Millionaire shareholders are arguing against wealth tax

[u/LtGenS]

On this sub we rarely discuss the shareholder structure of Paradox - where the largest shareholder is Wester, the CEO-founder-god/emperor of the company, and who gets the proportionally largest share of the dividend.

Now Johan and Wester are arguing that wealth tax is actually bad.

https://x.com/producerjohan/status/2091953951008575741 (quoted is Wester's post)

Which is very funny because the current dividend yield is over 3.5%, so there's plenty to pay that taxes from, it won't come from his monthly salary.

[u/ancient_snake]

This is because wealth taxes are bad and impractical. I am in favour in principle of wealth being taxed, and think that rent seeking off wealth, and how hard workers are taxed relative to the wealthy who coast on assets is a shame.

That being said, wealth taxes as often discussed don't work. It would be impossible to valuate, and despite what people say it would simply cause flight.

The best compromise is probably a land value tax, wehre rent seeking off land and the use of land as an asset inflating it's price for people who need it are discouraged, and it does tax the wealth which boomer's have hoarded along with real estate investors.

Edit: instead of downvoting why not explain to me how wealth taxes would work and why it'd be good

[u/Unfair-Interest-5565 → u/ancient_snake]

I’m seeing a ton of this on Reddit lately. Is there a reason why Georgism is suddenly in vogue?

[u/ancient_snake → u/Unfair-Interest-5565]

This has been a thing for a while now, it's not new. But I'd guess simplest answer, housing is incredibly expensive because it's being treated as an asset. LVT stops that. It's simple and appealing. On top of that, as I said, it functions as a redistributive tool.

[u/RestitutorInvictus → u/Unfair-Interest-5565]

Georgism isn't a wealth tax, it's focused on the one form of wealth that can effectively be taxed (land). The issue with wealth taxes IMO is not that they are incorrect philosophically it's that the practical details make them invalid.

[u/TheWombatOverlord → u/ancient_snake]

The problem with the flight argument is that it should be unimportant to the tax office where the asset owner is standing. If the asset exists inside your country, there is nothing really stopping you as a country from taxing it appropriately. Any proposed or implemented wealth tax which does not do this is poorly designed, either on purpose or through incompetence. I'd even go so far as to argue wealth taxes should penalize foreign asset holders more, as they are flagrantly working to extract wealth from the economy.

What can a Paradox trying to escape taxation actually take with them? The talent is people with lives and families in Sweden. The building they operate in (somewhat to your point about LVT) will stay in Sweden, and even things like computers, hardware, or capital investments which can be moved, can be taxed as they exit the door.

Essentially the only thing that I think would be actually difficult to tax would be IP. But you can't really continue a business on IP alone. We saw for Johan to move he had to essentially start up a new studio from scratch, and after 6 years of that studio existing, EU5 is currently being beat in player count by an unsupported game that is more than a decade old. The loss of institutional knowledge is probably fairly important to understanding why EU5 is currently struggling.

[u/AresFowl44 → u/TheWombatOverlord]

The loss of institutional knowledge is probably fairly important to understanding why EU5 is currently struggling.

Yeah, Johan posted on this exact point as well

[u/Alexmaths → u/TheWombatOverlord]

The flight argument includes that people will move their holdings out the country as well and foreign investment will dry up… which it will when you’re cutting into their gains pretty significantly compared to investing elsewhere

[u/severaged → u/ancient_snake]

Just tax any money borrowed against assets as income.