Taxing the rich may prove to be a great solution to systemic issues like poverty. The core problem is that when rich people hoard their wealth, the world suffers as a consequence. Governments can’t fund programs that help their citizens if their richest citizens hoard all of their wealth. In this way, it is the wealthiest citizens that are halting American progress. Taxing them, and using their incredible wealth to fund programs like universal health care and universal education can be extremely beneficial for the American public.
Taxing the rich not only makes sense from a governmental perspective but from a working-class perspective as well. Poor people are taxed harder because rich people don’t pay their fair share. Rich people have access to lawyers and economists who know the tax loopholes like the back of their hands. Members of the working class don’t have access to this either the information or those who have access to the information. The point of all this is to say that taxing the rich is the only thing that makes sense in a world full of inequalities
A Slice of the 1%
The richest Americans simply don’t pay taxes. The fact of the matter is that billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk don’t pay taxes. The rules of taxation simply don’t apply to them because the taxation agencies aren’t strong enough.
Billionaires have access to the most powerful lawyers in the world giving them tax immunity. Someone in the highest tax brackets rarely gets arrested for tax evasion. Despite tax evasion itself existing as a crime.
Men of Means
There are many means for rich people to simply avoid paying taxes. One of the ways rich people do this is by buying art. One of the reasons why art sells for a high price is because rich people pay someone to judge a piece of art way higher than it is, buy it and proceed to donate it to a non-profit or a school. This affords them tax advantages and gives them good PR at the same time.
“In several countries, including the United States, tax regulations favor you if you purchase expensive art frequently. For example, if you sell an artwork and deposit funds in a bank, you are ought to incur capital gains tax on it, however, if you invest in another artwork with the same funds, you’ll escape paying taxes,” according to Startuptalky. This is but one of many different ways that rich people avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
A Slice of Worker Pie
When people talk negatively about taxes they are usually speaking from a working-class perspective. So much so that people record young adults getting their first paycheck to watch them realize that they are actually being paid less as a consequence of taxes. Unfortunately, this is the reality for most Americans.
Whenever a city decides to raise its taxes on a random product or needs some extra budget, the working class suffers. This suffering could easily be circumvented by taxing the rich, however, the cities of America continue to bog down its working-class citizens with more and more taxes. Of course, as a consequence of systemic racism and socioeconomic factors, these working-class people tend to be black and brown.
A Slice of the Rich’s Pie for the World To Eat
The fact of the matter is that rich people have money to spare. The fact that they have money to spare is what defines them as people. They are rich people, and many of them have inconceivable amounts of wealth. All it would take is the wealth of one or two rich people to fund things that need to be funded. This isn’t a question of whether or not it is good to let rich people have money.
This is a question of whether or not rich people should live like kings while the poor suffer for the rest of their lives. “From 1970 to 2018, the share of aggregate income going to middle-class households fell from 62% to 43%. Over the same period, the share held by upper-income households increased from 29% to 48%. The share flowing to lower-income households inched down from 10% in 1970 to 9% in 2018,” according to Pew Research Center.
Uneven Slices
There is no amount of “earning“ all of their money that could ever condone the mass suffering that people experiencing poverty endure. It simply isn’t fair that some people get to live full and healthy lives while others struggle to sleep because they are starving.
A wealth tax that is inescapable and can’t be loopholes around can help lift the economic floor and help people live with a higher quality of life than ever before. “A tax of up to 5 percent on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty,” according to Oxfam
Written by Kenneth Mazerat
Sources
Oxfam: Richest 1% bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years
StartUpTalky: Why Do Rich People Buy Expensive Art? by Anamika Mahapatra and Anga Mahatara
Featured and Top Image Courtesy of Thomas Hawk’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
First Inset Image Courtesy of Mario A. P.’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Second Inset Image Courtesy of Flazingo Photos’ Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
