Last night's ARD forum show ('Arena').....was a long discussion, with a politician, and two moderators....with forty-odd people to ask questions.
The jest of this 1-hour show? Mostly a long talk over the public frustration with 'rich-people'.
If you follow German polls over the past decade....it's roughly 80-percent of society who feel that rich Germans are a 'problem'. There's different grumblings, and hurt feelings over this.
The general fix-it solution? I'd say a majority (say over 50-percent) feel you need to tax rich-people more.
I've pondered this a lot, but come to a odd conclusion....if you are going to tax more....I'd like to hear how you intend to distribute the money. To be honest.....you are taking in forty extra billion Euro....trying to pay public workers more, or offer more money to buy statues, or offering free dance classes for people, or building forty new submarines, or making train-travel free.....isn't that smart.
I'm also of the mind that if you taxed folks more....somewhere around age 60....maybe half of this rich-population might go and leave the country....taking their wealth with them (like the way California folks left).
The odd factor? Generally, if you make over 70k Euro a year....in Germany....you are considered 'rich'. That heating technician next door....that makes 80k Euro? Yeah....he's rich. The baker with 8 employees....making 75k Euro a year.....yeah, he's rich. The TV moderator making 105k Euro a year? Yeah, he's rich.
From my American prospective? Generally, I'd say $1-mil a year is the point of being rich. If you were a back-up catcher for the Dodgers....minimum wage for a year is $760k.....which I don't really consider to be ultra-rich.
It's an odd dynamic....you want to get ahead in life, and folks are closely monitoring your appearance of wealth.....so you need to kinda pretend you are marginally making it....while taking in 90k Euro a year....something I'd call welfare-rich.
2 comments:
It's simple, you tax wealth, not work. Land tax and asset tax seems to be the easiest. Whether or not they get up and go is irrelevant, the land is still here and can be seized or forfeited if they refuse to pay the taxation on it. You could use it to stimulate the entire economy by making the first 200,000 Euros that someone earns completely tax free, or reducing the MwSt which is a tax that hits the poorest the hardest. Luxury taxes can also work. Invest it in electrical renewables where the towns in the proximity of the green energy don't have to pay for electricity anymore. Plenty of ways. I mean, if you want to say that all the wealthy people left California, California doesn't seem to be missing them financially.
In the California case....the impact of small, medium and large corporations 'exiting'....is leading toward a productivity crisis, and the necessity of inventing new taxes (mostly leading toward the ultra-rich). If you weren't convinced to exit two-to-four years ago....as a wealthy individual....this new trend makes you consider the exit. Maryland....around 15 years ago invented a wealth tax...centered on the ownership of yachts. About a year into it....state discovers that yachts have exited the state and registered in neighboring states....collapsing the intent of the tax.
In the California case, if you run a 1,000 person headquarters, and move to Vegas or Florida...the jobs move, and the state-taxable income dissolves. It takes the state about a year or two to wake up and grasp the missing tax revenue.
In the German landscape, with the newly created property tax....LOT of grumbling going on, and eventually....both the CDU and SPD will get some blame. With the current weakened trends....neither can afford to lose voters.
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