If you are a citizen of any EU Member State, I implore... | Michał "rysiek" Woźniak

@rdrozd to nie jest propozycja tekstu dyrektywy, to jest propozycja pomysłu rozwiązania. Takie (bez wątpienia ważne!) kwestie są do ustalenia w samym procesie legislacyjnym, o ile do niego dojdzie.

Jednocześnie trwają przecież odrębne prace nad walką z unikaniem opodatkowania. Nie wszystko naraz. Krok po kroku.

Dla mnie fakt, że jednym z inicjatorów jest Piketty jest dość dobrym powodem, by tej inicjatywie zaufać.

14 January at 16:15 | Open on mstdn.social

Bezładnik

@rdrozd @rysiek Media w większości jęczą to, co im się klika, więc to żaden argument ;) Patrz: składka na ZUS dla JDG.

14 January at 17:07 | Open on pol.social

lunya (cute) :neocat_floof:

@rysiek@mstdn.social I'm minor and scared of giving id :neocat_floof_sad:

14 January at 16:10 | Open on fearness.org

Adam

@rysiek @wikiyu the rich will find their way around it, even if that means moving outside of eu — they’ll be most welcome elsewhere. It baffles me how anyone thinks this is feasible, I’m not even trying to be cynical about it

14 January at 16:27 | Open on fosstodon.org

@hq1 no no, you are actually being quite cynical about it.

That's exactly the kind of nihilism that the Bezoses, Musks, Zuckerbergs, and Gates of this world hope to get people to espouse — and it's scary how effective it is.

Here's the thing: any such issue is very complex. There are always several things that need to happen to "fix" them.

So, if you react like this to any single attempt — "this can't work, as there are other issues to solve first" — then nothing ever gets fixed.

14 January at 16:33 | Open on mstdn.social

@hq1 what *always* dumbfounds me with such responses as yours is this, though:

Okay, let's say you're right. Let's say that this has no way of fixing anything what-so-ever. That it will have no effect at all.

Here's my question: why spend the time discouraging people from doing it, then?

Like, if you truly believe in what you said, there is no point in such discouragement. It's inevitable it won't work. Why the urge to make such a comment? It strikes me as a definition of pointless.

14 January at 16:39 | Open on mstdn.social

Adam

no but you’re saying that if enough people sign (which I’m happy to, don’t get me wrong, what else can I do?) the parliament will look into it. Then some legislation has to happen. And then the rich will pay taxes that will help fix the climate crisis/debt? Is that what you’re saying?

I’m not discouraging anyone, I truly hope the probability of succeeding is greater than zero my man

14 January at 16:43 | Open on fosstodon.org

@hq1 I am saying that this is as good an attempt as any. Maybe it will work. It only costs a signature.

The point of this initiative is that a new tax is imposed on the super wealthy, and that tax is then earmarked for fighting climate crisis. I like that construction. Obviously it's a long way to an actual legislation, but one has to start somewhere.

14 January at 16:47 | Open on mstdn.social

Leszek Karlik

@hq1 @rysiek @wikiyu

A lot of money is spent on convincing people that wealth taxes don't work because the wealthy can escape to another state.

And then when wealth taxes are implemented they prove to work, because moving has a significant cost, and if your wealth is built on local networks of power, which it frequently is, moving also destroys wealth.

14 January at 16:53 | Open on circumstances.run

Adam

@Leszek_Karlik

Curious to learn about any examples. Can you cite some? Again, not trying to be cynical/sarcastic

14 January at 16:56 | Open on fosstodon.org

Adam

@Leszek_Karlik

> And then when wealth taxes are implemented they prove to work (…)

I meant that specifically, you made it sound like it has happened somewhere in the world? Genuinely no idea. I share the wishful thinking, if that’s what it is.

14 January at 17:14 | Open on fosstodon.org

@hq1 @Leszek_Karlik @rysiek @wikiyu

@hq1 90% top tax rate in the USA before 1964 or so. That's one of the things that helped end the Great Depression and create the post-war prosperity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_United_States#16th_Amendment

@Leszek_Karlik @wikiyu

14 January at 17:16 | Open on mstdn.social

mhack

New York decided to increase taxes on the most wealthy, the only people leaving New York are the people that can't afford housing prices.

"The report also found that affluent residents who left New York did not appear to have been driven away by recent tax increases."

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/nyregion/nyc-working-class-tax-rich.html

14 January at 18:20 | Open on kolektiva.social

Marko

@rysiek @hq1 @wikiyu It's very popular to promote "taxing the rich", it's been done numerous times throughout the history. It sounds as a no-brainer, but more often than not, such efforts result in spending much time and energy to achieve nothing useful at best. Usually it results in higher taxes for the middle class with not much benefit for those in need. That's what half a century taught me, but I encourage everybody to study similar efforts and their effects before pushing such initiatives.

14 January at 18:59 | Open on mastodon.social

Paul Schoe

Maybe he is rich himself and he wants to demotivate people to sign for this European 'Tax The Rich' initiative.

@rysiek @hq1 @wikiyu

14 January at 19:38 | Open on mastodon.world

Adam

@paulschoe

Don’t be silly Paul, there’s no rich people on mastodon

14 January at 20:01 | Open on fosstodon.org

Paul Schoe

🤣
If I was rich, I would say the same.

@hq1 @rysiek @wikiyu

14 January at 20:02 | Open on mastodon.world

Sheogorath 🦊

@hq1 @rysiek @wikiyu They sure will, but it will be less convenient. And then the next policy comes around. It's a race and you can only win if you start.

There is also an amount of rich people who will rather pay the tax than finding another loophole. Sure they won't be happy about it, and that's already something.

14 January at 16:41 | Open on microblog.shivering-isles.com

@sheogorath here's yet another way of looking at it, stolen from I think David Graeber:

At some level of wealth it becomes completely abstract.

Zero here, zero there make no *real* difference. The only difference that matters at that level is a financial dick measuring contest: who has more, who has less? Who is first on list of the wealthiest people on the planet?

If everyone of these billionaires is taxed the same, this does not re-order that ladder.

@hq1 @wikiyu

14 January at 16:45 | Open on mstdn.social

Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

@hq1: I see something else in that.

European market is for them really important like practically any-in-the-world market. Taxing them here may drive them off Europe, and I won’t deny that - but there’s a chance rich will lose their source of income being the Europe.

14 January at 16:42 | Open on 500plus.slavistapl.eu.org

Yes, it's a JS-heavy website with a webdesign that makes my eyes hurt. Sigh, can't have nice things, can we?

You can skip right to the signing by going to the relevant Citizens' Initiatives website on europa.eu here:
https://eci.ec.europa.eu/038/public/

Both sites seem to work fine in a Tor Browser, and the signing requires solving a self-hosted captcha (no Big Tech captcha involved, it seems), so at least that's good.

#TaxTheRich #EU

14 January at 16:27 | Open on mstdn.social

Oliwier Jaszczyszyn

@rysiek: of course I mailed website owners regarding this situation.

14 January at 16:28 | Open on 500plus.slavistapl.eu.org

Tyrone Slothrop

@rysiek I’ve signed it!

Yeah, the site is ugly. But the standard EC sites look far worse.

On the upside, there’s not a single ad to be seen.

14 January at 17:01 | Open on chaos.social

> It could never work, because the rich can move / have already moved their wealth elsewhere.

Any such issue is very complex. There are always several things that need to happen to "fix" them.

So, if you react like this to any single attempt — "this can't work, as there are other issues to solve first" — then nothing ever gets fixed.

That's basically nihilism. You do you, but if you are so certain it can't work, why even bother commenting on this at all? 🤔

14 January at 17:12 | Open on mstdn.social

Clark W Griswold until 25-Dec

@rysiek Lots of people these days are focused on "not" something. You propose a solution (whether it's politics, or technical, or culture whatever) and their reply is "not that." It's easy to say "not that". It's hard to say "we want this" and actually have a viable, workable solution.

When someone replies to my suggestion with "not that" I just immediately reply with "what do we do instead?" Frequently they don't know.

Nobody would live in a house if everyone said "not a cave, not a hut, not a hole in the ground, not a tree, not a bush..." You can't arrive at "I want to live in a house" by naming all the things you DON'T want to live in.

When someone replies to my suggestion with "not that" I just immediately reply with "what do we do instead?" Frequently they don't know.

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14 January at 17:17 | Open on infosec.exchange

@paco 💯

It is perfectly reasonable to say "not that" even if one does not have a good solution. But that has to be related to some specific bad outcome.

Saying "not that, just because I don't think it would work, but no I have no specific bad outcome I am concerned with, and no I have no alternative" is what gets me.

Esp. when it's delivered in an authoritative tone of "this will never work."

Again, if "this will never work", why even bother opposing it? Just sit back and enjoy being right!

14 January at 17:21 | Open on mstdn.social

RedFreljordian

@paco @rysiek Right but if you live in a house that is imperfect but someone suggests that you should live in a cave instead, "not that" is an acceptable answer. Not making progress is better than going backwards.

14 January at 18:07 | Open on mastodon.world

Clark W Griswold until 25-Dec

Let me try to connect your comment to mine. When this hypothetical person says "go live in a cave", even if your reply to them is literally the words "not that", the meaning is more than simple negation. You're going to DO something. You have reasons for doing it. So in our rhetoric we need to move away from negation. Maybe you'll continue to live in your imperfect house. Maybe you will leave your imperfect house and move into something that is neither that house nor a cave, that's what you will DO. Negating the suggestion of living in a cave doesn't say what you WILL do. But we know you will do SOMETHING.

Like when someone says "we will ban abortion" they do not usually identify the kinds of medical care that will be substituted for situations where abortion would normally be the treatment. Banning and negating can't lead to the thing we actually do. Even if we all agree nobody will live in caves, that doesn't mean everybody lives in houses instead of cars. They're going to live somewhere, and saying "not in caves" isn't useful.

@RedFreljordian @rysiek

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14 January at 18:44 | Open on infosec.exchange

RedFreljordian

@paco sure. But in most cases there is already a status quo, which is what people tend to mean when they say "not that". As in the situation is not great, someone proposes something and the reply is no that seems bad, I'd rather keep what we have even if I think it is still not great.

Ofcourse it would be even better if they did offer a valuable suggestion, but we can't all have ideas for everything and sometimes it is valid to just say no I do not want that

14 January at 19:03 | Open on mastodon.world

Riley S. Faelan

@rysiek Most countries tax their residents even if that wealth is outside the country. German tax authorities, for example, have been known to purchase evidence related to the Panama Papers release for the specific purpose of being able to levy taxes on people who live in Germany but tried to hide their wealth and income in an offshore site.

14 January at 17:25 | Open on toot.cat

> Who exactly would get taxed and to what extent? What would be considered "excess wealth"?

Fair question, not clearly answered.

But this is a very early step in a potential legislative process. This question would get hammered out throughout that process, if it gets in.

It's not like we're voting on specific terms here. Merely saying: "yeah that sounds like something we should spend some EU time figuring out properly."

So, that sounds reasonable to me. Plus, Thomas Pikkety is involved. 👀

14 January at 17:57 | Open on mstdn.social

Riley S. Faelan

@rysiek I'm inclined to argue that an optimal, self-regulating, taxation level might be determined based on criteria such as a percentile, such as applying wealth tax starting from a level that exceeds, the minimum wealth level of the top 5% of wealthy people in a country for a short-to-medium term, or something like 3 standard deviations above the population's average for a long-term approach.

In an ideal world, the idea should be neutralising the wealth-based social stratification, so I'm entirely okay with a system whereby a zillionaire can reduce their wealth tax by making all the poor people around them a little bit richer and thereby nudging the average upwards.

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14 January at 18:03 | Open on toot.cat

@riley you want median though.

14 January at 18:04 | Open on mstdn.social

504DR

@riley @rysiek

We have that here in America.
It's called charity.

And the wealthy figured out long ago how to get around it.

They create their own charity, which just gives their money to causes that help the ppl and causes they want to help, and it's hardly ever to the ppl who need it most.

Set up with hefty pay to the administrators of the charity, most often times very little money ends up going to the cause itself.

Relying on selfish rich ppl for funding social welfare programs has proven as false and destructive as capitalism has, bc it's a part of capitalism.

Healthy societies don't need charity.
Healthy societies take care of all of their citizens equally.

@riley @rysiek

We have that here in America.
It's called charity.

And the wealthy figured out long ago how to get around it.

They create their own charity, which just gives their money to causes that help the ppl and causes they want to help, and it's hardly ever to the ppl who need it most.

Set up with hefty pay to the administrators of the charity, most often times very little money ends up going to the cause itself.

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14 January at 18:29 | Open on climatejustice.social

Riley S. Faelan

@504DR I did not suggest measuring how much the zillionaire "donated", but how much the wealth of the people around them arose. And, obviously, if a zillionaire is motivated to raise the wealth of a bunch of random people, the poorest people are the ones cheapest to enwealthen.

https://www.tax-the-rich.eu/home#info

14 January at 19:24 | Open on toot.cat

504DR

@riley @rysiek

Again, from an American perspective - good luck finding an altruistic zillionaire like that.

Maybe it's different across the pond. 🤷

14 January at 19:31 | Open on climatejustice.social

Silly Jim - webcomic

@rysiek There website has this question in the faq. :)

It depends per country, as an example they state:

"..In Belgium, for example, we propose that anyone with 1.25 million euros in assets in addition to their main home and business assets should qualify as "ultra-rich".

Sounds like a good starter.

14 January at 18:11 | Open on mastodon.social

Alberto Cottica

@rysiek not true, the definition is quite clear. The example for Belgium: you would be taxable if you have, NOT counting your house and any assets committed to your business, over 1.25 million euro.

14 January at 18:32 | Open on mastodon.green

Alberto Cottica

@rysiek that said, your broader point obviously stands. 😊

14 January at 18:51 | Open on mastodon.green

J. "Henry" Waugh

@rysiek I would also reply to "the rich can just move elsewhere!"

Governments know this, and have an incentive to act collectively. Slowly but surely, they are:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_minimum_corporate_tax_rate

14 January at 18:04 | Open on chaos.social

@jhwgh1968 what I love about this is that this is basically governments doing collective bargaining with the capitalist class. :blobcatlaugh:

14 January at 18:05 | Open on mstdn.social

J. "Henry" Waugh

@rysiek while I see it more like an "18th century law of the sea" or "universal jurisdiction for tax evasion", that is absolutely true

14 January at 18:07 | Open on chaos.social

Nicole Parsons

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/01/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-todays-agreement-of-130-countries-to-support-a-global-minimum-tax-for-the-worlds-largest-corporations/

The problem of mobile anti-democracy money is being addressed by Biden's rapid approvals of tax treaties.

There are fewer and fewer places for the rich to hide their money and evade taxation, as a result.

Europe could do the same. Support a global minimum tax.

14 January at 18:05 | Open on mstdn.social

stefan

@rysiek This is generally an interesting proposal. Though the regulations will have to be pretty tight. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

The general problem with taxing the wealthy was always that they could just likely evade the tax by moving to another country in the EU or using one of the various loopholes, that just exist.

Taking this on at european level makes that more difficult for sure. Though Switzerland and Great Britian still exist as "safe harbours" in Europe (since both of them are not part of the EU and you live very comfortable there).

Another thing to generally keep in mind is that wealth tax is a fairly difficult tax to a) actually determine since there is a lot of different assets and b) to actually collect since likely not all wealth should be taxed.

We had such a tax in germany like almost 30 years at this point. Collegues at work that I asked about said that the tax quite bad to determine...

So it will be interesting to see if this comes to fruition and how they will solve the challenges associated with it (and how many loopholes they conviently "forget" in there)

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14 January at 19:39 | Open on akko.lightnovel-dungeon.de

Tree of Life

@rysiek We in the UK don't tax the rich. We make them Prime Minister, and then ex-Prime Ministers wonder aloud on live television at their "huge brain" .

14 January at 16:45 | Open on mastodonapp.uk

@RinglandWoods I hear the job of PM is quite taxing tho.

:blobcatpeek:

14 January at 16:48 | Open on mstdn.social

Marko

@rysiek I don't see how EU could reach what you describe. Really rich already have all their wealth in tax friendly countries.

14 January at 17:07 | Open on mastodon.social

@pramarko https://mstdn.social/@rysiek/111755288713219071 🤷‍♀️

14 January at 17:09 | Open on mstdn.social

Krzysztof Stenografow

@rysiek i don't want rich people to be extra taxed for the so called climate projects which are in fact their fake activity to rule the masses. So many parasites feed on them and in fact support evil rich moguls to turn masses i to slavery.

14 January at 17:26 | Open on 101010.pl

@flamenco108 cool, don't sign then. Solved! 🎉

14 January at 17:28 | Open on mstdn.social

Krzysztof Stenografow

@rysiek well not yet. But we shall wait. The nature finally will do.

14 January at 18:29 | Open on 101010.pl

@rysiek PROBLEMS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgVXBEeD6pQ

EV's being - a solution of sorts.. imho

14 January at 17:44 | Open on mastodon.online

João Cachada

@rysiek hello! This is an interesting initiative, but I'm wondering if there's any more information on how they plan to determine the "ultra-rich". The only thing I could find on the website is that they plan on determining it based on each country's economic context - in Belgium they would consider anyone with 1.25 million in assets ultra-rich. Did I miss more info anywhere? To me this would be critical info to know the exact formula, and how progressive the tax would be.

14 January at 17:50 | Open on mastodon.social

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2023/000006_en
#TaxTheRich

@jcachada this is a fair question; one that I have not found a clear answer to as well.

But the way I see it, this is an extremely early step in a potential legislative process. This issue will be hammered out throughout that process, if it ever actually gets the required support.

It's not like we're voting on a specific terms here. Just saying "yeah that sounds like something we should spend some EU time figuring out properly." So, that sounds reasonable to me.

That, and Pikkety is involved.

14 January at 17:53 | Open on mstdn.social

João Cachada

@rysiek That's a fair answer. The biggest concern I have would be if this hammers the upper middle class and is not aggressive enough on the real ultra rich. Someone with 1.25 million in assets in Belgium and a billionaire are not remotely in the same league - I would want the "progressive" aspect to be very aggressive.

Agree those are particulars though, and those discussions can't be had without starting somewhere. This is probably as good a starting point as any. Beats inertia at least 👍

14 January at 18:01 | Open on mastodon.social

Marga Xeyat Ⓐ

@rysiek I'll only sign this one: #ExpropriateTheRich

14 January at 17:55 | Open on mastodon.social

CelloMom On Cars

Nederlanders:
Hier is een mooi Europees initiatief;
Tekenen is zo gebeurd:

"This initiative calls on the European Commission to establish a European tax on great wealth.
The contribution would be used to combat climate change and inequality."