I agree but I think that that actually enforcing it will be even harder than enforcing the existing income and capital gains taxes. We should still try, but we should spread our net wider.
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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A wealth tax would be great. I was surprised at how effectively rich assholes shut down the tiny fixes to the capital gains loophole. Expect a flight.
If rich people can avoid paying taxes through the use of loopholes (see the Canadian list in the Panama Papers) I don't understand why gov'ts would worry about them leaving. I mean they're not paying their fair share anyway, so fuck 'em.
They aren't paying their fair share of taxes. The wealthy pay politicians both monetary and non-monetary bribes a significantly smaller sum than the taxes they avoid. If the bribes were more than the taxes they would just pay the taxes.
The tax code architecture is inherently flawed... labour income is taxed higher than capital income. Capital income surplus is than accumulated in stocks. Most of labour does not get much if any surplus income to invest.
But you are not wrong, you are just looking at the shit the rich try to steal on top of this inherent privileged treatment. But even if close ALL of the loops holes, the system is flawed esp at the wealth concentration we currently have across developed economies but esp US.
"If you tax me, I'll have less to bribe you with."
Politicians don't bite the hand that feeds them. We need more tax brackets at the upper levels; our highest one is $246,752 and over, which only faces a 33% progressive tax rate.
There are so many people in Canada that make way more than this who just aren't paying their fair share. We should also be doing more to tax assets other than income.
There are so many people in Canada that make way more than this who just aren't paying their fair share. We should also be doing more to tax assets other than income.
People who take a salary -- even a high salary, are most paying their fair share. I think they could make a reasonable argument that they pay way more than most (above 246752, 33% which is more than most people in the country).
Compare that with the wealthy:
From here
CEO Tobias Lütke (who was paid a $1 salary but received more than $26 million in option-based awards).
1$, meaning he pays ZERO income tax (he likely pays some taxes on his options).
This is somewhat common for wealthy people, adding more brackets on income isn't going get them paying their fair share.
What I believe we non wealthy people want to see is a wealth tax.
your first position is correct; however,
1$, meaning he pays ZERO income tax (he likely pays some taxes on his options).
This is factually incorrect unless Canada has a special regime to make it work which would not make sense.
He earns 1$ income, the rest is options, his income is below the minimum taxable. The taxes he pays on options aren't income tax.
Why do you assume that equity would not be treated as income once vested?
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I've exercised options from a company in canada, they were taxed distinctly (and more favourably) from income.
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He'd have no reason to take his payment this way otherwise. (FWIW Every CEO (both canadian and american) of a wealthy company i've seen has taken their pay in a manner similar to this: most of the comp is in stocks)
Stock grants among any other in kind payment are treated as ordinary income as general rule.
I've exercised options from a company in canada, they were taxed distinctly
Can somebody confirm this?
The wording is a bit vague.
The only way I can see this working if tax was paid when option was granted hence once it was exercised it would be subject to a more favourable capital gains treatment for the proceeds from exercising.
You don't pay taxes on the option, because you haven't bought the option till you exercise it.
Anyway the amount was kinda fixed (it's been awhile) like 25%, it was also years ago, so things may have changed. They are also distinct from RSU's which i believe aren't taxed as low, but still better than top marginal tax rate for income.
Anyway it doesn't seem like those are really the whole story (https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36l575/eli5_how_can_it_be_that_ceos_often_pay_an/) -- it looks like the tax escape mechanism is to get deferred stocks - which admittedly for the Tobias case we'd have to see how those stocks were awarded. I still think my point 2 applys - why would he take compensation in this mostly stocks manner (and like every other CEO i've seen) unless there was some benefit.
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Some what true but 250k is essentially the upper class likely top 10%?
The real money is with the owner class, not wage earners.
People are focused so much on income, no realizing the core issue is that tax code discriminates against labour to favour capital.
Yeah, I think a tax bracket from 250k-500k and then 500k and above would be helpful to get at the people who are in the top 1% of earners. The ownership class, as you say. A big challenge comes from the fact that a lot of these people do not have liquid assets, it's often stocks or some other kind of investment product.
It's not a solution at all but it's a start. I agree that labour is inherently undervalued in Canada, this manifests itself in various ways across our laws, policies, cultural attitudes, labour relations, etc. It seems like untangling that would be a lot more difficult than changing the tax code, since a lot of MPs and MPPs have a vested interest in labour organizations and workers being powerless.
It seems like untangling that would be a lot more difficult than changing the tax code
I think you got this a bit backwards tbh I would posit that we can't untangle unless we change the tax code.
Tax code arguably is the most effective policy tool a government has outside of guns which are dicey. If you notice, a lot of hand out to rich and corpos happen via the tax code. Straight state aid in sheep's wool.
Capital has to be decentralized so people can regain some autonomy and economic security. But we are in catch 22 or whatever scenario where labor has no capital to affect tax code reform. Labour will not get capital unless tax code is reworked.
Some people would argue that higher wages would help which I won't argue against but again... the rich will generate capital that is inherently taxed at lower rate over labour. So over long enough period of time, they will always get ahead.
Capital should be taxed at a higher rate than wages at least to obtain a distribution that provide social cohesion. So this will need to be in place to sustain a balanced system. And it woudl take too long to fix current inequality.
So the solution we need right now is tax on property owned by the rich. Tax stock as the way people pay taxes on houses and cars. Pedons already do it why did the rich get this nice little exemption?
Now all of this is easy to say and consensus is being built around the issue. But mark my word, if this gets a critical mass to try to force a policy change, we will get a civil war.
Call it a property tax so pedons can understand it
For some weird reason they are allergic to taxing rich people's stock but pay property taxes on their houses and cars with out any complaints lol
That’ll yield the opposite outcome when one of the top complaints from homeowners is their property taxes and how they should remain frozen or cut for the rest of time
Well currently property taxes scale very nicely with housing inflation...
Property taxes are never getting cut, they won't even adjust people's bills even property start to devalue, see Detroit post 2008. They were forcing people paying in 2012 based on 2008 valuation. Then proceed to forcefully remove people once they taxes went delinquent. Lien, kicked out, can't sell the house... then municipality has to pay to clear the slots due to blight.
They can have fund demanding that all day to play as a dilatory clown OR they could demand that owners of stocks and other assets pay their taxes to increase the tax revenue in era of massive government debt that twas largely used to acquire these stocks and other assets.
Detroit isn't a good example for Canadian property tax. Ontario reasseses property taxes every 4 years, and as far as I can tell, it's 100% possible for them to go down as they are tied to the specific property and municipality, not national inflation.
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And stop allowing corporate monopolies, bigger companies buying smaller ones has never made it cheaper for Canadians.
What sort of numbers are people expecting for this? I read somewhere that the NDP proposed a tax of 1-2% on assets above $10M, does that sound right?
I was curious about specifics but couldn’t find any in the article.
previous NDP proposal and expected revenues https://www.investmentexecutive.com/news/industry-news/ndps-proposed-wealth-tax-would-generate-60-billion-over-five-years-pbo/
Gary Stevenson explained it, so long as inequality grows, the rest of us will be struggling more and more.
Capitalism does not inherently specify that 5 fat old cucks should own everything.
The system created by the rich does that. If capital was decentralized, i bet we would have a lot less social issues.
Capitalism doesn't "specify" anything, it's a mode of production characterized by the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of labour.
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Why start a pitch for wealth equality by talking about racism? Pragmatically, it seems like a good way to double the number of reasons for people to disagree with you. Which issue are you trying to combat?
And while I do not debate the historical backdrop of your thesis, is racism really an explanation for wealth concentration at the top of our society today?
For starters, the richest person in Canada by far is Asian, as are many other Canadian billionaires. Racism does not explain who is or is not on the list of tech or pharma titans. Not everybody is named Thomson.
Is the problem you are trying to solve that most indigenous Canadians are less well off than a typical Canadian of European descent? Or that both groups find themselves close together at the bottom of the graph—far below the one percent?
Anyway, I am not trying to dissuade you from fighting racism. Please do. My question is simply if you feel that combining the two issues is the best way to make progress on either one of them.
It's right there in the first four words:
This Black History Month,
News sites typically try to associate stories with current events. Black History Month is scheduled, so it's really easy to commission or pitch something like this.
I agree with your point, but it has more to do with how news organizations expect their readers to act than anything else.
Both leading Canadian parties are not going to allow it, they are still both economically conservative. The last 14 years of Liberal Party rule allowed for housing crisis to spiral out of control because both wealthy liberals and conservatives benefit from it. So, why would they even allow to tax the wealthy more? Canadians have the same duopoly problem as the US, as well as having the same oligarchy problem.
It doesn't seem like the article ever explains what a wealth tax is?
It's a tax on assets and net worth.
Typically taxes are on income, but the stupidly wealthy pay accountants to do weird financial tricks so it looks like they don't have income, even though they have incredible lifestyles and wield outsized influence thanks to their money. A wealth tax theoretically sidesteps that crap.
(not op) I'm against a wealth tax, but what you mentioned is a serious problem that does need to be fixed.
The best I've come up with is taxing use of collatorlized assets. Are you a founder in a company that went public and you have a lot of money in stock? Great, well done! Oh, you want to buy a house without selling any of that stock and take out a loan against that stock, that you don't pay back for decades or until you die by simply adding more collateral? Tax that. Don't let them use it indirectly without taxing it. If they repay the collateralized loan, let them get a refund and tax however that gets paid back. They have the money to make sure all the paper work is handled correctly.
I'm sure there's other tricks that would need to be addressed, but it should be doable without a blanket tax on unrealized gains.
Edit: also let the tax agencies investigate the lavish lifestyles and have them show how they are paying for things, and when it ultimately comes to this or other ways, tax that. Short of offsetting their yearly spend with donations to charity, tax it. Don't let this $0 income/capital gains shit continue through trickery.
This is one of those problems where I don't really care about the exact nature of the solution, just that it's addressed. Individuals hoarding wealth and power to the detriment of society is bullshit.
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Works similar to property taxes you pay on a house or a car....
We can point people to Gary Stevenson for down-to-earth explanations on how this should work. He's been campaigning for wealth taxes in the UK, but also acknowledges the issue is global. He has a playlist you can point people to that want to understand the issues better. Long story short though, he emphasizes taxing difficult-to-move physical assets like commercial properties.
Recently, clips have circulated where he debated Piers Morgan and Dave Rubin at the same time on why excess wealth must be taxed. That said, I think he explains things just as well and in better detail on his own channel.
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