People already rich often support higher income taxes because it won’t affect them so much. They already have their wealth.
Wealth taxes are required but they are very tricky to implement.
Three Australian millionaires say the nation’s super-rich should face higher taxes
Submitted 2 weeks ago by Luniio@lemmy.world to australia@aussie.zone
Comments
DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
Taleya@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
Never happen, but man it would be glorious to treat it like old school gaming.
Billionaire? Woohoo! Top score! Put your name here in the annals of history!!
Now start over.
Seagoon_@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
how about companies pay for taking our resources
Nath@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
That was called the “Mining tax” and it’s mere proposal killed the Kevin07 movement before Mr Rudd finished his first term. All for the measly cost of a ~$20 Million smear campaign blitz. Bargain!
Tenderizer@aussie.zone 1 week ago
Also was among the things which got Whitlam couped. And it got John Gorton couped too.
beeng@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
National resources should go in national coffers.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
More tax isn’t the answer given how utterly disgracefully wasteful our government and politicians are with our tax dollars. Give them more and they’ll waste more and enrich themselves more. It also doesn’t fix anything l, especially not things like political “donations”/bribes - laws fix things like that, but who make laws? Oh right, the politicians on the take, which is why it won’t happen.
What the billionaires need to do is start and run highly efficient charities that actually help people. They could even just not claim deductions if they want to pay more tax as well.
They should do things like make subscription services for essentials, sold at well below cost, so families and pros that are struggling can have guaranteed necessities like basic food, clothes, toiletries, and so on for day $50 a week. This way their money goes directly to the people, not the politicians and their mates. Look at what Mark Cuban has done with his pharmaceutical company for example.
That’s what billionaires should be doing. Pledging to pay more tax when you know you’re never going to have to is just more pathetic virtue signalling. Open a supermarket where nothing is over $5. Start your own health insurance company where there are no exclusions and no excess/deductible for making claims, and it only costs $25 a month. The list of ways they can actually help are endless, they just don’t want to actually do any of them - they just want you to think they want to help.
MisterFrog@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
We could abolish billionaires entirely. No one needs a billion dollars. No one “earns” a billion dollars.
maniacalmanicmania@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
The person you replied to openly supports the March for Australia crowd abd it’s demands.
Nath@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
A former work colleague of mine might. He’s well over half-way there at least and still gaining.
He quit his job and wrote some software that is used all over the world. If you make a thing and enough people buy it, you get rich. In his case, very rich. He didn’t inherit his wealth. He didn’t start out already a millionaire. His wealth is not coming from being a parasite on society. He isn’t taking resources or hoarding land. He’ll be the first to tell you he is monumentally lucky, but I also can’t see anything he’s doing that’s wrong.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
People absolutely do earn a billion dollars. If you “abolish” billionaires you abolish the drive, determination, innovation etc that creates billionaires who have made some of the most world changing things in history.
DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
That’s kind of propaganda that government only wastes tax dollars and big businesses are more efficient. There are inefficiencies in both and one is not significantly more efficient than the other.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
It’s definitely not propaganda. Our government can’t find where tens of billions of dollars went lol.
eureka@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
The list of ways they can actually help are endless, they just don’t want to actually do any of them - they just want you to think they want to help.
This part is absolutely correct. A social billionaire is a direct contradiction.
The idea of billionaires self-regulating is utopian - if they were willing to do this without external coercion, they would already be doing it. At least something like a tax can be enforced, but even then, like you said, politicians who make laws are in the pockets of the owning class. We’d need a radical overhaul of the whole rotten system to be able to enforce any seriously important financial law on them.
That said, creating charities and aid isn’t a bad idea, it would be far better for them to support ones which already exist and are struggling. And it’s particularly difficult to trust billionaire claims of being charitable when so many already perform investment and other financial activity under the guise of philanthropism. Supporting grassroots aid efforts rather than building charities from scratch would demonstrate legitimacy. And like you said, there is no legitimacy in these claims.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 weeks ago
I’ve done lots of work for some big charities, and they’re rotten to the core in terms of how much money actually goes to the cause vs how much is spent on “administration” etc.
hanrahan@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Well, voters would need to vote Green to action that, it’s literally in their policy platform, it’s not coming from ALP/LNP or ONP.
porcelainpitcher@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Right. However and also, of course not…