Free Republic

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposed an annual wealth tax topping out at 8% for the richest Americans, offering the farthest-reaching Democratic plan to pay for expanded government programs and break up concentrated fortunes. Mr. Sanders’s plan would hit more households and raise more money than the tax proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, his chief rival for progressive voters. According to an analysis by economists who consulted with both campaigns, Mr. Sanders’s plan would generate $4.35 trillion over a decade, compared with Ms. Warren’s $2.75 trillion. Mr. Sanders’s plan would increase federal revenue by about 10%, all from around...

Senator Warren’s proposal would hit fortunes above $50 million with a 2 percent annual wealth tax. Fortunes above $1 billion would be taxed annually at 3 percent. Why is this a bad idea? Recent research and analysis convincingly argues that the plan would collect a fraction of the revenue that Warren’s advisers expect. Lawrence Summers, the economist and former Treasury secretary, and Penn professor Natasha Sarin argue this from the U.S.’s experience with the estate tax. And economists Matthew Smith, Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick present preliminary estimates suggesting that the Warren proposal would raise half as much as projected....

I wrote five years ago about the growing threat of a wealth tax. Some friends at the time told me I was being paranoid. The crowd in Washington, they assured me, would never be foolish enough to impose such a levy, especially when other nations such as Sweden have repealed wealth taxes because of their harmful impact. But, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, nobody ever went broke underestimating the foolishness of politicians. I already wrote this year about how folks on the left are demonizing wealth in hopes of creating a receptive environment for this extra layer of tax. And some...

When liberal donor George Soros and several other liberal billionaires called for a wealth tax, the media swooned. Soros, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, heiress Abigail Disney and 15 others wrote an open letter calling on presidential candidates to adopt a wealth tax on the top 1/10 of 1 percent. Vanity Fair was thrilled on June 24, publishing a supportive, hyperbolic account of the “zillionaires’” letter declaring: “Conscience-Stricken Billionaires Beg 2020 Candidates: Take Our Money.” Nevermind criticism that a wealth tax is unconstitutional, the reaction from Vanity Fair, The New York Times and CNN stories avoided tough questions and criticism. Bloomberg...

Not all thought experiments are fun and this one will probably strike an unpleasant chord with many of you. The subject is, once again, the wealth tax, as has been proposed by Elizabeth Warren and others as a way to address what they view as economic inequality and a lack of “social justice.” It may not be coming any time soon, but history tells us that the Democrats will eventually regain control of the White House and both chambers of Congress sooner or later and they’ll probably want to attempt it. Robert J. Samuelson takes a crack at the issue...

Although the Democratic National Committee (DNC) refused to allow Fox News to hold debates with any of the 2020 Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) agreed to a town hall with the conservative network. During his town hall on Monday, Sanders, naturally, failed to say whether or not he himself would pay the wealth tax he has long championed. Instead, he deflected. Martha MacCallum: You said you don't agree with 70 percent. So what would your number be? Bernie Sanders: In the campaign, in 2016, we talked about 52 percent. MacCallum: Alright. So 52 percent. So would you be willing to...

This is sad. Politico reports this morning that "polling suggests that when it comes to soaking the rich, the American public is increasingly on board." According to a poll they conducted along with Morning Consult, "76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes." The story by Ben White also notes that a "recent Fox News survey showed that 70 percent of Americans favor raising taxes on those earning over $10 million — including 54 percent of Republicans." Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's plan "to slap a 70 percent marginal rate on income earned over $10 million...

Leftist Democrats eyeing the White House in 2020 are plotting new ways to confiscate Americans’ hard-earned money and give it away. Claiming economic inequality is a national crisis, they want to take money from those they say have too much. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is pushing a first-ever wealth tax. Never mind that it’s unprecedented and unconstitutional. Warren says it would target only the richest one-tenth of a percent of the country. Maybe at first. When the federal income tax was imposed in 1913, it initially hit less than one percent of the country. Now half the nation pays it....

<p>Wealth inequality around the world is “out of control” and doing particular harm to women, anti-poverty campaigner Oxfam warned Monday ahead of the annual gathering of business and political leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.</p>

To pay off the ~$21 trillion dollar federal debt, which amounts to about $60,000 per American, it is probably necessary to have annual federal wealth taxation. It is best to introduce the federal wealth tax when asset values are high, so a smaller percentage of rich people's assets have to get taxed to pay off the national debt. The tax might be levied upon the total of net personal property financial holdings and the equity in real property. The rates might be: 1% on the equity in real property habitually resided in by the filer(s), 2% on the equity in...

Allister Heath, the superb economic writer from London, recently warned that governments are undermining incentives to save. And not just because of high tax rates and double taxation of savings. Allister says people are worried about outright confiscation resulting from possible wealth taxation. It is clear that individuals, when at all possible, need to accumulate more financial assets. …Tragically, it won’t happen. A lack of trust in the system is one important explanation. People simply don’t believe the government – and politicians of all parties – when it comes to long-terms savings and pensions. They worry, with good reason,...

David Stockman is at it again. The Reagan-era budget director caused an uproar in 1981 by publicly decrying the moves of his boss to spur the economy with tax cuts. Now a private investor and author, he’s pushing for a huge new tax on big earners. Stockman would subject the nation’s top 10% of households to a levy equal to 30% of their wealth, payable over a decade. Without it, he maintains, the U.S. will wind up in a horrific, Greece-style debt wreck. Stockman, 66 years old, recently talked up his plan at an ­unlikely forum: New York City Junto,...

While pundits, politicians and economists are distracted by marginal tax rates and a possible Internet sales tax, President Obama may be preparing for the biggest of all trophies: a wealth tax. He doesn’t say this, of course, but he is baiting his hook, and looking for the optimal place and time to cast his line. Most people don’t see this coming. Should it happen, though, it will be very difficult to protect yourself. This all started — at least the public part — with the president’s 2014 budget, which proposes to limit tax-deductible saving to an amount that will provide...

Cyprus, an island most people have forgotten exists, became the center of the world when they put forward a bizarre plan to solve their economic crisis. The leaders of Cyprus proposed a wealth tax that would take funds directly from people’s bank accounts. The plan was abandoned, but the idea behind it still lives on. A recent run-in that we had with the Washington Post shows just how far they are willing to go to foist a bad idea upon us. The Left has been churning some ideas to change our society, most of which will expand the reach of...

The tax on luxury will become reality for all Russians without exception next year. President Vladimir Putin reminded everyone of that in his annual Address to the Federal Assembly. According to experts, the new tax may send a definite message to wealthy citizens to redistribute their revenues. The head of state said in his speech that the decision on the so-called luxury tax should be made in the first half of 2013. According to the official website of the President of the Russian Federation, one should not give up on the "flat" income tax scale, since the progressive taxation of...

WHETHER you’re in the 99 percent, the 47 percent or the 1 percent, inequality in America may threaten your future. Often decried for moral or social reasons, inequality imperils the economy, too; the International Monetary Fund recently warned that high income inequality could damage a country’s long-term growth. But the real menace for our long-term prosperity is not income inequality — it’s wealth inequality, which distorts access to economic opportunities. Wealth inequality has worsened for two decades and is now at an extreme level. Replacing the income, estate and gift taxes with a progressive wealth tax would do much more...

While Republican presidential candidates are looking forward by proposing variations of a flat income tax, President Obama’s tax-the-rich campaign strategy is looking backward—to Franklin Roosevelt’s 1936 reelection campaign. FDR won his reelection, but the American people lost: Roosevelt’s new taxes on business and the “economic royalists” gave us the “Roosevelt recession” of 1937-38. By August of 1935, Roosevelt had achieved some of his signature pieces of legislation: a new entitlement program known as Social Security, banking reform, pro-union reform, infrastructure expansion and massive transfers of wealth to the poor and middle classes. Sound familiar? FDR also ran up federal spending...

What commonality binds Haim Saban, Penny Pritzker, and Warren Buffett, aside from membership in the billionaire's club?  Guilt, and not the quotidian variety -- unfulfilled potential, disappointing behavior, lost love -- that afflicts most of us.  Theirs is a guilt that only afflicts the very rich -- a guilt that arises from wanting more equitable outcomes coupled with an unwillingness to pay the requisite taxes to achieve those outcomes.  It's the same guilt that has plagued Rockefeller, Kennedy, and Mott progeny for decades. Messrs. Saban and Buffett and Ms Pritzker are newcomers to the world of self-imposed tax-deficiency guilt, but...