In Taxes We Trust

[odanny]

It usually doesn't end well for any society that sees such extreme economic separation between the vast majority and the ultra wealthy.

In tax we trust.​

To our fellow millionaires and billionaires,

If you’re participating in the World Economic Forum’s ‘online Davos’ this January , you’re going to be joining an exclusive group of people looking for an answer to the question behind this year’s theme, ‘how do we work together and restore trust?’

You’re not going to find the answer in a private forum, surrounded by other millionaires and billionaires and the world’s most powerful people. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find that you’re part of the problem.

Trust - in politics, in society, in one another - is not built in tiny side rooms only accessible by the very richest and most powerful. It’s not built by billionaire space travelers who make a fortune out of a pandemic but pay almost nothing in taxes and provide poor wages for their workers. Trust is built through accountability, through well-oiled, fair, and open democracies that provide good services and support all their citizens.

And the bedrock of a strong democracy is a fair tax system. A fair tax system.
Read the rest at the linked source

In Tax We Trust

The Signers

Signatories — In Tax We Trust

www.intaxwetrust.org

 

[Wyatt earp]

So your idea is to have billionaire politicians?


And please please tell us what is a fair share?

 

[martybegan]

It usually doesn't end well for any society that sees such extreme economic separation between the vast majority and the ultra wealthy.

In tax we trust.​

To our fellow millionaires and billionaires,

If you’re participating in the World Economic Forum’s ‘online Davos’ this January , you’re going to be joining an exclusive group of people looking for an answer to the question behind this year’s theme, ‘how do we work together and restore trust?’

You’re not going to find the answer in a private forum, surrounded by other millionaires and billionaires and the world’s most powerful people. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find that you’re part of the problem.

Trust - in politics, in society, in one another - is not built in tiny side rooms only accessible by the very richest and most powerful. It’s not built by billionaire space travelers who make a fortune out of a pandemic but pay almost nothing in taxes and provide poor wages for their workers. Trust is built through accountability, through well-oiled, fair, and open democracies that provide good services and support all their citizens.

And the bedrock of a strong democracy is a fair tax system. A fair tax system.

As millionaires, we know that the current tax system is not fair. Most of us can say that, while the world has gone through an immense amount of suffering in the last two years, we have actually seen our wealth rise during the pandemic - yet few if any of us can honestly say that we pay our fair share in taxes.

This injustice baked into the foundation of the international tax system has created a colossal lack of trust between the people of the world and the elites who are the architects of this system. Bridging that divide is going to take more than billionaire vanity projects or piecemeal philanthropic gestures - it’s going to take a complete overhaul of a system that up until now has been deliberately designed to make the rich richer.

To put it simply, restoring trust requires taxing the rich. The world - every country in it - must demand the rich pay their fair share. Tax us, the rich, and tax us now.

The truth is that ‘Davos’ doesn’t deserve the world’s trust right now. For all the countless hours spent talking about making the world a better place, the conference has produced little tangible value amidst a torrent of self-congratulations. Until participants acknowledge the simple, effective solution staring them in the face - taxing the rich - the people of the world will continue to see their so-called dedication to fixing the world's problems as little more than a performance.

History paints a pretty bleak picture of what the endgame of extremely unequal societies looks like. For all our well-being - rich and poor alike - it’s time to confront inequality and choose to tax the rich. Show the people of the world that you deserve their trust.

If you don’t, then all the private talks won’t change what’s coming - it’s taxes or pitchforks. Let’s listen to history and choose wisely.

The Signers

Signatories — In Tax We Trust

www.intaxwetrust.org

He has it wrong. The people won't come after the rich, the slightly less rich government functionaries and career politicians will be the ones to come after them.

The low never supplants the high, it's always the middle that does it to become the new high.

Orwell figured it out decades ago.

 

[Winston]

So your idea is to have billionaire politicians?


And please please tell us what is a fair share?

How about all income being taxed the same? That seems fair. How about removing the cap on Social Security taxes, or better, replace it with a surtax equal to the social security tax? That seems fair. How about eliminating the mortgage interest deduction? That seems fair.

 

[Meister]

It usually doesn't end well for any society that sees such extreme economic separation between the vast majority and the ultra wealthy.

In tax we trust.​

To our fellow millionaires and billionaires,

If you’re participating in the World Economic Forum’s ‘online Davos’ this January , you’re going to be joining an exclusive group of people looking for an answer to the question behind this year’s theme, ‘how do we work together and restore trust?’

You’re not going to find the answer in a private forum, surrounded by other millionaires and billionaires and the world’s most powerful people. If you’re paying attention, you’ll find that you’re part of the problem.

Trust - in politics, in society, in one another - is not built in tiny side rooms only accessible by the very richest and most powerful. It’s not built by billionaire space travelers who make a fortune out of a pandemic but pay almost nothing in taxes and provide poor wages for their workers. Trust is built through accountability, through well-oiled, fair, and open democracies that provide good services and support all their citizens.

And the bedrock of a strong democracy is a fair tax system. A fair tax system.
Read the rest at the linked source

In Tax We Trust

The Signers

Signatories — In Tax We Trust

www.intaxwetrust.org

It isn't going to happen. Politicians are owned by the rich through campaign contributions, and lobbyists.

Even in the BBB where the rich are taxed? They had a very nice kickback through SALT, and who knows what else would have been added.

 

[odanny]

So your idea is to have billionaire politicians?

The last two Governors of Illinois, both billionaires. And then there is Trump, so it seems that's where we are headed anyway.

 

[Meister]

The last two Governors of Illinois, both billionaires. And then there is Trump, so it seems that's where we are headed anyway.

Secular politics with this one. Being rich is bad.

 

[odanny]

Secular politics with this one. Being rich is bad.

Nothing wrong with being rich, but there is something fundamentally wrong with the rich not paying taxes. I pay taxes and have no loopholes available to me to avoid them.

 

[Meister]

Nothing wrong with being rich, but there is something fundamentally wrong with the rich not paying taxes. I pay taxes and have no loopholes available to me to avoid them.

No matter how much and how often you say they don't, they do pay taxes, and a lot more than YOU.
If YOU have children, you have a loophole, stud.

 

[odanny]

No matter how much and how often you say they don't, they do pay taxes, and a lot more than YOU.
If YOU have children, you have a loophole, stud.

That's not true, someone who makes $50,000 a year will often pay more in taxes as a percentage of their income than someone who makes millions, or many millions, a year. I have no idea how Bezos gets away with what he does.

 

[Captain Caveman]

That's not true, someone who makes $50,000 a year will often pay more in taxes as a percentage of their income than someone who makes millions, or many millions, a year. I have no idea how Bezos gets away with what he does.

What you do is, you learn the tax rules and you follow the tax rules. People call it loopholes, I call it "gap in tax knowledge". So take Apple. They channeled their money through a Carribbean Island and used Ireland. Per the tax rules but it reduced their tax.

Starbucks in the UK set up Starbucks in Luxembourg because tax over there is lower. Starbucks Luxembourg charged Starbucks UK consultant fees, just happened to be the same as Starbucks UK's profits. So no profit in the UK, no tax. Per the rules.

Gordon Brown (past useless short term prime minister) said, "Whatever you try to do with taxation, the big guys find away to pay little taxation", so he didn't bother to try and change tax rules.

Bezo is rich because those against the rich use Amazon and his wealth is mostly the tax he should have paid.

 

[Meister]

That's not true, someone who makes $50,000 a year will often pay more in taxes as a percentage of their income than someone who makes millions, or many millions, a year. I have no idea how Bezos gets away with what he does.

It's the tax code, ALL politicians are to blame, even in the BBB there was tax exemptions...made by the democrat politicians.
Nobody is getting away from anything, so lets make that clear. sheesh
What is your definition of often?
And please give a source to your stated facts to the percentages. And, please don't use one person and that blankets
the rest. There are circumstances where a person has offsetting losses that can lower a tax rate for a year or two.

 

[Winston]

It's the tax code, ALL politicians are to blame, even in the BBB there was tax exemptions...made by the democrat politicians.
Nobody is getting away from anything, so lets make that clear. sheesh
What is your definition of often?
And please give a source to your stated facts to the percentages. And, please don't use one person and that blankets
the rest. There are circumstances where a person has offsetting losses that can lower a tax rate for a year or two.

Yes, in some sense, all politicians are to blame. But those politicians were elected, by the people, and they carry the biggest burden of the responsibility. Mostly due to their ignorance. Like when you mentioned how Apple runs their transactions through Ireland. There is a very small town a few miles down the road, The biggest little football town in America" they claim because of their 2A championship football team. Pretty cool place, one of the few places in America that still has a functioning "Main Street" with independent shops mixed in with residential homes. A real "Mayberry" feel.

Well years ago Apple rolled into town, on the outskirts, and built a billion dollar server farm. Then they doubled it, spent another billion dollars. Sure, that was great for that little small town in the beginning. Local residents sold their properties for inflated values and moved away. The two turned around and built a new fire department right beside the server farm. Beefed up the police department to watch over the server farm. Put in power infrastructure to help power that server farm that uses at least twice the electricity of the entire down combined. Gave Apple property tax exemptions to entice them to move here.

Every single Apple download in the Northern Hemisphere in THE ENTIRE WORLD, originates from that server farm. That is where the order is processed, that is where the servers are accessed and the download sent through the internet. Only the damn money passes through Ireland. The residents of that small town end up subsidizing Apple, paying for the fire deparment, paying for the police department, paying for the infrastructure, paying higher power bills because they got to fight to get their puny amount of electricity. No way in hell they should put up with it. There are numerous proposals that are structured to make companies pay income taxes where the income is earned, not where the payment is sent, and that seems only fair.