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People don't realize that billionaires don't have their billions sitting in a bank account somewhere like you or I might have our own life savings tucked away in a savings account. That would be foolish of them, obviously, the FDIC won't insure them past a certain point, so a bank failure could cause them to lose everything.
Every single billionaire is only a billionaire "on paper". It's the sum total of all their assets, both liquid and non-liquid (like stocks, but also properties, etc.). They leverage their assets as collateral for a loan, and then use that loan to buy the stuff they want or just use it to make more investments. They leverage debt in a way that we can't even begin to fathom.
It's mad, but I can see the conundrum. How do you tax assets that aren't worth anything until sold? Can you compel them to sell their assets to settle a tax bill? How do you go after rich folk who use loans to circumvent generating income through the sale of their assets without also harming regular people who need to take out loans to buy things like cars and houses?
Rich people have gotten too good at playing the system and we seriously need to look at how we can fix things before it's too late. Right now, the wealthy have unprecedented control over the government, but it's still not an oligarchy yet. There's still time, though. Someone out there has to have a solution.
I have to pay property taxes on my home and car each year. These are assets that I'm not selling, yet I'm still being taxed on their value. It's amazing that they've figured out a way to do it for the working class but not for the ruling class.
I agree with what you're saying but I'm curious. You have to pay taxes on the value of your car? Do car registration fees scale with car value in your area?
I live in an area with car taxes, and they are separate from vehicle registration fees.
Kinda... it's based on the age of the car and the original MSRP, so it isn't exactly based on the car's actual value, but an estimate of what the value might be.
https://www.in.gov/bmv/fees-taxes/vehicle-registration-fees-and-taxes/excise-tax-information/#Passenger_Vehicle_Excise_Tax_Fees
Easy, tax net worth. Tax the value of all assets owned by an individual, trust, or corporation only in excess of some large number. Perhaps exceeding 5x the median net worth.
And only then might a corporation get tax incentives based on the number of people they employ. Because let's be fair here, office buildings are really expensive and we don't want to disincentivize company growth and job creation.
Just appropriate the assets for the people. Imagine what would happen if all that income came in to your government instead of a single asshole.