Let's hope the owners of The New York Times send a big chunk of their wealth to Washington annually. You can count on this leftist newspaper to channel the "popularity" of soaking the rich like fervent socialists like to do. This was the headline:
Are Wealth Taxes the Best Way to Tax the Ultra Rich?
Plans for a wealth tax, which is dividing France, have gotten popular around the world as inequality has widened and government debt has risen.
Times global economics correspondent Patricia Cohen exploited the current political turmoil over wealth taxes ailing France to proclaim that the notion “has been roiling politics in the United States and Europe for years as inequality has risen to staggering levels and public debt has busted government budgets.” For the lefty supporters of such measures, wrote Cohen, “taxing an individual’s total assets — stocks, real estate, yachts, diamond tiaras, racehorses, art, fine wines, private islands and jets — rather than just income is one of the few ways to get people with dynastic wealth to pay their fair share.”
So what is a "fair share"? Half their wealth? It's not answered.
Cohen allowed a snippet of opposition: "To opponents, wealth taxes are outlandish penalties on innovation and productivity, and discourage investment and cripple growth. They would also be a logistical nightmare to administer, they add."
Cohen then tried normalizing the whole idea: “Wealth taxes, though not as common as some other levies, have actually been around for a long time. If you think about it, real estate taxes are one form of a wealth tax that targets a particular asset.” She even pointed to other countries as case studies of the mainstreaming of wealth taxes, despite conceding that many of them were repealed due to “difficulty of administration, the burden on people who owned valuables but had little available cash, and the minimal amounts of revenue raised.” But, claimed Cohen, “Slowing growth and intense budget pressures have further ratcheted up interest in wealth taxes.”
But as is typical with The Times, Cohen is heavy on propaganda and understates the ludicrousness of the proposal. The Tax Foundation released a study in 2024 finding that many “Wealth taxes disincentivize entrepreneurship, leading to less innovation and less long-term growth. A wealth tax reduces wages, destroys jobs, and reduces the stock of capital. All income groups are worse off under a wealth tax due to decreased economic activity.” In other words, it’s not just a matter of little revenue generated. Rather, wealth taxes destroy the very economy they are supposedly instituted to protect.
Of course, Cohen didn’t bother mentioning anything about the tax burdens the wealthy already deal with. The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) wrote in 2024 that “A quick look at the numbers shows politicians are posturing against an imaginary enemy. The rich pay their fair share and far more by any objective standard.” In fact, wrote AIER, the top one percent in the U.S. “earned 26.3 percent of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) but paid 45.8 percent of all personal federal income taxes. The top 0.1 percent of earners paid 24.7 percent and the top 5 percent paid 65.6 percent.” By contrast, the bottom 50 percent garnered 10.4 percent of income but “paid only 2.3 percent of the total tax burden.”
Convenient for Cohen that she chose to leave all of this out.
Oh, but those fat capitalists aren’t paying their “fair share,” right Cohen? What a joke. Of course, she banked on lefty economist Abhijit Banerjee to make the ridiculous assertion that “Whatever other objections critics of a wealth tax may have, fears that it would disrupt the economy and discourage the rich from working or innovating are overblown.” Oh, really?
The Tax Foundation pointed out that “after a 1 percent increase in Norway’s wealth tax, many high-net-worth individuals left the country. In 2023, after Spain introduced a new ‘solidarity wealth tax,’ Portugal extended its tax regime for nonresidents since more Spanish taxpayers were considering changing their tax residence.”
How about them apples, Cohen?
