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Wealth Tax

In Massachusetts, Unions Beat Billionaires To Pass A Tax On The Rich

November 13, 2022 Paul Prescod, Jacobin. , , ,
Massachusetts - While the Democrats’ worst fears of a “red wave” did not materialize, the midterms also didn’t feature many clear affirmative wins for the Left. But in Massachusetts, working people scored a major victory with a ballot measure to tax the rich and fund public investment. Supported by a broad labor-community coalition, the passage of the Fair Share Amendment can serve as a model for ballot initiative campaigns nationwide. The Fair Share Amendment will create a 4 percent tax on annual income above $1 million. The funds raised from this measure are mandated to be spent on public education, transportation, and infrastructure repair. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the amendment will generate over $2 billion every year for the state.

Real Estate Industry Spends Big To Crush ‘Mansion Tax’

October 31, 2022 Aditi Ramaswami, The Lever. , , , ,
Los Angeles, California - In the coming weeks, Los Angelenos will vote on a ballot measure to hike taxes on the sale of multimillion dollar properties, with the expected near-billion dollars in annual revenue going towards addressing the housing crisis in the second-largest city in America. The initiative has been strongly opposed by real estate interests — from huge corporate landlords to realtor lobbying groups and pro-business groups — who have so far poured more than $5 million into efforts to defeat the measure. Measure ULA, which would increase real estate transfer taxes on properties in the city of Los Angeles valued at $5 million or more, would only apply to an estimated four percent of real estate transactions annually.

Voters Could Help Stem The Homelessness Crisis In L.A.

October 19, 2022 Annie Howard , In These Times. , , , ,
Los Angeles, California - After increasing nearly 25% between 2018 and 2020, the homeless population in the Los Angeles area has grown more slowly over the past two years. According to the latest count from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, L.A. County’s unhoused population grew from 66,436 in 2020 to 69,144 in 2022, an increase of 4.1%. While there are numerous reasons for this downtrend, government intervention has played an important role. Such measures as Project Roomkey, which used federal, state and local funds to keep more than 10,000 residents in hotels and motels during the Covid-19 pandemic, showed that even modest public programs can make a significant impact on the city’s housing crisis, even as the initiative’s remaining residents lost their housing at the end of September.

The Case For Taxing The Rich Gets An Unexpected Boost

June 1, 2022 Sam Pizzigati, Counter Punch. , , ,
We’ve had quite a show up in the Alps this week, the first in-person gathering of the world’s mega rich since Covid hit. The occasion? The annual World Economic Forum at the Swiss resort of Davos, an ever-so-sober gathering that has an assortment of global deep thinkers sharing their wisdom with deep pockets ever eager for policy ideas that don’t involve sharing their wealth. Also on hand, in person and remotely: a collection of the world’s most stalwart egalitarians, advocates ranging from activists with the Patriotic Millionaires to analysts at the anti-poverty powerhouse Oxfam. These analysts, on the eve of Davos, released gripping new data on how billionaires in food and energy have been swelling their fortunes — at consumer expense.

Democrats’ Plans To Make The Wealthy Pay Will Barely Make A Dent

September 24, 2021 Gabriel Zucman And Emmanuel Saez, The Conversation. , , ,
Demanding tax increases on the rich is back in fashion – both in the corridors of the House of Representatives and on the red carpet of the Met Gala. The House Ways and Means Committee outlined plans on Sept. 13, 2021, to move the top marginal income rate up a couple of notches to 39.6% and to introduce a 3% surtax on incomes above $5 million. That proposal would fall short of calls to really “tax the rich,” as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s dress demanded at a glitzy New York bash just hours later. Tax policy is deemed progressive if the chunk of income taken increases with the income of the individual – so wealthy Americans would pay a larger proportion of their income than poorer ones. With a regressive tax policy, lower earners pay a larger percentage of their earnings in tax than wealthier ones.

Huge Study Of 50 Years Of Tax Cuts For The Wealthy

December 16, 2020 Grace Dean, Business Insider. , , ,
Large tax cuts for the rich don't lead to economic growth and employment but instead cause higher income inequality, a new study that examined tax cuts over 50 years suggested. A recent paper by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King's College London found that tax cuts for the rich in 18 countries predominantly benefited the wealthy. "Our analysis finds strong evidence that cutting taxes on the rich increases income inequality but has no effect on growth or unemployment" in the short and long term, the researchers wrote. After major tax cuts for the rich were introduced, the top 1% share of pretax national income increased by almost 1 percentage point, they found.

Voters Pass A Tax On The Rich To Pay Teachers More

November 9, 2020 Austin Walker, KVOA. , , ,
Marana, AZ - Prop 208, Invest in Ed, passed. A 3.5 percent tax increase will be applied to any individual making more than $250,000 a year or if a household makes more than $500,000 a year. That money will go towards public education. Meagan Brown, a special education teacher at Twin Peaks School in Marana said this additional funding is needed for the state. "Long story short, I just don't want teachers leaving," Brown said. It takes a special person to be a teacher. Brown said she's been doing it for a while.

Truth And Redistribution

September 1, 2020 By Darrick Hamilton & Naomi Zewde, YES Magazine. , , ,
In a nutshell, our racial dilemma is grounded in a political, economic, and identity-based devaluing of Black lives that has persisted ever since the first enslaved African arrived in Jamestown in 1619. The ensuing history of the United States is built on both racial and economic injustice, two related but distinct problems.  These racial and economic injustices, while entrenched, can be addressed. Below are three complementary policies that can make meaningful progress toward undoing centuries of systemic inequities, while prospectively ensuring capital access going forward: (1) Reparations through which the nation acknowledges and redresses its exploitation and extraction of Black resources and personhood; (2) Baby Bonds (publicly funded trust accounts) to establish a birthright to capital; and (3) a wealth tax to break up the concentration of wealth among the capitalist elite and diffuse the political power that goes along with such concentration.

The Basic Case For A Wealth Tax

August 19, 2020 By  Bob Lord and Lee Price, Inequality.org. , , ,
Changes in tax policy since 1980 have been driving U.S. inequality to levels not seen since the original Gilded Age. Reversing that trajectory — and restoring a more egalitarian society — will require a complete overhaul of the changes in tax policy we’ve seen over the past four decades. Taxes as a share of national income have now been remarkably stable for 40 years. Total federal tax revenue last year stood at 17 percent, about the average for the last half-century. Income taxes, meanwhile, have stayed steady at 8 percent of the economy. According to Saez and Zucman, a 10 percent tax rate on wealth in excess of $1 billion would have, if begun in 1982, kept the Forbes 400 share of the nation’s wealth at its 1982 level of 1 percent. We can’t turn the clock back to 1982. But we can take serious steps to undo the inequality damage we’ve experienced since then. Our suggestion: Let’s add a third tier to Senator Warren’s proposal. On wealth in excess of $5 billion, let’s now impose a 10 percent tax.

A Wealth Tax Might Be Easier to Implement than You Think

August 6, 2019 By Steve Wamhoff, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy , , ,
A direct federal tax on wealth, as described in a January report from ITEP and proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, could raise substantial revenue to make public investments, curb rising inequality, and is supported by a large majority of Americans. But would it work? Recent research highlighted in a new academic paper outlines approaches that would make it easier than you might think. At the outset, it is helpful to remember why we need a federal wealth tax and what the challenges are in implementing one.  The nation’s income tax by itself fails to place a sufficient constraint on growing economic inequality. Our income tax simply does not tax all types of income that wealthy people have.
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