 Dear fellow Europeans, I am respectfully asking you to consider signing this European Citizen Initiative to institute a billionaire tax. It was invented by leading French economist Thomas Piketty; I read the whole thing, and it is technically excellent. Hit me if you have questions, but please sign it, it is important. It needs 1 million signatures (currently 300K) and seven countries over their threshold (currently three: Denmark, France, Germany). 90 comments
@greg_harvey good on the French! I am in Belgium, but signed a long time ago, so now I am reduced to posting on social media 🙂  @alberto_cottica I don't know how many more people we can get to sign here on Masto. Maybe we should coordinate to send this same message on the other SNs in a burst? What about posting on all of them this Sunday 19:00 UTC (20:00-22:00 across the EU) so it becomes trending on Monday morning? Does it work like that? I don't have accounts on any other but Masto, so I don't know... @mdione I have no idea, not much of a social media person. Anecdotally, it seems that "going viral" no longer happens much unless it is a celebrity doing it, so maybe not much point in coordination. With that said, Mastodon has over 15 million accounts, but of course spilling over to other social media helps. @alberto_cottica I have seen messages about this for months already, and there doesn't seem to have changed much since, it's still my impression that we reached peak spread here, at least for EU people. @alberto_cottica @mdione Likely a bubble. Just an observation, I heard about this for the first time today and I’m generally following people who I’d expect to toot about this sort of stuff.  @mdione Unfortunately, it doesn't work anymore like this. The big billionaires' platforms often use shadowbanning if you say something against the rich. One must hide that in a smart way ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_banning  @alberto_cottica try posting in another language? More hashtags? #eu #EuropeanUnion #finland #luxembourg #belgium #slovenia #malta #cyprus #estonia #latvia #lithuania #croatia #ireland #sweden @k_kwasniewska @alberto_cottica I feel like this is sarcasm. If not, please do / ask a friend who does. (But seriously, if serious, this is my warning shot because I am having a shit week and while I try to avoid trauma-dumping or misfiring aggression at unrelated people, systemic factors causing overwhelm are my white whale of triggers and my god, I do not have the patience today.) But if not, have a nice day. @MxVerda uh... no, I did not mean to be sarcastic. Also don't read any on @k_kwasniewska 's post. @alberto_cottica @k_kwasniewska I have no idea what that means, but it’s sound neutral so great. May your week be better than mine.  @MxVerda @k_kwasniewska @alberto_cottica I feel you and now I have literally doubts after seeing this mid-page ~Additionally there is a formal website for collecting votes for changes in side the EU and this is not it~ edit: the page links to https://eci.ec.europa.eu/038/public/#/screen/home which is proper @ppxl @MxVerda @k_kwasniewska yes, it is practice for ECIs to have their own website, linking to and from the ECI facility for collecting signatures. @anne_twain I did. My problems have not decreased but at least they have not increased. I appreciate the tone marker, thank you. Back at cha.  @alberto_cottica Hei rakkaat suomalaiset ystävät 😊 Tämä ⤴️ tarvitsee allekirjoituksia mm. Suomesta. cc @HannaEsmeralda_ @lari @immersfer @LaraMint @alberto_cottica And I'm still sad about that. @alberto_cottica Drodzy Europejczycy! Szanownie proszę Was o przemyślenie podpisania poniższej petycji o podatek dla miliarderów. Pomysł należy do francuskiego ekonomisty Thomasa Piketty; jest on dobrze przemyślany i dokładny. Link znajduje się poniżej: Petycja potrzebuje miliona podpisów i 7 krajów ponad minimum (obecnie Dania, Francja i Niemcy!)  @alberto_cottica I'm not sure that Piketty's authorship is a point in its favour, but hey, stopped clocks and all that. Wish I could vote for it but some fucktards removed my citizenship without my consent @http_error_418 yes, that is very unfortunate. As for Piketty... I am a fan, but not so much that I want to pick a fight on the matter 🙂 @alberto_cottica gutted to be stuck in the backward hole that is the united kingdom, would have signed otherwise. @alberto_cottica gosh damnit! My country already signed it:( can't do too much now except be a nuisance to everyone around me by talking about it @Sikeen what do you mean? It's not countries signing. Individual signatures still count past the threshold. Unfortunately, being in the UK not able to sign (another unwelcome consequence of the stupid decision to leave the EU) but boosting for the maximum European coverage. I hope that you get the support and signatures you need. @tompearce49 @johagron thanks Tom. This one is unlikely to succeed, but we will keep trying.  @alberto_cottica It does not say what the proposed tax would be, in terms of a percentage. @fuzztech the tax rate is left for the lawmakers (EU Parliament) to decide. in "Capital and Ideology", Piketty proposes a rate of about 1-2% a year, to be applied only on great wealth (French: grandes fortunes). The ECI makes an example for Belgium, defining great wealth as net worth of over 1.25 million, excluding one's home and any assets used in one's productive activities (which are not taxed). @alberto_cottica I have put this initiative in a chat on twitch. The reaction was he rather wanted this as an e-mail. I maybe try this later. We really need more People to share it.  @alberto_cottica I hate to say this, but you're not going to get 700 000 signatures in 1 month if you only got 300 000 in 11 months. Boosted anyway, I hope it helps. It's here: https://www.tax-the-rich.eu/home#proposition, click on "Legilative procedures" "The introduction of a European wealth tax requires three legislative stages: 1 The European Commission is to propose a directive based on Article 115 TFEU, which allows the Council, acting unanimously, to adopt directives to harmonize national legislation, particularly in the field of direct taxation." 1/2 2/3 "2 Secondly, an amendment to Council Decision 2020/2053 (article 311, paragraph 3 TFEU) will have to be proposed, enabling this tax to contribute to the EU's own resources." 3/3 "3 Finally, the revenues from this tax must be allocated to an ecological and social transition, by reinforcing funds such as the RFF and those linked to the Green Deal and cohesion policy. To achieve this, the Commission must amend the basic regulations for these funds, i.e. regulations 2021/1056 and 2021/241, on the basis of cohesion policy (article 175, 3 TFEU). " @alberto_cottica le persone più competenti in assoluto nel globo a mangiare soldi 💰 sono i miliardari onesti  @alberto_cottica What would prevent them from moving to somewhere else and leaving the EU even poorer than it is? @nossipova wealth taxes used to be in place until relatively recently, in France for example. Data on their revenue show that it was growing faster than GDP at the time of abolition. Additionally, we have since developed better ways to fight tax evasion via offshoring, like international sharing of banking data. For example, the American IRS receives data on banking transactions from and towards American citizens abroad. @alberto_cottica also gonna spam a bit my insta account with this since just started on mastodon and no reach, perhaps more portuguese people join in  @alberto_cottica Important info missing: "if it reaches the threshold, IT WILL ACTUALLY NEED TO BE PROPOSED IN THE EU PARLIAMENT". @forse you are right. I assumed everyone knows about European Citizen Initiatives. Mistake.  @alberto_cottica wish I could, but our local corrupt rich took us out of the union :/ gonna give it a boost though @alberto_cottica I signed in with the itsme app but at the end I'm redirecting to another site requiring a login but when I accept I go back to the initiative... am I good ? |
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@alberto_cottica Signed! But I'm in France. I see Belgium is close! 🤞 The other countries have a ways to go...