 Two and a half weeks are left, to make the official European Citizens Initiative #TaxTheRich work! We still need 6̶9̶0̶.̶0̶0̶0̶ 673.000 signatures, which sounds like a lot, but for a union of 450 million people, it should be a piece of cake! We also still need 4 more countries to reach their national threshold of supporters: BE, NL, IT, ES, SE are on a good way. If you are an #EU citizen, and have not signed yet: What are you waiting for? Edit: Number updated. 78 comments
Um die Wahrheit zu sagen: Ich glaube, das wird nichts mehr. Meine Familie habe ich komplett drin, 67 Unterschriften vor dem Supermarkt gesammelt. Mein erster Aufruf hier im Fedi hatte noch hunderte von Boosts, der zweite noch ein paar Dutzend, aber inzwischen ist die Luft wohl raus. Andere Social Media habe ich leider nicht. Die Menschen lieben halt den Kapitalismus.  @mina @stiefel_fan @mina @mina @stiefel_fan Ich frage mich wo die (linke) mediale Öffentlichkeit dazu bleibt … @oxfam hat jetzt auch eine Kampagnenseite dazu — da könnte schon drüber berichtet werden. https://aktion.oxfam.de/tax-the-rich @ndaktuell @tazgetroete @bewegungstaz @woz @riffreporter @Krautreporter @correctiv_org @salome @stiefel_fan @mina Europe doesn’t have a fiscal union, sort that out and it would be worth discussing. (But a taxation policy based simply on envy would likely lead to Europe stagnating and declining even further). @chowderman @mina The proposed tax would be implemented on a national basis first and hints at a fiscal union. Moreover it is in no way based on envy. Social equality has to be the basis of any functioning society. No billionaire has earned their money. They are in fact a symptom of a rotting system. Your confidence that envy is the motive says more about you than it does about the initiative or the logic behind it. Actually, #TaxTheRich is just a catchy name. The initiative text is economically sound and detailed. The argument of the mobility of extremely wealthy persons becomes less convincing, if you consider that e.g. Switzerland has a wealth tax and also, unlike e.g. Germany, taxes capital gains and income from financial and real estate speculation like other income, and yet, the ultra-rich are not leaving the country in hordes. In fact, this form of taxation has led to overall lower taxes. BTW: The famous banking secret in Switzerland is long gone. @mina Germany has a so called ‚speculation tax‘ on real eastate which is in fact an income tax. As well the „Abgeltungssteuer“ for capital gains when selling stocks. And your framing of only „extremely wealthy“ or „ultra rich“ persons which are investing in stocks or real estate is one problem I see in this discussion regarding this initiative. @Konafets @mina @chowderman @mmm Talking about framings: it is imho a no-brainer that the ultra-rich contribute a larger share to society, but distributed democratically and not at their discretion. We live in a democratic society after all. Technicalities like which tax is already paid where are just derailing the point of the petition: the ultra-rich are influencing our societies not in a good way. @phneutral … and there we are at two core problem with the petition: a lack of understanding/knowledge of the tax system and a lack of definition what (ultra) rich people are. As following the discussion, I found a variety of opinions of who is addressed by „the rich“. Like in the post to which I answered, where only highly wealthy people own stocks and / real estate. If that is the belief system the petition is driven by, it has a taste of envy and misses the goal completely. @Konafets @mina the proposal is quite detailed imho. Oxfam state on their German campaign website: „Für Deutschland schlagen wir folgendes Steuer-Modell vor: Zwei Prozent auf Vermögen von über fünf Mio. US-Dollar (ca. 4,6 Mio. Euro), drei Prozent auf Vermögen von über 50 Millionen US-Dollar (ca. 46 Mio. Euro) und fünf Prozent für Vermögen, die eine Milliarde US-Dollar übersteigen.“ https://aktion.oxfam.de/tax-the-rich I know the German, the British and Swiss tax system very well, and none privileges capital gains over income from work as much as the German system. @mina Your point was Germany does not tax (in contrary to switzerland) stock and real estate speculations nor income from stocks. Not only that both is wrong, but now you try to shift your arguments from „there is no such a tax" to „Germany taxes capital income lower than labor income“ (which, by the way, is true). @mina So you admit, that there is a speculation tax? @chowderman @mmm @phneutral @mina What is this terrible incentive on investment in your opinion?@chowderman @mmm @phneutral Do I really need to explain it again and again? Are you deliberately trying to drive me into insanity? If returns on financial investments are taxed lower than those in labour and entrepreneurial activity (which is the case), the latter two need far higher yields to become competitive. Why would you invest serious money into building batteries or setting up repair shops, if you can just buy real estate or invest in financial instruments, which 1/2 @mina I don’t want to drive you in insanity but want to explore the motivations which drives one into promoting this petition. Thanks for elaborating your thoughts on this topic. The argument of the mobility of extremely wealthy persons becomes less convincing, if you consider that e.g. Switzerland has a wealth tax and also, unlike e.g. Germany, taxes capital gains and income from financial and real estate speculation like other income, and yet, the ultra-rich are not leaving the country in hordes. In fact, this form of taxation has led to overall lower taxes. BTW: The famous banking secret in Switzerland is long gone. I completely agree. Where is the text of specifically what is being asked for? I followed the links but couldn't find it. @mmm @chowderman @mina as you are still entangled in the neoliberal narrative of trickle down economics and their like we can agree to disagree at this point, because a conversation would not lead anywhere. GDP as a single point of measurement alone is absolutely outdated. The facts speak for themselves, EU economies are both highly redistributative and their growth is scleritic. You say that GDP is an outdated measurement but offer no alternative. Please don’t assume to know what I think of “trickle down economics”, which in any event is a phrase of abuse used by critics of low taxation rather than an accurate description of the theory that proponents of low taxation believe in. @chowderman @mina I don’t have to. You seem like a vivid guy who can search for themselves. Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment. Sadly I do feel the need to be less than generous and point out that my job isn’t to search the internet in order to justify your comments, however civily you make them - sorry.😔 👆🏻 dit is een no-brainer en het was heel makkelijk digitaal te ondertekenen — aanrader! Whilst it would be tremendously helpful, if some people with a bigger number of followers on other, larger, social media platforms joined the effort to promote the #TaxTheRich campaign ⬆️, the Fediverse alone has enough people to make it reality. It only takes a few minutes and doesn't cost anything. But if you have friends and family in real life, bring them in! If you have an account on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook, LinkedIn, X or whatever, please help!  @mina I just tried. At least, if you try to support it by eID, the system, recognizes if you already did that. – Sounds like this drives the money of the rich away from EU – Free market needs to have price on traditionally free externalities like CO2 – We need capitalists WITH THEIR money for the energy transition. No other money exists! Strangely enough, Switzerland has a wealth tax (which contributes quite a lot to public finances), but there's no sign of rich people abandoning the country. I do agree that we need to put a price on externalities, but this is an entirely different subject. Hoarded wealth has no benefit at all for society. Switzerland is an interesting proposition. On the other hand, many rich people from Finland have retired to Portugal due to tax optimization. Often, the masses of middle-class contribute on a bigger scale in taxes compared to only a small number of rich people. Hoarded wealth will be invested where the profit/risk & ESG meet their preferences; some capital also benefits and is even crucial for the society like renewable energy. Efficiency of trickle down is a good question though. I agree that capital is needed for investment, but I still wonder, why so many people assume that rich people's investments will have more social and environmental benefit than those made by well funded and managed public institutions. Tax regimes are indeed a very tricky subject, especially when some jurisdictions (this includes especially certain Swiss cantons) are engaging into a race to the bottom, thus cannibalising total global revenue. @mina I tried, but could not find any meaningful information here on what exactly this means. What is considered "rich" or "wealthy"? It does not establish any baseline from which to foster further conversation. I'm especially interested because I'm an upper middle class earner, but I already pay 60% of all of my income to tax - so exactly what would the tax for the "rich" be, if in most EU countries people already pay more than half away to tax? The initiative is not about taxing income, but hoarded wealth. According to the FAQ (link below), a family home and a million € in liquid assets should be exempt.  |
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Hoffentlich wird's was, ich kann leider nur einmal unterschreiben! 😜 🤷🏼♂️