Kim Griest
1 min readMar 6, 2020

--

That is an excellent question. Of course, Americans have to pay US taxes on all their income no matter where they live, and, somehow during the Eisenhower era Americans didn’t all move abroad. One should study history carefully and proceed slowly, gradually raising rates. Wealthy Americans can, of course, renounce their citizenship and not pay American taxes; Warren (with Piketty co-authors Zucman and Saez) suggest a large one-time tax on wealthy Americans who renounce citizenship. And, many other types of sanctions could be placed on such “un-American” activites. A important problem is that much wealth is hidden in tax-havens, etc. Piketty argues a main reason for even a very tiny wealth tax is to force people to declare their hidden wealth (to work it would require large penalties for lying, plus lots of forensic accountants at the IRS). Piketty also points out that to really work well, it would require many of the industrial nations to buy into it. I would say, after gaining majorities in democracies that like the idea, think carefully about implementation and move somewhat slowly in a coordinated manner. So, overall, not easy to do, but essential.

--

--

Responses (2)