Chatter Over a Wealth Tax

There's a page two story out there today, which goes over a German topic of a wealth tax being invented.

The political party discussing this?  The SPD.  Right now, they've sunk fairly low in polls, and probably would only get around 16-percent of the vote if a national election were held.

So how much is this tax being talked about?  They seem to want in the 10-billion Euro range to be exercised from wealthy people and business operations.  Why 10-billion?  No one says much of the nice round number business.   It always bothers me when numbers look so 'round'. 

Where would it be spent?  That's talked about to a minor degree.....welfare and pension reform.  The pension reform deal is because a fair number of Germans have worked their entire life on basic wages, and find at 66....they aren't making enough to survive. 

The odds of this tax being passed?  Right now, in the beginning of a recession?  Zero chance.  Even if the recession weren't in the landscape.....it'd be hard to convince the partner here (the CDU-CSU folks) to go along with this.  In 2021, after the next election?  Well.....that's a different story and very likely. 

But here's the thing.  If you were making 25-million Euro a year, and they came up to say on top of the regular tax you were already paying.....you needed to pay 700k Euro for a wealth tax as well....it'd trigger you to add up the property tax, the sales VAT, and the regular income tax.  You probably are giving 10-to-12 million Euro already each year in various taxes.  It might make you ask.....why should I stay in Germany, when I could establish myself in a more tax-friendly country. 

Chasing people out?  This is the problem that Sweden went through in the 20-year period of the early 70s to early 90s.  Businesses and millionaires eventually said enough and left.  A massive shift was required in the 1990s to overcome the lack of income in Sweden.  The same problem could happen in Germany, if they weren't careful about this.