Those who don't learn from the past... <https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/07/16/o...>

I think it’s coming and it makes sense.

Don't threaten me with a good time.

This is for self defense. The rich would benefit massively from that.

Hollande tried to do this in France (75% effective rate on earnings above a million Euros).

Even his staunchly socialist regime had to admit its failure and abruptly reverse course in 2014, two years later. The tax raised just €260m in 2013 and €160m in 2014…. But caused an exodus of wealth and job creators

"plots" ?

Meaning it'll fail like all previous attempts and this will be yet another tax raise on people having a decent job, but nowhere near rich.

What people imagine this means is a tax on rich people. An appartment in the center of paris costs about 10.000 per month. If you calculate how much you need to own to afford that on interest income alone, it's 120000/4% = 3,000,000. Make it 4 million to cover eating out every day as well. That would be the lowest level I would see as super-rich.

But wealth tax, where it exists (e.g. Switzerland) starts at 111.059. This is in a country where a downpayment for a basic apartment would be at least 160000 (but more likely 200.000). So even in famously not-super-low-but-still-pretty-low-tax-Switzerland it's mostly taxing what you would call "professionals". People with a decent, but not spectacular, job (accountant, programmer, ... not FANG wages or doctors). Oh, and looking at the country's finances it becomes immediately clear: Switzerland is low tax because it also has very low unemployment/social support and very low pensions.

The solution to this USED to be inflation, government deficits of 10% even 20% in Southern Europe (before the euro was introduced, which transferred control of inflation to the independent ECB, preventing government deficits financed by inflation, as was the norm in the 1980s and 1990s for example)

The super-rich are already leaving Britain[1] so realistically if they want to raise more money they'll just tax workers a bit more since they're less economically mobile. No matter how much European politicians try to deny it, the Laffer is real, and long-term uncompetitive tax policies are not good for government income.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/22/millionaire-...

So, lots of foreign guys who were not paying taxes in britain while benefitting from a temporary exemption and that would leave as soon as this exemption ended, left early because the exemption period was shortenened.

Good. They were making houses more expensive and not paying taxes anyway.

Should tax land more and income less. Income from work is at least productive, owning land is not. #Georgism

Inheritance and donations should be strongly progressively taxed.

> and donations

What do you mean by donations? A 'donation' is the typical way to refer to giving money to a charity. Are you saying that charitable donations should be taxed?

The super-rich leaving really breaks my heart.

When they leave, they take their investments, spending, and created jobs with them.

Many countries have confiscated everything from the rich, driven them out, and even mass murdered them. None resulted in the poor being better off - things just got worse for the poor.

If they liquidate their assets it’s gonna be a lot more affordable to buy homes. I think that alone will warm your heart

The super-rich do not have enough houses to make a dent in the supply of homes.

The title of that link seem to imply it was a net loss, but the numbers in the body seem to imply that while ~10k millionaires left, the tax revenue loss from millionaires leaving was $5b in (theoretical) yearly lost tax revenue (it's not clear from the article if all those millionaires leaving were even paying taxes as it notes many of them were in a grace period after entering before taxes kicked in, and it doesn't link to the downstream report from ASI).

Given that there's a lot more than 10 thousand millionaires in Britain and they are sticking around to pay taxes (more than enough to cover the $5b from those who left), I don't see how that's actually a bad thing?