Swiss voters on Sunday decisively rejected a call to require women to do national service in the military, civil protection teams or other forms, as all men must do already.
Official results. with counting still ongoing in some areas after a referendum, showed that more than half of Switzerland’s cantons, or states, had rejected the “citizen service initiative” by wide margins. That meant it was defeated, because proposals need a majority of both voters and cantons to pass.
Voters also heavily rejected a separate proposal to impose a new national tax on individual donations or inheritances of more than 50 million francs ($62 million), with the revenues to be used to fight the impact of climate change and help Switzerland meet its ambitions to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
This bullshit-argument again.
Guess what, money will circle around the economy and it will be taxed on different occasions and often several times during its lifespan (whatever that means for todays mostly digital money anyways). Especially when things (or money) change owners, tax is to be expected.
When you got paid, you paid income tax, and when you buy stuff with it - oh my gosh! - taxes again!! (In the form of VAT) Outrageous!
This is such a common thing, that it simply baffles me how anyone could think that “that money has been taxed already” is a sound argument.
You don’t pay VAT/GST on the money, you pay it on the product’s price (and you can avoid it if the receiptent agrees to get paid in cash and don’t show it in the books). For assets, you are buying it with your money that you have already earnd that has been already taxed. You also have to pay a stamp duty to the government when you buy any asset, you pay registration fees, you pay all the property & Municipal taxes and when you sell it, you will be paying a capital gains tax anyways, so what’s the point of charging an inheritance tax?
Simple question to you: My networth is just 100k USD, I inherited 500k USD (current market value) house from my parents, and the inheritance tax is at 20%, wouldn’t I lose all my existing money and assets I for something that is just worth 500k USD as an unliquid asset? To sell that house you will have to find a buyer which is not an easy or cost-free task. If the house doesn’t sell, you will be paying property taxes anyways, and once you sell it, you will pay the capital gains tax as well so what’s the point of inheritance tax?
What I think is a better solution: Define a certain threshold where the value of inheritance is above a level where the person inheriting becomes wealthy beyond their and their family’s actual needs, and distribute that wealth among the lower income people in the form of permanent housing.
And how do you pay that price? With money. This is pure sophism.
And, duh, you can avoid paying taxes if you cheat… that’s not exclusive to VAT.
And you are further elaborating my point. You will be taxed on different occasions even when the money or asset doesn’t even change ownership. That’s my whole point. The argument that you already paid taxes on some money isn’t really a solid point against inheritance tax, it’s a common occurence in many areas of life. Yet it always comes up when inheritance tax is discussed.
Just like your example with the inheritance of a small home that will ruin the recipient. The example is always constructed in bad faith with a lousy tax policy in the first place. No one is trying to ruin the average joe who happens to inherit grampas house. A better design, and the one all supporters of inheritance tax I know argue for, is one with a reasonably high allowance, to avoid these scenarios, and even if you cross the allowance threshhold by a little bit, you only have to pay the fictious 20% on the amount exceeding the allowance. So say we have an (unreasonably low, but just for the sake of the example) allowance of 400K, now you inherit that 500K property you’ll have to pay (500K-400K)x0.2=20K.
If you wanted to protect small inheritances even more, you could design a progressive tax, too.
This, with a much more reasonable allowance sounds a bit like your so called ‘better solution’.
That is exactly what I said. Couldn’t put it in better words. Exemptions. Only difference I said is exempt the amount upto, let’s say, what a family of 3 people needs for let’s say 3 years. That way the inheriter won’t have to pay a superficial tax while still maintaining a livable lifestyle. Charging inheritance tax on poor people (however little) puts a lot of burden on them for something they are not willingly earning or purchasing. Charging millionaires and billionaires with inheritance tax is better as there will be a continuous cycle of wealth redistribution and thus they won’t be able abuse their powers. But wealth tax is more efficient that way as it would prevent someone becoming obscenely wealthy in the first place.
Taxing the poor has never worked, they will hoard more unaccounted whatever wealth they have to avoid those taxes rather than owning real estate, shared, bonds, etc and participating in the economy. No one likes paying taxes — especially on something which they are not willingly earning or purchasing.
Also you pay VAT and GST only once — so it is not an example of double taxation. These have been designed in such a way that the only the final customer pays tax on it as the final entity in the supply chain. Whatever VAT/GST the retailer, supplier and the service provider paid is refunded by the government in the form of ITC (Input Tax Credit).