From WWWTT:
thats already in place on the most expensive thing people are likely to own, real estate. Sounds like you’re suggesting an increase.
If you read my piece, you would have seen I suggested a $5 million deductible, which would mean most people who own homes wouldn't pay tax on that asset. House prices are high, but very few people own homes worth more than $5 million. So for those people there would be no increase.
Of course, while for the average citizen the family home is probably the most expensive thing they're likely to own, for the very wealthy the family home is only a small part of their wealth. They may own stocks, bonds, factories, etc.
Remember the figure I posted up thread, showing a very small group of people own 50% of the wealth of the world. Obviously that's more than family homes.
Here's some information, in a Huffington Post story about a report from the CCPA:
Wealth Inequality trumps Income Inequality
The report by the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that the country's 86 richest individuals and families — or 0.002 per cent of the total population — are getting exponentially richer and now have accumulated as much wealth as the country's poorest 11.4 million.
...The point of the exercise, says economist and author David Macdonald, who used Statistics Canada data and research from Canadian Business magazine, is to show that if income inequality is a policy and social justice concern — wealth inequality is worse.
In fact, the super-rich list of Canadian residents has little to do with income in the traditional sense, he said. None of the 86 are company CEOs — often the poster children of the Occupy crowd for their unseemly salaries and bonuses.
..."We often focus on income inequality but that's a socialist paradise compared to wealth inequality," said Macdonald.
"The top 20 per cent only get half of all the income, but in terms of wealth inequality, the top 20 per cent have 70 per cent of all wealth. It's much more extreme...
Which is why it's really important to be clear about the difference between the top 1% of income earners, and the top 1% of wealth owners.
Top 20% only half the income. Well yes, you can draw lines here you want to say what you want. but the gap in incomes is dramatic and growing.
It is also important to understand why right wingers like to point to wealth rather than wage inequality: you can do something about the second more easily. Also if you disregrad sources of incomes (like inheritences) you can minimize the issue. At the end of the day anyone who understand business knows that wealth is retained earnings plus capital. Wealth largely equals: Retained earnings + gifts + inheritences. What are inheritences from? Well retained earnigns are wealth, which includes the retained earnings of the previous generation.
To ignore gaps in income is to misunderstand the cumulative nature of them. You need to address wealth largely becuase previous generations did not address income differences and this adds up over time. Income differences look minor when you compare them in the span of a year, less so when you consider how wealth is accumulated. Even less so when you truly understand income and cost of living. If you consider net income as an amount over the cost of living you would see just how significant the gaps in wages that lead to significant wealth actually are. This approach to income is like a business: it pays tax on its profit after costs. If we were to look at an after living costs income you would see how dramatic the inequality is.
Quotes:
- Canada gets a “C” grade and ranks 12th out of 17 peer countries.
- Income inequality in Canada has increased over the past 20 years.
- Since 1990, the richest group of Canadians has increased its share of total national income, while the poorest and middle-income groups has lost share.
Income inequality is higher in Canada than in 11 of its peers. Although Canada’s wealth is distributed more equally than in the U.S., Canada’s 12th-place ranking suggests it is doing a mediocre job of ensuring income equality. Canada gets a “C” grade on this indicator.
Income inequality in Canada has increased over the past 20 years. Canada reduced inequality in the 1980s, with the Gini coefficient reaching a low of 0.281 in 1989. Income inequality rose in the 1990s, but has remained around 0.32 in the 2000s.
The richest 1 per cent of Canadians took almost a third of all income gains from 1997 to 2007—the decade with the fastest-growing incomes in this generation, according to a 2010 study by Armine Yalnizyan.
http://www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/Details/society/income-inequality.aspx...
