Posted on 12/05/2020 3:55:11 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Argentina has passed a new tax on its wealthiest people to pay for medical supplies and relief measures amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Senators passed the one-off levy - dubbed the "millionaire's tax" - by 42 votes to 26 on Friday.
Those with assets worth more than 200 million pesos ($2.5m; £1.8m) - some 12,000 people - will have to pay.
Argentina has recorded close to 1.5 million infections and almost 40,000 deaths from the coronavirus.
One of the law's authors said it would only affect about 0.8% of taxpayers. Those affected will pay a progressive rate of up to 3.5% on wealth in Argentina and up to 5.25% on that outside the country.
AFP news agency reports that of the money raised, 20% will go to medical supplies, 20% to relief for small and medium-sized businesses, 20% to scholarships for students, 15% to social developments, and the remaining 25% to natural gas ventures.
But opposition groups fear it will discourage foreign investors, and that it will not be a one-time tax.
Centre-right party Juntos por el Cambio reportedly described it as "confiscatory".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
“One of the law’s authors said it would only affect about 0.8% of taxpayers.”
That’s how the camel’s nose enters the tent - but with the politics of envy, it will quickly become palatable to 51% of the population if it affects 49% - the OTHER 49%.
That describes in a nutshell the political situation in the US now; years ago Romney said 47% of the population believed they were victims and were dependent on the government.
this term ‘Tax on wealthy’ is just a stupid silly sophistry. The wealthy are wealthy for a reason. They own businesses that sell goods and services to the community. They will pass those increased costs along to their consumers who will then complain because the prices have gone up.
Those consumers will never connect this increase in taxes on ‘the wealthy’ to the increase in their cost of living. Because it’s easy to say increase tax on the other guy. But it’s always a euphemism for increase my own cost of living.
It is inevitable that as work evolves there is a growing gap between those with the skills to bargain for better wages and those without them. Whether through lack of opportunity, lack of ability, or simple corruption, it is easy to appeal to the those with less than others.
Yes, because money is fungible.
It's like smugly proclaiming, "We're gonna dump toxic waste into only their side of the lake!"
Regards,
Exactly what happened with the Federal Income Tax.
Actually, if this works, why stop there? Why not introduce various different "millionaire's taxes" to, e.g., fix sidewalk cracks, scrap dried bubble gum off of the underside of school desks, fund "free cell phone" programs for the poor in the barrios, remove disfiguring tattos from prison inmates, eliminate student loan debt, eliminate automobile loan debt...?
The possibilities are endless!
Regards,
Just a prelude to what is coming for the USA should the communists take full power. Except they will use every excuse in the book for confiscatory taxes.
I see more and more proposals from states like California and others that are essentially the same as a wealth tax. Much as I oppose taxes in general, at least a tax on income or on sales makes sense in that they add a relatively small amount onto the movement of money. Wealth, though, is different. It is not the movement of money. If I have a million dollars worth of stock, in order to pay the wealth tax I have to sell a portion of the stock. If the price on the stock then drops as a result of the sale, and my overall wealth drops below the “wealth” threshold, do I get a refund? No, of course not.
What if my wealth consists of a home and the property it is located on? I may not have the money to pay the tax. I therefore have to sell the home and property to pay the tax. This is why Californians made the law that the taxes could only go up x amount or go up on the sale of the home. People were being forced to sell their homes to pay the tax.
I suspect those .8 percent of wealthy taxpayers will immediately move their wealth or adjust their standing so that they will not show as much wealth as before. Therefore, the taxes will not be collected in sufficient quantity and the percent of payers will be expanded down to the upper middle class, and, eventually, to the middle and lower classes.
Several years ago, the biggest art market in the world was in France. The French were aghast that the paintings bought for a few francs decades or centuries ago where selling for hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus it only made sense (to the French government, no one else) that a tax should be enacted on those sales so that the descendants of those artists could be given an inheritance. (Can you imagine how easy it would be to determine who those descendants were after 150 years?) The entire art market moved, overnight, to London. I never saw another word written on the subject. But I suspect the amount of tax collected was miniscule, only catching those items that were already listed for sale.
Politicians forget capital is portable AND will seek refuge.
“Taxing the wealthy” inevitably results in there being significantly less wealth to tax.
It’s a confiscation of assets, not a tax. Coming here too, to a public too stupid to understand what is going on, because it will be called a “tax.”
Coming soon to your 401k and IRA’s. Did anyone seriously think the Congress could watch that pile of money grow without wanting to get their hands on it?
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