendment ratified to allow it.

taxes essentially need to be levied on a per capita basis, except for the income tax, which only became possible after its own constitutional amendment was ratified.

"wealth" is neither income not per capita, so i don't see how it's constitutional.

in theory, though, i like the idea of a wealth tax, in fact, in lieu of an income tax entirely. encourage economic activity but discourage hoarding of assets. the only downside is that income is much easier to detect because someone else has an incentive to report. it's much easier to hide wealth.

[JayhawkSD]

6. There are several constitutional issues.

The 16th amendment is very specific. It applies only to income tax. All other taxes must be on a per capita basis.

Her idea could also run afoul of the prohibition on a "bill of attainder," which prohibits a punishment of any limited class or group. That requires considering a tax as a punishment, but when applied selectively such an interpretation is far from outlandish.

There is also the ban on "ex post facto" laws, imposing conditions after the the action occurs. The tax was not in place when the wealth was accumulated, which makes such a tax "after the fact." The person might have conducted financial affairs differently had he known that accumulated wealth would be subject to tax.