By Daniel Rodriguez
Should wealthy people pay higher taxes? Yes, I believe so.
The gap between the rich and poor has been growing worse by the day. Those on top of the world go years without paying any taxes while middle-class workers and the poor sleep in tents.
Homelessness can increase in populated cities like New York while Elon Musk could lose 2 billion dollars in Tesla stock and have it not affect him with 150 billion+ still available. A study by the Public Policy Institute of California released a survey that resulted in 6/10 respondents thinking that children in California will be worse off financially than their guardians.
My personal opinion is that by having the rich being heavily taxed those who live in poverty will live in better conditions. Not only will this give big cities a better look but it will also allow the US to take on more pressing matters such as funding childcare and creating more well-paying jobs.
Economist Jomo Sundaram explains that “getting more revenue from those most able to pay while reducing the burden on the needy” is the way to go and I feel this is the perfect example of how we should counter this situation. Wealth taxes are supposed to drive society into equality by giving those of the lower class a chance to rise to a higher class.
Another thing that Wealth tax is supposed to do is respond to social unrest such as the Occupy movement of 2011-2012, the BLM, and others. While there are certainly some nice pros that come with wealth tax there are also some cons that come with it. Some of these cons are the economy depleting/decreasing, encouraging tax evasion, and driving the wealthy away from the US into other countries. It also opens more doors for the wealthy to exploit so that they don't get taxed, an example of this is wealthy people shifting their assets into foundations where their money can’t be taken from the IRS.
Not only does it have these downsides, but it also discourages savings and investments, a 1% wealth tax may not seem like a lot but when compared to the money that it is taxing it starts getting pretty large. However, I can say that this is the better alternative compared to the debt-filled society that we have now with the middle class borrowing money from the wealthy and falling into deeper debt.
In conclusion, the way wealth tax would revolutionize the current wealth class would be huge, the way it would work would be such that the more your net worth is the more you are taxed, however, the more your net worth falls the less tax you pay.