Not to be outdone by the French, as well as lefties in the United States, Britain’s Liberal-Democratic Party (Lib-Dems.) are floating ideas for a comprehensive wealth tax. What does Britain’s so called centre party have in mind? How about taxes on jewellery including rings & necklaces! Throw in some of your furniture and paintings and you’ve got a new source of revenue for Westminster bureaucrats. Not off limits is an expansion of the mansion tax to include holiday homes and buy-to-let properties.
People could face a government fine if they refuse to allow tax inspectors into their homes to perform valuations. Taxes would hit anyone with a property portfolio valued at more than £2m, a plan which the socialist Labour Party is also backing.
There are a lot of problems with the concept of a wealth tax, not the least of which is the sheer obsession the left has with taking people’s money in the name of “creating a fairer tax system” (Lib.-Dem. spokesman) or “leveling the playing field” (Barack Obama). It’s a problem in the first place because it’s not the government’s money, it belongs to the people who made it.
Socialist philosophy tends to assume common arbitrary rights over the personal wealth of the people. This thinking essentially translates into the right of theft based on what the self-appointed arbiter determines is the common good.
Beyond the so-called fairness of high taxes on the rich comes the economic damage caused by such actions. Lefties tend to view the economy in two dimensions. We need money in place A, so we take it (levy taxes) from person B. The fallout from this is two-fold. First, the money going to place A invariably encourages and/or supports economic inactivity from the recipient. Second, person B loses wealth of which at least a part was creating economic activity. Subsequently all wealth taxes have a “bookend” effect, killing the incentive to participate in production while at the same time killing the funding.
The ongoing desperation of the left to continue to raise even more government money is illustrated in the absurdity of this idea. An army of tax-inspectors would have to be trained (costing taxpayer money) to personally visit homes and evaluate the wealth of individuals. This highly intrusive behaviour by the government would lead to inventory being taken of any home portfolio which just might meet the valued amount. Although it is out of the comprehension of some, many such people do not have a high amount of liquid assets, and would subsequently be forced to sell heirlooms to pay taxes and keep below the amount the government deems you are allowed to have.
This is no different to people trying to qualify for government benefits who hide income and assets in order to deceive government authorities, in order to qualify for a variety of free money funded by the rest of us.
All of this is driven by the ever increasing needs of Looney activists, who continue to see government programmes as the solution to every ill of society. This despite the fact that every said programme seems to create a whole new set of problems.
A wealth tax will solve nothing. Even if it didn’t negatively impact the victims of higher taxes, it would just be another revenue stream quickly eaten up by the ever increasingly generous welfare state. The money would be spent quickly, the successful would continue to be more successful than the unsuccessful, and the demands for more taxes would ring out again.
What we should consider is a lack of wealth tax. Penalties on the economically unproductive! Anybody working full-time and not receiving government assistance would be exempt!
