And if after that, they still have a billion, half it again. Etc.
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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Billionaires hoarding wealth like dragons on gold while society crumbles isn’t a flex—it’s a failure. Die Linke’s plan? Brutal, necessary, and doomed. Measuring illiquid assets? Please. We tax houses and stocks daily—this “complexity” is propaganda to shield oligarchs.
The real issue? A system rigged to protect capital. The 5% threshold? A gatekeeping farce. Even if they breach it, the SPD will fold faster than a wet paper bag, muttering about “pragmatism” while serving neoliberal lapdogs. Revolution dies in committee. But hey—at least they’re trying to light a match in a rainstorm.
Evaluating a publicly traded company is pretty easy. Stock price times the amount of stock = value of company.
However evaluating other forms of companies is a lot harder. Using the same formula is possible (if there is stock) and otherwise you can still look at the equity value, but it will only say so much. Generally looking at future cashflows is a pretty good way of evaluating a company, but there are loads of things you can have discussions about regarding this method (called the discounted cashflow method). There are also others and I have been part of evaluating a company and it's a fair amount of work. So it's not something you can really do on a yearly basis for tax reasons.
There are other things you can do like looking at how much wage the major shareholder has or how much they have lent from their company. Both to themselves and to family/friends. In NL we kinda limit the amount you can loan from your own company.
Luckly for the whole situation most billionaires mainly have stock in publicly traded companies. Either directly or indirectly so that is taxable.
Yes, the value of potential future profits as reflected by high stock prices would indeed be hard to evaluate.
But assets, outstanding claims, in part even intellectual property? Companies already have to keep track of those.
Yeah you can do that, but often companies keep track of the purchase value minus depreciation. Which means that something like a building is on the balance sheet for 1m, but the actual value might be 10m. the equity is basically the assets minus the liabilities which should be the value. However, paying dividend to the shareholder will lower the equity, but it will earn the shareholders money. So I would see a lot of companies doing that to lower their equity to pay less taxes.
Evaluating intellectual property is also pretty hard to do. Generally it has an original value and you depreciate on it as well.
All of the above depends on the country, the size and type of company it is, but generally it is pretty similar. Across the western world.
You’re not wrong, but let’s not pretend that stock valuation formulas or discounted cash flow methods are anything but tools to justify hoarding wealth. Billionaires don’t just “mainly have stock”—they weaponize it, leveraging loopholes and tax havens while the rest of us debate theoretical equity.
This isn’t about complexity; it’s about complicity. The system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed: to protect capital at all costs. Meanwhile, the average person is drowning in bureaucracy just trying to keep their head above water.
And borrowing from your own company? Sure, if you’re part of the elite club that can afford to play that game. For everyone else, it’s crumbs and austerity. Let’s stop normalizing this absurd disparity.
Look, the bilionaires will always have ways to get out to pay the least amount of tax possible. There is almost no way to combat that because they have the money to setup a company in another country and setup structures to pay less.
You can however get more income tax from the companies below that. The medium to large sized companies with millions of profit. But it is not feasible to do a taxation for every company every year, it is impossible. There aren't enough people working in the fields who would be responsible for those reports. (evaluators, accountants, etc.). Evaluating a company generally costs 10-20k minimum.
Idk how it is in other countries, but yeah it's more like bureaucrazy than bureaucracy here in NL. So you want to add even more bureaucracy into the entire structure? There are other ways of stopping businesses from abusing the system and governments are working to help fix the issue. But evaluating companies is just not gonna be a good structure for it. It's way to subjective and in general wealth tax has been shut down by legal systems. Like here in NL, the legal system shut down the previous box 3 wealth system because it was against human rights. And the government and legal system are more separated here in NL than in say something like the US.
Also a lot of small business owners do take loans from their own companies (if it is something like a BV/Ltd). Sometimes we talk over a couple thousand, sometimes it's a couple 100k and sometime's it;s one or more millions and I mainly work with small to medium-sized companies.
Billionaires exploiting tax systems isn’t an inevitability—it’s a failure of governance. Saying “there’s no way to combat it” is just surrendering to the status quo. The resources exist to enforce fair taxation; what’s missing is the political will. Governments prioritize protecting wealth over funding the systems that could hold it accountable.
Claiming wealth taxes are “too subjective” or costly to enforce is a convenient excuse. If we can afford bloated military budgets and corporate bailouts, we can afford evaluators and accountants. Let’s not pretend bureaucracy is the enemy here—it’s the deliberate underfunding of enforcement mechanisms that perpetuates inequality.
And small business owners borrowing from their companies? That’s survival tactics, not privilege. Comparing them to billionaires dodging taxes is disingenuous at best, insulting at worst.
Look for say 20-30k you can set up a company in a different country with lower tax rates and move your profits there. That's what a lot of companies do to make it so they can pay less taxes. You need multiple countries to cooperate (something the EU is doing on this front, but it takes forever to adapt everything). It's way easier to tax the millionaires more, they have fewer options to bypass taxes using complicated structures (over multiple countries). I am saying start there, because that will help governments close the gap in their budget.
Evaluating anything is subjective, that's why they often do at least two evaluations when a company is being sold. At least here in NL, where we don't spend a lot of the military and the Ukraine war is only 2200 km away. We do buy out farmers to reduce the amount of farmers to lessen the CO2 emissions of our country, but that is beside the point. As I said, our old wealth tax system was shut down because it was unfair. The tax office in NL assumed everybody had a 4% interest on their savings (above 30k) and other assets that fell in that category and that was taxed. Due to the interest being below 4% (or even being negative) people were taxed unfairly. Including a lot of the middle class who already pay a lot of taxes. Finding other people who are willing to work in accountancy or as evaluators are hard to find. I love my job, but a lot of people think it's boring or have other wrong ideas about the job.
At least here in NL and other countries with a social security system that is complicated people mess up when doing their taxes or applying for their social security. I sadly see it way to often even with clients of mine. That's more my point with that the bureaucracy can be to complicated.
You are wrong that every small company or company owner is struggling to survive. Some are yeah, especially once who have had a lot of issues due to COVID and gotten COVID support they need to pay back. Others are making 1 or 2 million profit per year or more. A small company in The Netherlands is a company with below 50 full-time employees, less than 7.5m balance sheet total and less than 15m revenue. This caused these people to pay less taxed percentage-wise than say a working middle-class person and this was easier to do something about. I would love to see somebody like Musk to pay 99% taxes on every dollar he makes, but I am sceptic that it is feasible and I think we should start with easier stuff. That is more my point.
Setting up a company abroad isn’t just a loophole—it’s a system feature. The EU’s slow cooperation isn’t accidental; it’s a deliberate design to protect capital mobility for the wealthy while governments feign helplessness. Taxing millionaires first? Sure, but only if we stop coddling them with “economic growth” excuses.
Evaluating companies isn’t “too subjective”; it’s underfunded by choice. Bureaucracy in the Netherlands isn’t the problem—inaction is. If wealth taxes were shut down as “unfair,” why not fix the system instead of abandoning it? The middle class paying for systemic failures isn’t justice; it’s exploitation.
And small businesses making 1-2 million annually? That’s cherry-picking exceptions to justify inaction. Most small business owners are barely surviving, not gaming tax systems like billionaires
They are working for a reason to fix the Box 3 tax system, but the judge made them stop the next year.
Call it what you want that people can abuse international structures. It is legal and it’s going to stay legal for a while since there are also valid reasons to setup an international structure. Especislly for bigger companies.
Evaluating companies is subjective or well at least for the sale of the company it is. The seller will always value his work a ton and the buyer will always under value that work. Then there are also synergystic effects that will affect the value. Ow what do you think of evaluating hard to sell stock? Or living stock like animals? Even then a balance sheet is still a snapshot of a company.
Idk if you have ever done any valuations yourself, but standardising them is pretty hard. It is possible to some degree for which I agree. Now if you find a good way to do that efficiently and fair to everybody please let me know then I can pass it on. Or if you know some good ways to fix the capacity in accounting let me know. (Not bookkeeping)
I am not Cherry picking situations, just think about it. Upto a revenue of 15 million (actually it can be more, but let’s just stick with that 15M) I can hope that you can make a profit of 1 or 2m a year. Often you will split this between multiple companies for tax and security reasons, but consolidated it should earn you a pretty penny. There are outliers and I also have seen companies who have 30-40m revenue (which we consider medium sized companies), but only 1 or 2m profit every year.
More people working in the accounting field is an upside to me so I am all for it. If we need to start evaluating companies every year it would be beneficial to me and the company I work for (assuming we can get the capacity).
The Box 3 tax system wasn’t stopped because it was inherently flawed—it was halted because the legal system prioritized protecting wealth under the guise of “human rights.” Let’s not pretend this wasn’t a calculated move to shield the elite. Fixing it is possible, but only if governments stop bending over backward for those exploiting the system.
Yes, international structures are legal, but legality doesn’t equal morality. They exist to enable tax avoidance, with “valid reasons” as a convenient cover. The fact that something is hard to regulate doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be regulated. Complexity isn’t an excuse; it’s a challenge to overcome.
Evaluating hard-to-sell assets? Sure, it’s tricky, but standardization isn’t impossible. The problem isn’t methodology—it’s political will and resource allocation. If you’re genuinely advocating for more capacity in accounting and evaluation, then support policies that fund these efforts instead of dismissing them as impractical.
As for your claim about small companies making 1-2 million profit annually: splitting profits across multiple entities to reduce taxes is a privilege of those who can afford such strategies. Most small businesses don’t have this luxury—they’re too busy staying afloat. Stop conflating these outliers with the broader reality of struggling entrepreneurs.
How about we halve the billionaires while we are at it?
Or just seize anything above a billion, the number of billionaires are now zero.
Redistribute seized assets and poverty is eliminated.
Stop, you’re being too sensible.
The French have invented a marvelous tool for that. It leaves the wealthy a bit lightheaded.
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The biggest challenge with an "owned wealth" tax is how do you actually measure it? It's easy if it's held in cash in a bank, but most billionaire's wealth is is land, property, and how do you measure the value of a Picasso stored in a vault if they can slip the valuator a grand to say it's worthless?
Closing offshore money transfer loopholes, heightened tax on luxury spending (100% VAT on private jets and yachts?), making fines income-based, and treating capital gains the same way as income, are all more achievable.
I'm totally on board with the sentiment though.
Make every time it's used as collateral a taxable event. Prosecute for fraud any valuations that try to dodge tax. Its a very fixable problem.
For those with wealth or income above a certain amount, require that their wealth is assessed annually, not on sale only and capital gains tax is paid each year.
They want
- the creation of a wealth register
- implementation of high wealth tax + inheritance tax
- penalize wealth hiding/capital flight via exit tax and binding taxation to citizenship
Forbes and the rich themselves have no issue assigning net worth.
It's not hard to setup objective parameters that measure wealth in all the forms it can be held.
The idea that it isn't is propaganda
Tax = Purchase Cost × Minimum Wage(Moment of Purchase) ÷ Minimum Wage(Moment Tax is Charged)
You can multiply that all by a magnitude term, depending on the taxation frequency, or to charge more/less.
This is a totally arbitrary formula intended to discourage holding non-cash assets that provide no intrinsic utility, and it incentivises owners to raise the minimum wage.
It isn't hard to come up with these sorts of measures, in fact I bet you the reader have some ideas about how my suggestion can be improved. A team of experts could come up with something much better, and they CAN be enforced (don't believe their lies). You just need to disentangle yourself from notions of rules-based "fairness" that exist to justify & preserve our presently lawless economy, where might makes right.
Why do you think art is used all the time for money laundering? It’s almost impossible to determine how much it’s worth. Well until someone buys it.
Wow is this a bad article, full of half-true side tangents and „they're not gonna make it anyway.“
I wonder if DW and its friends are scared :P
PS. The initiative has been around for a while, is independent to any party: https://www.tax-the-rich.eu/
DW is the german government's international broadcast. It's the only actually state-owned and tax-funded media outlet left in Germany.
Critical voices have risen since the current director general, Peter Limbourg took over. Employees went to The Guardian in 2020 to open up about antisemitic, racist and sexist power structures and cultures of bullying, abuse of power and oppression.
In 2019, the editor-in-chief advertised for Ursula von der Leyen for the EU elections.
Incidentally, Die Linke criticized a new direction of the programs in 2014 right after Limbourg took over in 2013.
So, yeah, DW might not like Die Linke very much.
That’s a fantastic quote. This is how you can still run campaigns today!
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It is quite likely that we will not make be part of a government, but the plans are there and every person we convince, that this is the way to go is good.
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Sounds good to me
It's not fair... It should be way more than that.
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