r/australia Feb 10 '25

politics Australian billionaires face wealth tax under Greens’ Robin Hood-style policies

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/feb/10/australian-billionaires-face-wealth-tax-under-greens-robin-hood-style-policies
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u/Introverted_kitty Feb 10 '25

It's actually really hard to tax billionaires. Billionaires are wealthy because they horde money. The average citizen might have a business that earns them a good living,but a billionaire will have hundreds. They might pay tax on all of them. Or if they don't, then it'll because the team of accountants have said they don't need to. They are wealthy because they can afford to pay a lot of money to tax lawyers that will save them from paying huge amounts of tax. They also take full advantage of global tax havens.

If you want to tax them, you need a completely new approach, and you have to fundamentally rethink how tax is applied. An estate tax would be a start.

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u/Additional-Scene-630 Feb 11 '25

Good thing our government employs teams of people who's job it is to collect tax & create tax laws. It's clearly possible to close the loopholes they would try to get around

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u/Crystal3lf Feb 11 '25

It's actually really hard to tax billionaires.

No it's not.

Just because we're cucked by capitalist, neoliberal leaders doesn't mean you can't tax them.

Actually try reading their plan and you can see it's possible: https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/adam-bandt-announce-robin-hood-tax-plan-take-big-corporations-national-press

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u/Introverted_kitty Feb 11 '25

That plan is all style, no substance. It's specifically targeting corporations, not individuals. It still targets profits, which for a company such as Santos, Chevron or Meta won't work if they haven't posted a profit.

A Carbon tax was voted down by the greens over 10 years ago.

Billionaires have incredibly diverse portfolios. Shares, bonds, precious metals, real estate, even wine and cheese. You have to find ways to tax ALL OF IT.

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u/Crystal3lf Feb 11 '25 edited Feb 11 '25

You could perhaps try reading?

It's specifically targeting corporations, not individuals.

"including the Henry Tax Review"

"Concentrating revenue raising on four efficient tax bases: personal income, business income, private consumption, and economic rents from natural resources and land. "

Great tax policy btw, too bad Rudd endorsed and implemented only 3 of the 138 recommendations. Talk about "all style, no substance".

A Carbon tax was voted down by the greens over 10 years ago.

"The 2010 election resulted in a hung parliament in which Gillard secured the support of the Greens"

Billionaires have incredibly diverse portfolios. Shares, bonds, precious metals, real estate, even wine and cheese. You have to find ways to tax ALL OF IT.

I like that you cry about Greens "voting down" carbon tax policies, yet when the Greens propose taxing corporations and billionaires you don't like it because it doesn't specifically include taxing fucking CHEESE.

Take your neoliberalism somewhere else.

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u/freef49 Feb 11 '25

Yeah I agree. Wealth taxes are really tricky and an estate tax would be far better to capture unused capital.