• Shizrak@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      This would be ideal but I’m skeptical that it’s actually possible. Bribes are cheaper than taxes, so I think they’d likely just prevent the taxes from happening by greasing the correct palms.

      • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        Well yeah, that’s exactly what’s happened for at least the past 50 years. In 1968 corporations were paying 53% of their profits in taxes, and billionaires were paying 94% around that time! Btw, if you’re making billions, paying 94% still leaves you richer than most…

        Contrast that to today, where the system is so obviously broken during a time when Amazon is paying less in total taxes than a fry cook at McDonald’s.

        It would need to be done with actually no loopholes, and meaningful enforcement of consequences for those who would try to cheat (perhaps the guillotine).

        • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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          4 hours ago

          one big issue is everyone goes “you can’t tax stocks!” and then billionaires take a loan against the stocks with the unrealized gains as collateral. So we’d need to start classifying a loan as a realized gain of the collateral against this, with an exception for mortgages on primary domiciles, maybe also a “first million dollars are exempt,” calculated on the full debt of the borrower, not per loan. I can’t imagine anyone taking out more than $1M in debt against a properly they don’t live in is not the rich we need to be taxing.

        • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          Contrast that to today, where the system is so obviously broken during a time when Amazon is paying less in total taxes than a fry cook at McDonald’s.

          Wait…by percentage, or by dollar amount?

      • Emi@ani.social
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        4 hours ago

        Don’t they already just avoid paying taxes by not having a salary and just using bank loans or something? So they have no actual money in the bank