Treasury secretary came out against the proposed global levy, which proponents say would stop the rich from shifting wealth into countries where they can avoid paying the tax

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    There’s a lot of bullshit in those numbers though including things like unrealized capital gains and real estate. Trump is in trouble for wildly misvaluing his real estate (including openly lying about factual information like square footage) but it’s almost impossible to accurately value real estate outside of a sale happening - things like depreciation and local market prices fluctuations are all just guesses. Most real estate is valued as low as the owner can justify (outside dumb pride and weird tax tricks) just to dodge property taxes.

    Net worth is an easy number to guess at within an order of magnitude but it’s really difficult to actually calculate - even for Americans in America… guessing at the wealth of some Bhutanese millionaire who has a deep in with the local government and can bribe officials to undervalue or misassign property would be extremely difficult.

    • blazera@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Trump is in trouble for wildly misvaluing his real estate (including openly lying about factual information like square footage)

      And people lie about income for income taxes. And then they get audited. A wealth tax doesnt have to be accurate to the dollar, its about dissuading gross wealth hoarding. A billion and 40 thousand can still round to a billion and be a very effective tax estimate.

      guessing at the wealth of some Bhutanese millionaire who has a deep in with the local government and can bribe officials to undervalue or misassign property would be extremely difficult.

      I dont think people in small low income countries like bhutan are going to affect this tax much. I would also assume this international tax would come with some form of international auditing.

      Thats the one thing working in our favor dealing with the people that have concentrated the worlds wealth into a few hands: its in a few hands. Its easy to keep track of.