You first Matey, you first
It’s possible to get all technical here about this demand from the Patriotic Millionaires. Wealth taxes are a bad idea, they’ve higher deadweight costs than other manners of raising revenue and so on. Possibly mutter something about how tax isn’t quite the way to reduce poverty, market activity is. We can also be simply practical:
More than 100 members of the global super-rich called on Wednesday for governments around the world to “tax us now” to help pay for the pandemic response and tackle the gulf between rich and poor.
As their open letter goes on:
As millionaires, we know that the current tax system is not fair. Most of us can say that, while the world has gone through an immense amount of suffering in the last two years, we have actually seen our wealth rise during the pandemic - yet few if any of us can honestly say that we pay our fair share in taxes.
There’s a simple solution to that. This despite the manner in which “fair” is a personal decision. As we noted in another place some 16 years back:
Cheques, by the way, should be made out to “The Accountant, HM Treasury”, and sent to 1 Horse Guards Road, London SW1A 2HQ. A 2nd-class stamp is sufficient and you are encouraged to add a covering note so that your donation is spent in the way you like.
If this commitment to more tax means that Americans should be doing this in America - but how could such big hearted people be as nationalist as all that? - then use this:
Gifts to the United States, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Reporting and Analysis Branch 2, P.O. Box 1328 Parkersburg, WV 26106-1328
At which point of course they can then leave everyone else alone. For note what their argument is again. “We” should pay more tax, tax “us”. The group making the insistence is of course that of the people making the insistence, not all of those who share one or more characteristics with them. They can only speak for themselves that is. As they can indeed pay more tax whenever they like we don’t need to change the system to accommodate their desires. They send off a cheque and the argument is over.
It does though give us an interesting test of their commitment. If they really do think that they, they as individuals, should pay more tax then they will have done so already. Even, be able to support their insistences by brandishing their thank you letter.
The thing is we very seriously doubt that they have in fact parted with money, done more than this virtue signalling of signing a round robin letter. Last time we checked that Gifts to the US account was getting $4 million or so a year and the UK Treasury enjoyed extra cash from an entire 5 people that year - and four of those were dead, leaving legacies.
Much economics is obvious, obviousness dressed up in formal language. Here the jargon is that there’s a difference between expressed preferences and revealed such. Or as the same point is made in more normal language, all mouth and no trousers.
Ourselves we don’t believe a word of what these Mateys are saying. Not until they prove to us all that they have indeed gone first, as it is simple and easy for them to do.