PURCHASE HERE
Most people regard billionaires as too rich and powerful, but they think there’s no way to change that. Wrong — as Linda McQuaig and tax expert Neil Brooks explain in their new book.
We hear a lot about the “affordability crisis.” But that’s just another way of saying people don’t have enough money. In fact, our economy is generating enormous wealth, but it’s increasingly ending up in the hands of billionaires and multi-millionaires. Their share of our national wealth gets ever bigger, while the share going to the rest of us shrinks.
The super-rich, with their gigantic carbon footprint, are also the key drivers of climate change and the key opponents of climate action.
A wealth tax could be a highly effective tool for redistributing the wealth hoarded at the top, and reining in the destructive power of the super-rich.
A Canadian wealth tax would be aimed exclusively at the super-rich – that is, those with fortunes worth more than $25 million. Yet it could raise $40 billion a year.
Polls show that almost 90 percent of Canadians support a wealth tax, and there are signs of a rising backlash — in the U.S. and elsewhere –against the dominance of the billionaire class.
Of course, billionaires would threaten to depart. Fine, but they’d face a hefty “exit tax” on the way out. Their threat of departure – the ace up their sleeves – turns out to be hollow.
Yes, change is possible.
