Posted on 02/19/2020 6:33:15 AM PST by Kaslin
Sen. Bernie Sanders manifestly fears that if he succeeds in becoming president and enacting his economic plan, some Americans may seek to flee the country.
How do we know this?
His plan imposes a severe penalty on anybody who tries to leave to avoid paying his "wealth tax."
"The wealth tax includes a 40 percent exit tax on the net value of all assets under $1 billion and 60 percent over $1 billion for all wealthy individual(s) seeking to expatriate to avoid the tax," it says.
Under the current tax system, the United States does impose an "expatriation tax" on people renouncing their citizenship and leaving the country. But that tax, as explained by Forbes contributor Robert W. Wood, is applied like a capital gains tax on the estimated value of a person's holdings on the day before they leave. Generally, according to the IRS, the top capital gains rate is currently 20% -- although a 28% rate applies to some "collectibles" such as "coins and art."
Sanders obviously does not think even a 28% tax on what you own would be sufficient to deter people from fleeing the new country into which he hopes to "transform" America.
Meanwhile, patriotic Americans who stay in what they know is the greatest country on Earth -- and who work to keep it free during a Sanders reign -- would need to deal with what this self-proclaimed socialist calls a "national wealth registry."
What is that?
It is an IRS-controlled federal database of the things that "wealthy" Americans own and how much the government estimates those things are worth. Sanders believes this registry is needed to carry out his "extreme wealth tax."
After all, the government cannot know who has "extreme wealth" until it has cataloged what people suspected of being wealthy own and has assigned a monetary value to those belongings.
The way Sanders explains it, it is like you die every year and the federal government is enforcing the death tax against you -- again and again and again.
"Under current law, the IRS is already required to assess the net worth of the wealthiest Americans when they pass away, to calculate estate tax liability," says his plan. "A federal wealth tax would require the IRS to make the same assessment on an annual basis for the wealthiest Americans."
"For assets that are difficult to appraise, the Treasury Department would have the option of allowing taxpayers to have appraisals done periodically instead of annually," says the Sanders plan. "The Treasury Department would establish the average rates of appreciation for several classes of assets. Those appraised only every few years would be assumed to appreciate in the intervening years at the average rate established for their designated class."
"In order to ensure that the wealthy are not able to evade the tax, the proposal includes a number of key enforcement policies," says the plan. "First, it would create a national wealth registry and significant additional third party reporting requirements."
What sort of "assets" would this national wealth registry need to include?
What sort of "third party" reporters would the government need to recruit to make sure you had registered all the paintings in your house or rings in your jewelry box -- or the writings you had composed?
Yes, the writings.
The IRS instructions for calculating what you would owe under the current pre-Sanders expatriation tax reminds would-be payers to report their "intangible property."
IRS "Instructions for Form 8854" says "intangible property" includes such things as a "literary, musical or artistic composition." Or a "study," "customer list" or "know-how."
If you were one of the wealthy elitists who owned such things, the Sanders regime would need to have them all in its registry, and you would need to pay an annual tax for continuing to own them.
The main argument Sanders makes for this tax is that it will apply only to those of "extreme wealth." But the short explanation he has posted on his own website demonstrates that "extreme wealth" is an extremely flexible concept.
"It would start with a 1 percent tax on net worth above $32 million for a married couple," says his plan. (It would then escalate to 8% for a married couple with a net worth over $10 billion.)
So, a married couple worth $30 million would not have "extreme wealth."
But then the plan says: "These brackets are halved for singles."
So, a hardworking and imaginative young woman who uses her "know-how" to build a business that creates a hundred new jobs and is worth $17 million does have "extreme wealth."
And that is before you count her $520,000 home, her $32,000 car and the diamond ring her grandmother gave her just before she died.
The Sanders plan boasts it will "cut the wealth of billionaires in half over 15 years." Its strategic goal is for government to take "wealth" away from those who built it or maintain it.
Perhaps if Sanders is elected, he will decide the extremely wealthy includes anybody worth more than a million dollars.
Or a $100,000.
Or who gets up in the morning and goes to work and saves a little from each paycheck.
Maybe he will decide the 8% annual rate should apply to all levels of "wealth."
Remember: He says he is a socialist.
That National Socialists did this to Jews.
Feel the Bern.
For the losers that support Bernie, this is all good. For someone like me, it would be the only bright spot in Bernie being elected, seeing wealthy Democrats persecuted.
It wouldn’t make up for the hardship, but it would be one thing to enjoy.
The Sanders definition of wealthy will soon include anyone earning a non- government paycheck.
This is the mentality. penalize for leaving in stead of making it so good capital and people want to stay.
On the other hand, bernie might solve our immigration problem. How many are illegally crossing boarders to get into facist comunist countries?
Bernie could make a campaign issue of solving immigration.
He isn’t even elected yet and he’s already building his Berlin Wall...
Itll take a lot more than A punk like Bernie to chase me out of my country
We'll get a border wall!

Building walls is the only thing communists are good at!
Think Soviet Union with internal passports and travel restrictions.
Think China with their GREAT LEAP FORWARD (where all their educated people were sent to work on farms or sent to re-education camps)
Think North Korea where the people are reduced to eating bark off of trees.
Let’s not have self pity by comparing ourselves to the Jews. They were quite a minority and had no guns.
Wonder what happens when The Commie confiscates the life’s work of elderly men who are not physically disabled yet?
Gee, Bern...YA THINK?
Values of ‘things’ change, often rapidly. Certain collectibles that were worth 100’s of dollars 10 or 20 years ago are worth 10’s of dollars now. Antique glass and pottery are two items whose value has dropped as fewer younger people are interested in those items.
Who is going to establish the values of those items and continue to keep track of them over time. Sounds like an impossible task. So, of course, the government will establish some sort of bureaucracy that will get it about 25% right and strong arm assessments in their favor to maximize taxes.
A horrible nightmare. The IRS on steroids. Welcome to hell.
ha ha! you beat me to it!
Extra-constitutional govt doing all it can to remain so
Slavery being 100% confiscation, why is > 50% merely, incorrectly, called a ‘*fair* share’? Do the rich utilize (supposed) govt services more? No.
Course, nobody will heed History:
- The 16th will ONLY be vs. ‘the rich’
- The income tax will NEVER get above 7%
soon to be “here’s what Uncle Sugar considers what you *need*, hand over all else”
If you want bullets to fly, give it a whirl.
pgyanke beat me.
Wealth tax is an awful idea and completely immoral. The one good thing would be the idea that Bloomcube would pay him 2 billion to get him elected and then would lose another 30-40 billion after two terms of Sanders.
This is the EAST GERMAN Stasi state for the US.
Someone— find photo of Eric Honecker the commie GDR last President, and create meme of the photo next to one of
Bernie the Commie......
They look exactly alike. Bernie wants a PRISON forced economy. His whole purpose to provide cover for yet another hitlery bot type and/or a Deep State plant Leftist “candidate” who will be all for our “democracy”-— which is... the mob in the street. And the candidate? Owned by deep state.
‘
It is not as immoral as the income tax. The only moral tax is an import tariff.
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