The reasons inflation carries such a negative label are many, prime of which are that it is a tax on wealth and people with wealth generally govern, but not always.
Suppose we pass a 20 percent tax on wealth.
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He will never pay a penny of income tax on this wealth unless he is extraordinarily patriotic.
Felix goes a step further, suggesting a wealth tax on the super-rich.
However the wealth tax on owners of marginally profitable businesses (or businesses whose profit is mostly earned outside of the U.S.) would pay more tax.
Options under consultation also include a French-style wealth tax on personal assets, such as jewellery and paintings, according to the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Times.
The inheritance tax was eliminated in 2005, the wealth tax in 2007 and taxes on residential property in 2008.
Compounding this folly, the Chancellor has also endorsed a proposed new "wealth tax" on assets, this in a country that is already one of the most heavily taxed of industrialized nations.
These include extra levies on those who pay the wealth tax, higher inheritance tax, an extra 3% tax on dividends, heavier charges on stock options, higher taxes on financial transactions, banks and oil firms, and a 5% extra tax on big companies.
Now that Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi has caved in on calls to raise the capital gains tax, wealth taxes and VAT taxes, the European debt variable likely holds more pain ahead as the on-going anti-growth fiscal bias on the continent will lead to slower growth and falling government tax revenues as a result.
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This article focuses on how the estate tax prevents concentrations of wealth.
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The Commission for Truth and Reconciliation had suggested that companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange pay wealth tax of about 1% of their market capitalization, but this recommendation was not followed.
This is why Mr Hollande will start by cutting the retirement age for some workers to 60, putting the top marginal income-tax rate up to 75%, raising taxes on wealth, inheritance and dividends, increasing the minimum wage and making it much harder for employers to fire workers.
Any tax on capital will tend to dissuade people from accumulating the wealth in the first place, but a death duty is arguably one of the better options.
Pursuing such a vision would require very high marginal tax rates on anyone with above average production, income and wealth, which experience as well as theory shows us leads to less production.
The technique, known as a grantor retained annuity trust, or GRAT, allows rich families to pass on wealth while dramatically cutting their estate and gift tax bills.
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He will also boost taxes on financial income, scrap exemptions from the annual wealth tax, end stock options and cap bonuses.
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For them, a property tax would be a levy not on their home, but on the wealth they have locked up in property that often lies vacant.
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We also must know whether he agrees with the UN functionary who is the driving force behind its Millennium Project, Harvard professor Jeffrey Sachs, who insists that a new "global tax" on carbon emissions is required to underwrite his agenda for spreading the wealth around.
Second, launch a G8 convention on tax transparency that commits signatory countries to preventing individuals and companies from hiding wealth so that it is untraceable.
And on the other hand, the Hinkley project on its own would create vast numbers of jobs, wealth and tax revenues - at a time when there is not exactly a surplus of big new investments being made in the UK's flatlining economy.
Mr Osborne ruled out Lib Dem proposals for a levy on high value properties, the so-called mansion tax, or a new wealth tax, saying they would harm enterprise.
Another thing we could do is revise our tax laws, which at this point, as Marilyn just indicated, tend to incentivize people at the upper income scales to spend a lot of their wealth on housing and I think we need policies that make a tax advantage to save.
Job and wealth losses have compressed tax revenues, and stimulus spending has padded the numbers on the expenditure side.
Second, by paying tax on the conversion with funds from his taxable accounts, he increased the share of his wealth that's tax-sheltered.
This past summer the Senate Budget Committee, which is run by Democrats, reported that 26.5% of all tax deductions and credits are taken by those with incomes in the top 1% on the wealth scale.
Mr Jospin came to power last June on a hard-left, Euro-hesitant programme promising the creation of 350, 000 public-sector jobs, a cut in the working week from 39 to 35 hours without loss of pay, big increases in wages and social benefits, a halt to privatisation, a rise in the wealth tax, a rejection of the single currency's stability pact and so on.
Despite the freezing of tax rates, the rich and a lot of not so rich are being generously taxed on their liquid wealth.
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While almost all hedge fund returns are reported on a pretax basis, it is the after-tax returns to an investor that directly drives wealth creation.
Nick Clegg has insisted the coalition will not make future spending cuts "on the backs of the poor" and urged the Conservatives to back a "wealth tax".
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