No Stupid Questions

EDIT: formatting

A potential mathematical approach to equal taxation that works in any country:

1. Calculate the average income of every citizen. Let A = the average income (amount per year)
2. Set a baseline tax amount for the average (e.g. 10%). Let P = baseline tax percentage
3. Given a person's income, calculate how far above or below they are compared to the average. Let I = a person's income. We can calculate the difference, D, with D = I - A. A positive value means the person's income is above average, whereas negative is below.
4. Calculate the difference as a percentage. Let Q = D / A
5. Calculate the percentage of the tax percentage. This will determine how much more or less a person will have to pay: R = Q * P
6. Finally, calculate the person's unique tax amount: T = P + R. If R was a positive value, that means the person will pay more. If R was a negative value, they pay less. If R = 0, they pay the base amount.

Example: Let's say the average income per year is $50,000 USD, and the baseline tax rate is 10%

So A =50,000 and P = 10% / 100 = 0.1

Given a person's income: $30,000/yr:

I = 30,000

Calculate the difference:

D = 30,000 – 50,000 = –20,000

Q = –20,000 / 50,000 = –0.4 (–40%)

Calculate how much more/less the person pays:

R = –0.4 * 0.1 = –0.04 (–4%)

Calculate the unique tax amount:

T = 0.1 + (–0.04) = 0.1 – 0.04 = 0.6 (6%)

There might be a better set of formulas, but this is what I came up with. Let me know if I made a mistake in my math.

Tax the total of any loans backed by speculative assets taken out in a one year period as both realized gains and income if they total more than 100x the average take home pay of the bottom 20% of earners (currently around $16k).

If they want higher loans without taxes, people have to be paid more.

Demand full proof of ownership from any company and asset. If they provide strawman, tax those.

If they don't provide verifiable information, seize the companies and assets and put them into public hands, or if that's not possible (digital services for example) deny them to operate in your country. The actual owners will reveil themselves quickly. Then tax them.

I would do a small transaction tax like 1% that should hopefully put the brakes on short term trading and tax inheritance the same as lottery winnings. Tax investment the same as income. for corps tax them based on their entire holdings right up to their top owner with all its subsidiaires but they can deduct any tax they pay in authorized countries (so the way we do sanctions now we could take away their taxes being able to be deducted).

Tax stock when it is given for bonus or pay package. The gov gets the top end tax rate with of the stock to be sold over the next 12 months.

The biggest loophole they use is taking out loans and using stock as collateral. Stock is supposed to be unrealized so if it is used as part of ANY transaction it should instantly become taxable.

In my opinion, you'd establish a number that is the max amount anyone would need in a region per year, let's say 1 million. For one million you could finance a place to live, a car, food for you and your family, hobbies and maybe a trip or two. Then multiply that by three. Just to shut down the ones who'd argue. Three times what ever the amount of money anyone would need is an obscene amount of money per year. Everything else goes to 1) the state to regulate the quality and cost of the community, and 2) entities that generate value and has jobs

Take their moneys.

With a large bladed machine.

Take the number advertised on the Forbes list and their self reported number. Tax then according to which is the higher.

Tax unrealised gains on holdings annually not on realisation. Tax banks for giving loans against stock holdings, with rate of interest under 2%.

100% of what they make over $1B.

I would confiscate their rocket ships and satellites. All yachts designated as navy or coast guard. You could also do one of those lies about the stock market so it can be mutilated and raped to bring more profit, but for the citizenry, so it's a good thing. /s

There's just an upper limit on what any one person can own.

Ten houses, one private airplane, one yacht, and $100 million worth of 'stuff.'

No more than 1% of any company.

That's just off the top of my head for discussion. Feel free to jiggle with the numbers.

I guess you tax assets more and salaries less - and work internationally to make tax avoidance harder and less profitable by taxing capital flows and by cracking down on tax havens.

Unless you can get a political consensus on it, I don't think an inheritance tax will be very effective. Tax planners will find a way to transfer the wealth before it gets inherited, helped by certain kinds of politicians whenever they have power.

Taxing the ultra rich is easy. Taxing them without screwing over someone else in the process is hard. They can afford the best lawyers and accountants to find loopholes and still consider it cheap.

If somebody owns shares of $company_A, they have to pay 1% of the shares annually, which become public property. This way, the means of production (company shares) slowly become public property over time.

Two prongs. One, tax loans against stock options and publicly traded shares. Two tax foreign investment dividends that constitute more than 10% of the total value of a publicly traded company. Step one makes them live off of dividends and realized assets. They can't live off other loans of other people's money and just keep hording assets, two pins them down and keeps them from trying to take their money and run to a tax haven.

They will eventually find a way around those, and you will have to adjust the tax code to accomodate, but that's going to be true regardless. It's a bit like digital hygene and cyber security. An endless arms race between states trying to build more effective risk management tools and people trying to exploit and the system and thus the people living within the system.

You have a special division of the IRS whose job is to identify the top few hundred wealthiest individuals and then tax them. These people wouldn't have to self report like the rest of us.

America used to tax billionaires already in the 1900s. Nothing new to invent here.

Tax them? Nationalize their assets

Super simple. Inheritance tax is enormous. You have the right to pass on as many "upper middle class trust funds for life" as you would like, but no other wealth of any kind is inherited.

That’s the thing. If you pay people to figure it out, they will. It’s only through massive defunding that the IRS has become completely incompetent. They used to be quite good at their jobs.

I was going to write about how an existing tax agency (the California FTB) is already aggressive at tracking down high-earning residents that leave the state -- whether in-fact or on-paper -- in order to collect precisely what the state is owed per the tax code. That is, the FTB already engages and challenges the precise amounts that these former residents write on their final California tax returns, with some more spectacular results being some incredibly detailed timelines for when someone finally stops being a resident in California, as defined in state law.

But then I noticed that because of California's proposed wealth tax (aka Billionaire Tax) on the November 2026 ballot, the SF Chronicle has already started a series of articles to answer the specific what-and-hows of the wealth tax. This is the first article, pertaining to enforcement, and it agrees that the FTB would be capable of pursuing any high-wealth individuals that the proposal would tax. https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/ca-billionaire-tax-mechanism-21330110.php

This proposed tax in California is written as a one-time tax, so the question of whether high-wealthy people could flee the state is nearly irrelevant, because either they're subject to the tax or they're beyond the reach of the US courts (eg Venus). Almost. The remaining questions are legal in nature, and don't really change how the tax would be pursued. Whether FTB simply hires a dedicated team or outsources to private investigators, the task is still straightforward: follow the money.

Unlike civil lawsuit plaintiffs, who have more limited means of chasing down a defendant's assets in order to get paid on a judgement, the California tax authorities enjoy the benefit of the subpoena power, that can be used to compel companies and banks to tell the tax authorities about where and how wealth is being held. It is, after all, a core power of a US state to administer a tax, especially when the tax is authorized directly from the sovereign power (ie the citizenry). Any other result would conflict with the very purpose of a republic: to unyieldingly serve the people.