Inheritance and wealth taxes normally hurt the middle class. They rarely affect the wealthy. It’s always a better solution eliminate all wealth and inheritance taxes - for everybody.

The farmers can now give away their farms and forests to their kids without any taxes. That in addition to the Russian export customs will make Finnish forest soon so expansive that the industry will shut down even more factories. Wink, wink to those who have money to invest. Buy now, if it’s not too late already, and sell next year.

so what has bank regulation have to do with taxes?

“The Free Banking Era: More than 30,000 Different Notes in Circulation

Suppose you found a wallet filled with paper money sometime during the Free Banking Era, which was from 1836 to 1866. This wallet might contain a yellow two-cent note issued by the New York druggist Matthew’s Bros. You also might find a three-cent note issued by the Peabody Ladies Furnishing Store in Massachusetts. The most attractive of the bunch might be a pink 25-cent note issued by the Hyson Tea Company in New York. Imagine using some of these notes to pay for something at the store!

During the Free Banking Era, consumers could not be sure that merchants would accept their paper money. Although merchants were able to certify currency as genuine by consulting registries called Bank Note Reporters, approximately one-third of all paper money during the Free Banking Era was estimated to be counterfeit.

Before the Free Banking Era went into effect, it was difficult for banks to obtain a commercial charter. During the Free Banking Era, state authorities were created with the sole purpose of issuing bank charters. Any private or municipal authority could operate a bank as long as it could satisfy a minimal set of conditions. The instability of the Free Banking Era was especially obvious in the state of Michigan, where the State legislature passed the General Banking Law of 1837. This law immediately transformed Michigan’s banking industry. More than 55 banks were organized in Michigan within one year of the liberal banking law–most of them with the sole purpose of issuing paper money.

Almost all of the banks formed under Michigan’s General Banking Law failed or went broke within two years. Some of these “broken banks” attempted to fool bank inspectors by keeping a barrel of nails with a top layer of gold coin as their “reserves.” The Bank of Battle Creek, Michigan, had its teller, Tolman W. Hall, run out the back door whenever a noteholder would enter the bank. Another unscrupulous tactic was to locate banks’ main offices in remote wilderness areas. These “wildcat banks” would often shuttle the same sack of coins from one location to another to convince the occasional bank inspector that the bank was solvent. One wildcat bank, the Farmers Bank of Sandstone, reportedly offered to redeem its notes in the local merchandise: a sandstone whetstone for each one-dollar note. ”

Boy, you Americans know how to cheat

“In this period, only state-chartered banks existed in a free banking system. They could issue bank notes against specie (Gold and Silver coins) and the states regulated their reserve requirements, interest rates for loans and deposits, the necessary capital ratio etc. The Michigan Act (1837) allowed the automatic chartering of banks that would fulfill its requirements without special consent of the state legislature. This legislation eased creating unstable banks even further, lowering the supervision by the states that adopted it. The real value of a bank bill was often lower than its face value, and the issuing bank’s financial strength generally determined the size of the discount. By 1797, there were 24 chartered banks in the U.S., while with the beginning of the Free Banking Era (1837), there were 712.

The banks were unstable in terms of longevity compared to today’s commercial banks. The average lifespan of a bank was five years; about half of the banks failed, a third of which because they couldn’t redeem their notes (how they went out of business).”

Sources:
http://www.frbsf.org/currency/expansion/history/text2.html
Wikipedia: History_of_central_banking_in_the_United_States

But it does. All are hurt when the folks who do things (Billionairs), stop working and creating jobs.

Hmmmm. If a person receives 6.5% return on his investment, then the .8% wealth tax reduces it to 5.7% (6.5 - .8 = 5.7).

That’s slightly over 12% reduction in profit (before income taxes!).

Another way to look at it: That means someone who would otherwise be in the 30% income tax bracket is now paying over 42% of his income to taxes due to the wealth tax.

Not a burden, eh? Maybe you should analyze what motivates investors. I guarantee that your type of jealousy will only drive investors and their capital away.

You’d be more legitimate if you advocate taxing unproductive land. That would actually help society.

Gee, have low wealth, with high taxes.

Or have high wealth, walmart, with low taxes.

Simple.

you could not be more correct. The wealth tax in Finland was very senseless. There were lots of practical issues. How did they value wealth? And did wealth tax cause people to structure their investments to reflect the lowest possible wealth figure? Investments overseas to avoid it completely perhaps?

It was all very unhealthy, and it’s one reason why Finland is poor today. Fortunately, it was decided that maybe having wealth inside the country isn’t such a bad idea from an economic developement perspective. So they abolished the tax.

Now I know why our PISA scores are so low in the US. We’ve got people like you taking the tests. Is your last name Pickler by any chance?

Eh, what. If that’s an analogy, then it’s bad cause I don’t get it. Anyway, there’s nothing that weird in taxing wealth. Finnish wealth tax, before it was abolished, was 0,8% of the personal wealth that was over the lower limit of 250 000 euros. It certainly wasn’t a huge burden for anyone. You can argue whether tax on wealth is a good thing and give well-founded arguments either way, but it’d be false to say that such a tax would be somehow ridiculous.

If you don’t pay much tax here, you don’t make very much money. I pay quite enough tax here, but I live with it.