Warren Wealth Tax Has Wide Support, Except Among One Group

[BeckyDem]

by Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley

Nov. 29, 2019, 5:00 a.m. ET

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan to tax the assets of America’s wealthiest individuals continues to draw broad support from voters, across party, gender and educational lines. Only one slice of the electorate opposes it staunchly: Republican men with college degrees.

Not surprisingly, that is also the profile of many who’d be hit by Ms. Warren’s so-called wealth tax, which has emerged as the breakout economic proposal in the Democratic presidential primary race.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/business/economy/economy-politics-survey.html

Warren 2020!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PatrickforO]

1. I'm with you. The first thing is to repeal this giant 2017

tax cut for billionaire parasites and corporations, then impose a confiscatory tax that will end the tyranny of billionaires and put back enough money in the treasury to do things we need to do for the public good.

And, let me put in a plug for DE-privatizing prisons, including the concentration camps.

[BeckyDem]

2. Must haves!

[Demsrule86]

3. There is one other group...SCOTUS. Unlikely to be constitutional.

[BeckyDem]

4. American Bar Association

August 09, 2019 Policy Point
A Wealth Tax Is Constitutional
By Calvin H. Johnson, John T. Kipp Chair in Corporate and Business Law, University of Texas*

As most readers who follow the 2020 campaign proposals are aware, Elizabeth Warren has proposed an annual wealth tax of 2% for wealth greater than $50 million and 3% for wealth greater than $1 billion. Various pundits have said that the tax is “probably unconstitutional”1 and that the Supreme Court could “stop the wealth tax dead in its tracks.”2

Warren’s wealth tax is constitutional under the standards laid down by the Founders, as this article will demonstrate. Apportionment of a wealth or land tax by population would now require the injustice of substantially higher tax rates in poorer states: when that happens, under the Founders’ standards, the tax is not a direct tax for which apportionment is required. Apportionment was not written to protect wealth from assault, as proponents of its unconstitutionality now claim, but rather to reach wealth by what was thought to be the best then available measure of wealth.

The Constitution, Article I, section 9, clause 4, requires that a “direct tax” must be apportioned among the states by population.3 For the Founders, a necessary element to be a direct tax is that apportionment among the states by population must be reasonable and just. Thus import taxes (the impost), excise taxes, duties, carriage taxes and now real estate and wealth taxes have been expelled from the definition of direct tax, sometimes by the operation of ordinary language and sometimes by Supreme Court decision.

Real estate and wealth taxes were once considered direct taxes because they were the taxes that the states would use to satisfy a requisition and because real estate and wealth were presumed to be equal among the states. Today, however, apportionment of a wealth tax among the states by population is neither just nor reasonable. Wealth per capita in poor Mississippi is under half of the per capita wealth in relatively rich District of Columbia.4 Apportionment by population would mean that tax rates in Mississippi would have to be more than twice the rates in DC. The result would tax residents of poor states much more harshly than residents of wealthy states. That result has no justification in history or policy: it would simply arise by necessity from the fact that Mississippi has a smaller tax base over which to spread its quota. Thus, when it was recognized that wealth and real estate are not equally distributed per capita so that apportionment forced substantially higher tax rates in poorer states, the taxes on wealth and real estate could not be treated as direct taxes. Apportionment would not be just or reasonable.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/taxation/publications/abataxtimes_home/19aug/19aug-pp-johnson-a-wealth-tax-is-constitutional/

[Demsrule86]

5. I have looked at the evidence...previous rulings...and I do not believe SCOTUS will

find it constitutional...IMHO...particularly this SCOTUS. And not sure I want them to...how long before we too pay money on any assets we have...read the history of income tax which began only in the upper incomes...Income tax and inheritance tax is the way to go I think. But the reality is I do not believe that the funding Warren outlines will pay for her many planned programs...most of which will never happen no matter what.

[Humanist_Activist]

13. Uhm, we already pay such taxes, they are called property taxes, how is this one...

fundamentally different?

[dansolo]

9. They are looking at the wrong part of the constitution

A wealth tax is clearly in violation of the fifth amendment.

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

[BeckyDem]

10. Ok, then write them, tell them since you're so confident about it.

[dansolo]

11. Explain to me how it doesn't violate the fifth amendment

Since you are so confident, I'd like you to explain. The article you posted talks about apportionment. It may very well be that it doesn't violate the Constitution on those grounds. I am just pointing out that the fifth amendment provides an explicit prohibition of taking property without compensation. I don't see how a wealth tax doesn't violate that.

Don't get me wrong. I want to see taxes raised on the wealthy. There should be much higher capital gains tax rates, and there should be a financial transaction tax, and a restoration of the inheritance tax. I just don't believe in a wealth tax.

[BeckyDem]

12. I'm confident the ABA have a solid handle on it, that is why I posted their opinion for you.

I don't speculate on what is or is not constitutional. Do you really believe they are not aware of the 5th amendment or that what is likely here is they do not see it as relevant? If Warren doesn't go after them she will be negligent of duty as president should she win.

[ritapria]

6. Oh to have such a problem

I don't have the luxury of worrying about how to pay a wealth tax I don't envy the super wealthy ….After certain point , the money is just numbers on a page …….

[MineralMan]

7. People who have enough wealth to be hit by that wealth tax

are probably the smallest bloc of voters in this country. By themselves, they do not have enough votes to do much of anything at all. However, there are plenty of people who fantasize about being in that group someday. Most of them don't really have even the slightest chance of that, but they are still against such taxation.

We call such people Republicans. They need to be woken up to the reality that means they will never reach that level of wealth.

[BeckyDem]

8. +1

[Gothmog]

14. Prof. Tribe-Wealth Tax not constitutional and will need constitutional amendment

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