Recently I heard on the news that Samsung heirs are paying a massive amount(11 Billion USD) in inheritance tax. Do we have one? Is it implemented properly? If we have one, will it be a part of reducing income inequalities in capitalist countries? Did Gina Rinehart and James Packer pay any inheritance tax? Please vote yes if you want an inherent tax on Billionaires in Australia
50% Inheritance Tax on Billionaires (Should we have one?)
[Deactivated] on 16/09/2021 - 07:54
Last edited 16/09/2021 - 11:30
Last edited 16/09/2021 - 11:30
Poll Options
- 311Yes
- 372No
Comments
@brendanm: Bezos is an anomaly. (One that also had entitlement like few others when he started). For every Bezos there are a million people who didn't become billionaires even after trying at least just as hard.
That's almost - and by almost I mean the slimmest distance from exactly - like saying lotteries are great because they make millionaires. What about the other 2 million players?
Bezos is an anomaly. (One that also had entitlement like few others when he started). For every Bezos there are a million people who didn't become billionaires.
There are plenty that have come from normal backgrounds, that now have a tonne of money.
Bezos likely had a lot more drive and ambition than most, as well as luck, but not only luck. He came in at the right time, but had a product that people wanted.
There are plenty that aren't billionaires because there are plenty that either fail, or that so.ply don't try to begin with. I personally don't have the drive or ambition to make a new Amazon, I simply don't care that much. To go with your lotto analogy, it would be like the odds of winning lotto, when you've never actually purchased a ticket.
My father purchased plenty of tickets yet never won lotto.
He still had an infinitely better chance at winning than someone who never played.
@brendanm: Those that don't play don't have the dream but I can't think of anyone who does play who doesn't have the dream of winning.
I don't know a single person who thinks that (people who can but don't) deserve anything. No-one is asking for that.
I know many who work their arses off, harder than Bezos ever will, yet have little.
In all likelihood the hardest working person on earth is on some plantation in Africa yet is in dire poverty. Do you really think they have a chance and that work can save them?
but I can't think of anyone who does play who doesn't have the dream of winning.
Dreaming, and getting up and actually doing, are two very different things.
I know many who work their arses off, harder than Bezos ever will, yet have little.
Working hard does not equal working smart.
In all likelihood the hardest working person on earth is on some plantation in Africa yet is in dire poverty. Do you really think they have a chance and that work can save them?
No, I'm under no illusion that someone in a third world country is likely to be rich from hard work. In a first world country with basically free higher education, it is possible. Hell, you don't even need to have higher education to make insane money.
A guy I do some work for who is worth $100m+ started his business at home with a mate. Plenty of other stories like this.
@brendanm: Of course it's possible - but it's much less probable if you don't have privilege.
Look at the covid concentrations in Sydney LGAs. Do you really believe that those in the south-west just don't care about it as much as those in the north-east? No, they have realities to deal with that those in the north-east don't.
Of course it's possible - but it's much less probable if you don't have privilege.
How so in Australia? Free schooling, then basically free uni.
No, they have realities to deal with that those in the north-east don't.
I don't really know Sydney, what do they have to do that others don't?
I don't really know Sydney, what do they have to do that others don't?
Work hard. They can't work from home because they do the heavy lifting - cleaning, driving, warehousing, retail assistants, labourers, factory workers, etc. They can't just stay in front of their computers at home.
How so in Australia? Free schooling, then basically free uni.
Parents with money don't check naplan results for no good reason.
Right now hard working wage earning parents in SW Sydney at work leaving their kids to their own devices, passive income receiving parents in NE Sydney helping their kids with home-schooling, plus probably tutors. Do you really not see the difference?
Work hard. They can't work from home because they do the heavy lifting - cleaning, driving, warehousing, retail assistants, labourers, factory workers, etc.
I've been a vocal supporter of people like this on here, and I think what the government is doing to them is disgusting. That being said, I'm not sure what covid lockdowns have to do with this.
Parents with money don't check naplan results for no good reason.
There are plenty of good public schools, my daughter will be going to one with higher NAPLAN scores than the majority of private schools around here, next year. My son goes to an excellent public high school in brisbane, again, with better results than a lot of private schools. You don't have to spend tens of thousands on private school to get a good school.
Right now
This situation isn't normal, and I don't agree with it, one of the reasons I don't agree with it is because it is very unfair to certain people, through no fault of their own.
@brendanm: So you see the unfairness within covid, but not within all the other entrenched circumstances in society?
If you watched that video I linked and can't appreciate his point of view then there is really nothing else of any good consequence that I can say to you on this topic right now.
So you see the unfairness within covid, but not within all the other entrenched circumstances in society?
People aren't being forced to stay home normally, people who do physical work can do it. I'm not saying how everything is, is perfect, just that it's pretty damn good really, and if people want to do something, this is a pretty great place to get that opportunity. We have access to education, small business grants/loans, we don't have caste systems etc that keep people down.
If you watched that video
I haven't, but I will.
Yes! Get rid of wage taxes!! Customers already paid GST and companies already paid taxes! In fact, lets get rid of company tax too!
Would you be happy to increase GST but remove other taxes?
so no tax on income but 30% GST? Also would you keep GST exempt items or change it so everything has GST?
Would probably work out better. You can't really avoid gst like you can other taxes. Even if people get paid cash in hand, they would still pay tax.
@brendanm: Yeah honestly I'm under the opinion raising GST to 15% would not even be that bad currently assuming they maintain the GST free items, if you're curious here's a list to the GST status of foods
https://www.ato.gov.au/law/view/document?DocID=GII/GSTIIFL1/…
@Bjingo: If they cut income tax I would have no issue with GST increase, however as you say, essentials should be exempt as they are currently.
@brendanm: Yeah I think the essentials being exempt is very important, to people earning very little an extra 10% on milk, bread, eggs, butter and all that could be a massive financial strain.
@Bjingo: Definitely, it allows low income earners to remain tax free if buying "essentials", and increases the amount of tax received for people buying "luxury" items. Would make it all but impossible for people to avoid paying tax, as well as simplifying the tax system.
@brendanm: The only issue I have with this is it will impact the low and middle class significantly more than the very wealthy.
My reasoning is if someone earns $2mil in a year instead of getting taxed and receiving around $1.1 mil and paying 900k in tax they get taxed nothing, assuming they spend all 2mil on items that attract GST the total tax they pay will be around 450k for the year (assuming 30%).
Same situation but with 80k a year, they would normally pay $16.5k a year in income tax, assuming their whole income was used on items that attracted GST they now pay $18.5k in a year.
you would have to find a way to resolve this otherwise the very wealthy individuals would get even more wealthy as they now have more money to make money with which would accentuate the wealth divide.
you could do a progressive GST so the cheaper an item was the less GST it attracted, but i dont know if that would work either.
I do not think people will get your sarcasm.
This sums it up
Yes, they died and most estate taxes around the world are only for wealthy estates. Ie UK, tax is paid at a rate above $700k. If it's $690,000, zero tax is paid.
Otherwise, the reality is, the more a family hoards the wealth, the more uneven in purchasing power a group of few has over many others in society.
I don't see it happening here because the rich class have successfully made the poor feel like temporarily embarrassed millionaires. You will see some here with weak arguments like "I may not have millions but I might and i want to pass that to my kids!" "its a tax on death!" "Its double taxation!" "But but, clive palmer deserves to pass billions of his personally hard earned money to his kids!!"
^ This
"personally hard earned" and "billions" in the same sentence - just common people doing the bidding for the ruling class.
If you read up on him, he didn't pay some of his workers. Even with an estate tax of 50%, his kids are still going to be billionaires.
Yeah the rhetoric in this thread is interesting. So many people saying billionaires are "hard workers" or "they deserve it" for their "hard earned money".
Lol
People have really bought into the idea that there's a linear correlation between net worth and effort.
@Diji: Or perhaps they've bought into our prime minister's belief that there's a correlation between godliness and wealth?
You post this early in the morning.
Know your market, they dont wake up until after midday.
hopefully this is a problem i face in the future from some lost uncle
I don't know if I have a billionaire uncle out there but
- if I do, even at 50% rate, I would still get $500 million!
- either way, I'd prefer an inheritance tax which will go to benefit society because I am damn sure, everyone, including me, would rather sit on the money instead of spending itBut surely it will trickle down while you're sitting on it? Especially if you're heavy?
What would happen is that you inherit the family business, but now owe a massive tax bill at 50% of its value.
So you're forced to sell the family business to pay that tax.
I'm sorry, but if you inherit a family business, you were not part of the family. I think you meant inheriting a share?
The reality is family businesses are made up family members.
Say, there's 4. Mum, dad, son, daughter. Mum dies, since they're joint. Mum's share goes to dad. He pays 12.5% of that value in tax.
Say there's 3. Dad, son, daughter. Dad dies. Then tax bill is 16.5%, or 8.25% each.
Son dies and passes it on to his sister. 25%.
When does it become 50% tax bill when a family owns it?
Plus, there are examples in other countries on going on a plan to pay the tax bill in installments with no need to sell assets.
Say, there's 4. Mum, dad, son, daughter. Mum dies, since they're joint. Mum's share goes to dad. He pays 12.5% of that value in tax.
Where does dad get 12.5% of the that value in cash from, to pay this tax?
He has to sell the company.
@orangetrain: WTF should he? Its their family business and his wife died!!! Madness
They pay tax on their house (rates, land taxes)
They pay tax on their income
They pay tax on their capital gains
They pay tax on their imports
They pay tax on their consumed goods
They levy tax on their sales
They pay for user-based government services (car rego, insurance stamp duty)
They earn too much so pay for their medical surcharges
They don't receive any welfare the lower half are receiving at their expense (most people are not net tax payers)
They wealth is tied up on apparent 'value' of assets - not cash
They earned this apparent value of the success of their business endeavours in a free market…
If they manage to hold onto anything after supporting their families and other people's families as welfare recipients… you want to clutch it from their cold dead fingers and force their family to take out a loan if they don't have the cash because of perceived asset value!?!@MrFrugalSpend: If their business is worth more than $10 million, are they still a family business?
Less than $10 million, wtf, do you think inheirtance taxes are about robbing the poor and not about making the next generation have less income inequality?
yes, or the family home, or flood the market with shares and fail the shareholding value for all the others.
People don't seem to realise very little of a "billionaires" apparent wealth is cash / liquid@MrFrugalSpend: Surprisingly, they appear to afford multi million mansions, etc. They do this via leveraging shares, selling shares, etc.
Most people leave it to their pets.
if you are that super rich class you will vote no way with greed on mind
if you are middle class well depends on your logic could be yes or no or dont care
low class citizens will be like yes yes yes with jealousyIf the USA is anything to go by, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to defend billionaires. lol
funny how that works isn't it.
poor as people in rural communities getting destroyed by the decisions of conservative governments, but somehow their most vocal supporters are those same poor rural communities.
I guess thats what you get when you gut the public education system
Yeah. If you remove critical thinking from education programmes and replace it with media-cum-propaganda it's easy to manipulate a population to act against their own interest.
Plenty of people here advocating more taxes/penalties for others because they think "it will never apply to me". Just another version of the selfish "what's in it for me?" attitude.
I'm not a fan of Fox News or Tucker, but it reminds me of this > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keZu9_Lbne4 - what an embarassment! lol
Exactly. It's doesn't take much these days to pass a million+ to your kids anyway. What's the average price of a house? Plus people will have savings, other assets and super. Very easy to get $1-2million, why should it be taxed just to be wasted by the scumbags in government?
Most estate taxes around world have a minimum before it gets taxed.
How about $10 million minimum? Ie, if you pass on $11 million and at 30% inheritance tax, then society gets $300,000 and your kids get $10.7 million?
What do you think is reasonable?
Most estate taxes around world have a minimum before it gets taxed.
You cited above "Ie UK, tax is paid at a rate above $700k", that seems pretty unreasonable.
What do you think is reasonable?
I think zero is reasonable. Tax has already (or should have) been paid on the entire amount, so it will be a gift to whoever gets it in the will. If it hasn't been taxed due to dodginess or loopholes, the loopholes need to be fixed, and businesses need to be taxed correctly if they want to operate in Australia.
That's the problem with policy being made by those who can't even do simple math. It doesn't sound like much when you calculate it like this ;)
I don't know about your world, but in my world, 30% of 10mil would be 3mil.
@TheBird: To clarify, I was saying first $10 million was tax free. Only the extra $1 million was taxed at 30%.
Why does society deserve what you've worked for? If I become ultra rich by the time I die, I would want to give my money to whoever I want. Whether they all go to my children or I donate them.. I want that to be my decision. Don't really want governments deciding that for me.
@buckethat: The government is not taking 100% of the inheirtance. Your kids can still get your billions. The point of inheirtance tax is to even the playing field for future generations.
For example, what if you never become ultra rich and your kids have no other choice but to work for the filthy rich? I bet your kids wished you supported the inheirtance tax instead of playing lottery odds of becoming ultra rich.
The government is not taking 100% of the inheirtance.
I know, but I'd want to be in control of 100% of my own wealth and what happens to it when I die.
For example, what if you never become ultra rich and your kids have no other choice but to work for the filthy rich? I bet your kids wished you supported the inheirtance tax instead of playing lottery odds of becoming ultra rich.
My kids can work for whoever they want to make a living. If they're smart, they'll get somewhere in life, if not well then thats on them. If they're lucky, I'll have some wealth to pass on to them, if not.. well thats too bad. What I won't be teaching my kid is to expect life to give them free handouts. I won't be blaming the ultra rich for my own riches or otherwise.
When people say "tax the rich" they don't mean the suburban family with one or two houses and a nice car.
They mean the hundred millionaires, the billionaires, that have more wealth than 99.99% of society and more money for thousands of lifetimes.
The fact that we have yachts that cost hundreds of millions of dollars is disgusting.
this guy gets it.
I wish everyone else did
Imagine the quality and investment in our public services if the obscene wealth went back into the system when they died
When people say "tax the rich" they don't mean the suburban family with one or two houses and a nice car.
Except the UK threshold is £325k. After that 40% of the amount is paid in tax. Regular people will be paying that, not the uber rich. People who have worked hard all their lives, and wanted to make life easier for their kids.
They mean the hundred millionaires, the billionaires, that have more wealth than 99.99% of society and more money for thousands of lifetimes.
Perhaps these people/businesses should just be taxed correctly to begin with?
Except the UK threshold is £325k. After that 40%
A quick google shows that this is 10 times the average salary in the UK. I don't really see a problem with that.
Perhaps these people/businesses should just be taxed correctly to begin with?
Correctomondo! To be honest though they'd just find other ways around it like IKEA does. At the end of the day, Bezos has billions of dollars because Amazon exploits workers. Money that should be going to employees or reducing their impact on the world goes to him and the higher ups.
A quick google shows that this is 10 times the average salary in the UK. I don't really see a problem with that.
It's very easy to have assets worth 10 times your annual salary, will be pretty much anyone who owns a house.
because Amazon exploits workers.
How so? As far as I know, and I could be wrong, Amazon operates within workplace laws. People don't have to work at Amazon.
they'd just find other ways around it like IKEA does
Not if it's done properly.
Do you believe that a person like Clive Palmer should pass on an inheritance of $10 billion to their kids with zero tax on it?
Would you support an estate tax if it was for only over $100 million? Ie, $100 million is untaxed with every dollar taxed at say: 30% means Clive Palmer's inheritance tax bill becomes $2.99 billion. Kids will still become billionaires!
Do you believe that a person like Clive Palmer should pass on an inheritance of $10 billion to their kids with zero tax on it?
I do actually.
Assuming he's paid the income and company taxes, I can't see why he should get taxed even more. We already have a sliding tax scale where people who earn what we call a "high income" pay more than those who don't. He's been able to generate more income for himself. Good on him.
clive palmer has shown to be as dodgy, dishonest and morally corrupt as they come.
just ask the people who worked at QLD nickel if they think clive palmer should pay an inheritance tax when he dies from being a fatty mc (profanity) head
clive palmer has shown to be as dodgy, dishonest and morally corrupt as they come.
That's not a valid reason to tax someone a shitload more. There are many people in the same boat that are on low incomes. What should we do with them? On the other hand, there are also those who are rich that are not in that boat. Surely we can't pick and choose who should be taxed more based on their character.
@bobbified: now we are talking about a different thing.
blanket inheritance tax on total asset values greater than X dollars.
this tax would benefit the masses (99%) vs line the pockets of the very few (1%)
@MrThing: Perhaps you should direct your anger at the scumbag politicians and bureaucrats who allow this to occur, and never change the laws around it? Perhaps because they themselves are benefitting from it as well.
So $9.9 billion * 30% = $2.97 billion, which becomes Clive's budget to find a way to avoid this tax.
Which he will do successfully btw.
Yep, Kevin Rudd was an example of this.
That's true, this is actually the reason some of the laws on tax avoidance are kind of vague. They have terms like "dominant purpose" because it allows leeway on pinning someone for avoiding this kind of tax, it allows them to argue why rather than what. It is also a lot harder to argue what the dominant purpose was when you're dead. Additionally I imagine they would include additional points when making the legislation to make it even harder to avoid.
But yeah the billionaires would try their damn hardest to avoid paying this tax.
@Bjingo: Ultimately they could just leave the country with the majority of their assets though. Hard to legislatively avoid that.
@trapper: Most tax treaties actually address this, typically the location of the asset is where the estate tax applies, so, if an Australia citizen has US property and passes away that US property is subject to the US estate tax.
That means in the case of Clive if he wanted to avoid it he would have to liquidate his Australian based assets and move it, but that would attract CGT instead.
It is beyond laughable that the peons are arguing that the billionaires retain more of their billions.
The idea that there is no damage to the rest of society and to you personally by this amount of wealth is incredibly ignorant. When the Barrier reef is getting rooted, it is billionaires accruing the benefit. When your kids have insecure, precarious gig jobs, it is billionaires accruing the benefit. When the politicians make laws that benefit their mates, it isn’t because their mates are more deserving, but because they have the piles of money.The harm of excess wealth is a huge problem in ordinary people’s lives. Believing that it is somehow fair to amass wealth, and use that disproportionate wealth to amass still more is crazy.
Tax policy that levies higher and higher taxes is one way to address these harms, and our income taxes do some of this for income, but the same needs to happen for accumulation of wealth, or there will continue to be increasing harms as people exploit massive wealth to further enrich themselves.The idea that people have have worked hard, invested smartly and saved their money has hurt society is absurd. Inhertiance tax hurts the poor disproportionally more than the rich who can and will easily avoid those taxes. Anyone can easily avoid it by simply transfering the money between banks before death. Any family that owns a house in the capital cities is a millionaire on paper and it wont be long before thats the case in regional too. That money is often used to pay for living, age care and medical costs at retirement. Once funerals, debts and other end of lives costs are paid the average person will inherit little to nothing and thats before it is split amongst siblings. It is productive money that often helps pay for housing / car downpayments and essential goods and services. These taxes have already been investigated countless times and its been found they would raise very little money while adding unecessary red tape and stress to grieving families.
Your entire argument seems to come from some sort of misplaced jealousy and anger at the rich.
The number of billionaires is tiny, only just over 100 in a country of 25 million.
The tiny minority who have accured excess wealth have done so providing services and goods for the rest of us in a cheaper and more effecient way that has benefited soceity in millions and billions of dollars of productivity and jobs and collected taxes by the government.
No one's interested in taxing millionaires. When you have 100s of miillions however, that's a different story.
That money has already been taxed at a higher rate.
(tax avoidance is a separate issues, cracking down of that would save the country billions instead the people running the country are involved themselves, panama papers cough cough)
It is not easy to obtain that sort of money people and companies who did so often invested and spent millions while losing it all. For every company and person that succeded there are countless that did not.
Instead of being envious of the wealthy spend the time to think about how to grow your own wealth. It is much healthier for your mental wellbeing and bank balance.
Bernie, is that you?
No one's interested in taxing millionaires.
Look at the UK. 40% inheritance tax paid on anything over £325k.
@brendanm: Fair enough. Now that I think about it's still a lot of money - £325k + 60%. Not only that, but you can gift as much money to your children tax free (as long as it's >7 years from your death) anyway.
Now that I think about it's still a lot of money
How much is just your house worth, let alone everything else?
gift as much money to your children tax free (as long as it's >7 years from your death) anyway
Would be great if you knew when you were going to die I suppose, otherwise they still get slugged with the tax.
How much is just your house worth, let alone everything else?
Median house price is £240k in the UK.
Would be great if you knew when you were going to die I suppose, otherwise they still get slugged with the tax.
Why does that matter? If you're planning on giving it away to your kids anyway, you have plenty of time to do so.
Median house price is £240k in the UK.
This means there are still a significant amount of people who are not rich, but would be paying this inheritance tax.
Why does that matter? If you're planning on giving it away to your kids anyway, you have plenty of time to do so.
Lots of reasons why you may not want to until you pass.
Why would estate tax ever hurt the poor? Most if not all estate taxes are millions before being taxed.
Are also you saying that you're against any inheritance tax? Ie Gina Rinehart should pass on all her billions without being taxed to her kids?
When I say billionaires and you insist I mean average home owners, it shows the emptiness of your argument.
Your argument that it is "unfair" to amass wealth is ridiculous.
Every person with any common sense it trying to amass wealth to better themselves and their families. The best way to help the poor is to teach them how to create and amass wealth, not expect free handouts from the government by ridistributing the wealth others have amassed.
What you argue is truly deeply unfair and illogical.
It is an argument that fails under any basic scrutiny.
It is like a petulant child trying to change the rules after a board game has been played. They lost but decide to break the rules and take the opponents amassed money anyway because the outcome was "unfair."The best way to help the poor is to teach them how to create and amass wealth
my sides. Please. that made me laugh.
So it's poor peoples fault they're poor and not billionaires like Musk or Bezos? Thanks Joe Hockey!
Mate this guys response wasn't about the guy down the street that works his ass off and has a nice car and house, power to him. This is about BILLIONAIRES and the UBER RICH who have exploited people and gamed the system to pay very little to no tax.
Did you know some individuals have paid more tax than billionaires? how is that possible?
It is beyond laughable that the peons are arguing that the billionaires retain more of their billions.
Honest people have a sense of justice.
Making special laws that only apply to billionaires to take away their billions is unjust.
How? The rules are the same for everyone. Everyone would lose 50% off the billion dollars they have when they die.
.. the only thing is most people don't have even one billion, so their family would lose 50% of nothing.
Where's the justice in people living in poverty or being homeless while some people are buying their nth yacht or jet to waste ever more fossil fuels for funsies?
Are these "honest people" you're talking about the same as the "quiet Australians" who whinge whenever they hear about someone rorting a few grand from the dole but say not a peep when Foxtel gets handed a few mil or one of the myriad suspiciously untendered handouts?
why they made their billions through risk and investment (and probably dodgy practices but that's another story)
Poll is garbage OP you've asked so many questions:
inheritance tax.
Should we have one?
Do we have one?
Is it implemented properly?
If we have one, will it be a part of reducing income inequalities in capitalist countries?
Did Gina Rinehart and James Packer pay any inheritance tax?WTF is the poll for?
50% Inheritance Tax on Billionaires (Should we have one?)
Yes, makes up for all the hundreds of millions they have gamed from the tax system over their life.
time to finally give some back to the community, cant take it to the grave
Then yes! 50% is too low imho. You don't need 500 million.
@fantombloo:
Exactly. Who is to say these things? It varies from person to person. Bezos didn't come from money, he paved his own way. He saw a market, and made it his. No one is being forced to buy from Amazon, no one is being forced to work for Amazon. He put in the effort, he made it happen, why should he not get the reward?