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A comment on IMF strongly suggests countries tax the rich to fix deficit. Parent comment

Re:IMF strongly suggests countries tax the rich to fix deficit by Mikeb85 on Sunday October 13, 2013 @08:03PM (#6544638)
> If the top 10% controls 80% of the wealth, there are definitely enough rich to fix the debt.

In many cases wealth isn't liquid. Wealth exists in the form of securities and assets. If you were to attempt to tax these, there would be absolute chaos - bank runs, stock market crashes, etc..., as everyone tries to liquefy their assets or move to protect them.

You could potentially tax cash savings, but that's not going to change much.

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Re:IMF strongly suggests countries tax the rich to fix deficit by judk on Sunday October 13, 2013 @10:47PM (#6545131)
Your claim is that people would rather destroy their wealth in an asset crash, over giving a piece of it up?
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Re:IMF strongly suggests countries tax the rich to fix deficit by Mikeb85 on Sunday October 13, 2013 @11:10PM (#6545188)
No. But if everyone worth a billion had to liquidate even 5% of it, it would cause huge dip in the market, and in turn funds and retail investors would sell off shares, people would hoard cash overseas, and a crash would be the end result.

We saw in France a huge uproar over the threat of a 75% tax, thankfully the courts declared it illegal...

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