cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/47196787
this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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If you do a wealth tax, they would absolutely leave.
And then what? If they want to take their wealth with them they'd need to sell up, so the job creation would remain, the assets would remain, possibly the currency would be slightly weaker, and so importa would be slightly more expensive, which would encourage the local economy... What is the awful outcomes you're imagining from the ultra rich leaving?
Good.
How?
They are a menace to society and there existence is an embarrassment.
Does kicking them out of the country cause them to cease to exist?
If everyone does it, yeah. Kinda.
Agreed. Capitalism cannot be brought down without global unity.
And solidarity sometimes means fighting beside someone that in a different context is your enemy.
Yes. I've had so many people online be cross at me for supporting countries based on geopolitics instead of domestic politics.
I don't want them here, ideally they would pay a crap ton of taxes or rot in a cell, and stop buying out the legal systems.
Agreed but unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world
Yes, so leaving or paying taxes is a win. They can wreck and topple a country that I'm not stuck surviving in.
How is kicking them out a win?
How is it not?
Well, think about what "wealth" is. Their wealth isn't a big pile of money in the living room that they swim in, it's in an international web of banks that all do business together, and all profit off of this wealth themselves. This is a very simple explanation and it's much more complex than that, I'd recommend the Panama and Pandora Papers as a primer.
You're not going to get to seize anything but a small fraction in assets that they can't quickly liquidate. The moment you do seize those assets, every one else will move their wealth out of your country, also, for fear of losing their own bank accounts. The more you seize assets, the more assets will flee your country, even small investors will abandon you.
Ok, that really doesn’t answer the question, but so what? Let them all flee, who cares? Theres absolutely zero real loss at this point. Not like any of that hoarded wealth is currently accessible to the country/community they live in anyway. That’s sort of the point. It’s a black hole either way, that money isn't coming out of their pockets if they don't want it to, so why allow them to keep getting more at the expense of 99% of the population, many of whom can’t even properly support themselves because all the profits end up in a few pockets, and workers get peanuts.
They don't contribute anything if they can help it, they just take everything they can at the expense of literally everyone else, so why would it be bad if they left? If all the takers left, because they couldn't just take everything from everyone else anymore, how is that in any way bad for the country they flee? Or the people left behind who actually do contribute their fair share? It wouldn’t even take very long for things to readjust, because they provide next to nothing we can’t live without, and spreading the wealth out means more in taxes.
If the selfish rich assholes who don't want to give anything back abandon in droves, it opens the field for smaller business and local investment, or investment from people who aren't so selfish as to see paying a fair portion in taxes as an insufferable barrier. Thats a good thing you are trying to present as a bad thing. Nobody actually needs obscenely rich people to invest in stuff, thats just a ridiculous lie they want us to believe. Good ideas and good businesses can find other avenues, like organic growth or co-op models of mutual investment for mutual profit. Frankly we need far far fewer things owned or controlled by the same few obscenely rich people who are ruining everything everywhere for only their own benefit.
So what? So you lose all of your investors, from billionaires to small investors of pensions, and everyone in between.
That's a massive part of any economy... and you won't get any more money from any of them, all will invest elsewhere where their money won't be seized.
This would be very, very bad for your economy for many years (at least).
That's so what. Don't get me wrong, this would be hilarious and you should do it as soon as possible.
Why would small investors pull out? They wouldn't be impacted by this stuff in any meaningful way.
Thats just an absurd slippery slope argument. It just doesn't follow reality at all, but let’s assume it did, and that you are right.
So you lose out on selfish people who want to be the takers, but aren't yet.. you lose out on them investing in crap that only or largely benefits them, because anyone who isn't just out for themselves would not be deterred by this sort of thing. So what? Where’s the loss here? You miss out on making more billionaires. Oh no.
Where would the small investors invest if the billionaires took their wealth away?
Dude...just google it, it's a myth. The people that want you to believe it are the ones thaf benefit from you believing it.
Heck, look at the interview Bezos just did. Notice how there wasn't even the possibility in his worldview of him being taxed more. Meanwhile, he lies about how much he pays and parrots the cherrypicked statistic of 40% of income taxes are paid by the top 1% of income earners. Guess what Bezos is? Not one of those. He takes an income of 80K, a little above average in terms if income earners. His wealth isn't taxed while he does fuck all and his employees toil away and he generates wealth off of their labor.
Shit, in America alone the top marginal rate was over 90%. They're still here.
This also misses the point that the level of wealth consolidation is a failure of the system to provide for its people. They shouldn't exist in the first place.
And they should be happy that most people are saying to tax them more. But these dipshits equate that to terrorism and racial slurs, so yeah, let's see just how deluded they are and just how much pain the people can put up with.
I want a source that says that billionaires would remain in countries even when taxes rise.
😮💨
A literal book of research published from Stanford
https://www.sup.org/books/sociology/myth-millionaire-tax-flight
https://taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/what-republicans-and-democrats-can-learn-myth-millionaire-tax-flight
https://ips-dc.org/release-wealth-expands-after-higher-state-taxes-on-high-income-earners/
And when it comes to the followup argument of "bUt It DoNt BrInG ReVenUE" it was largely not due to flight but instead from exemptions and tax breaks and poor policing of taxes on said wealthy individuals and being generally too broad and policy in place making those who were highly mobile to move.
https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/news/publication-study-wealth-taxation-including-net-wealth-capital-and-exit-taxes-2026-04-15_en
And some lessons from Norway who have had wealth taxes since 1892, and by which they implememted a 37.8% wealth tax if you do choose to leave. If you really want the parasites to stay, make it worth their while, they only know how to speak money after all. After bleeding our system dry and profiting off of our labor and tax dollars through subsidies and utilizing our public services to pay workers less, it's the least they can do for us allowing them to exist in the first place.
https://www.aol.com/articles/analysis-norways-wealth-tax-trades-050140872.html
Thanks for the post and references. Good information.
I'm not saying that people would leave to boring states just for tax benefits. I'm saying that people would leave to different countries.
I don't understand how Norway implements it's wealth tax.
If you're not willing to read and understand then your opinion is worthless, we have no reason to listen to someone so malignantly uninformed. You ask for sources, implying there are none, then when shown you backtrack and ask questions that the sources themselves answer.
Continue aiding Trump and the billionaires, I'm sure if you work hard enough you'll be one one day.
Not if you have a 38% exit tax like Norway.
Damn! I didn't know there was actually a solution to the Marxist problem of capital flight!
Let them.
You can't tax them at all if they leave. Forget wealth tax, you won't be getting any taxes.
They can't leave when their businesses, properties, assets, and income are derived from your country. Much of it isn't easily movable, if at all. Most of a billionaire's wealth isn't in cold hard capital cash, it's in a mixture of assets and yearly income from said assets.
They can choose to leave, and live wherever they'd like to live. But their place of residence, if legislated properly, would have no bearing on wealth taxes instituted at the asset or income level. If we chose to tax them regardless of being domicile or not: it is a legislative choice.
It would have no bearing on whether we can still legally and feasibly tax the fuck out of them.
What you're saying is disinformation, friend. It serves the wealth class well when it's spread around. But if you stop and think about it as an idea for a second it quickly falls apart.
Nope. Most of a billionaire's wealth is in the form of stocks. This is true of any billionaire.
Stocks are financial assets.
Stocks don't even require moving afaik
Which is good, as they would then not be extracting wealth from where they left and money can once again circulate how it should.
Lol billionaires extract wealth from every single nation.
Then maybe we should tax the fuck out of them across the board.
Good luck convincing all countries. (Most countries are class traitors)