Re:Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, re...
by JDiculous on Sunday April 10, 2016 @02:05PM
(#11467394)
(4) Tax land
Land is the largest source of unearned revenue (rent-seeking).
The more you tax of something, the less you get, usually to the detriment of society. The one thing this does not apply to is land.
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In theory I'm in support of taxing wealth and much prefer that to taxing income, but it's just too unrealistic. Wealth is so easy to hide (eg. offshore) and hard to value (since it's more than just counting money in the bank). The only plausible way I could see us taxing wealth effectively is if the world collectively got rid of physical cash and implemented negative interest rates on currency, but obviously that's not happening anytime soon.
Land is the largest source of unearned revenue (rent-seeking).
The more you tax of something, the less you get, usually to the detriment of society. The one thing this does not apply to is land.
---
In theory I'm in support of taxing wealth and much prefer that to taxing income, but it's just too unrealistic. Wealth is so easy to hide (eg. offshore) and hard to value (since it's more than just counting money in the bank). The only plausible way I could see us taxing wealth effectively is if the world collectively got rid of physical cash and implemented negative interest rates on currency, but obviously that's not happening anytime soon.