Germany's Left Party wants to halve billionaires' wealth
The Left Party says "there shouldn't be any billionaires." With Germany gearing up for an election, the far-left force has launched a new tax plan — though it will most likely never get a chance to implement it.
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.
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.
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.
That's fine by me. Just leave me a piece 👍 preferably the bit that contains all the hard work they did to become a billionaire.
If they halve the billionaires wealth then there will be zero billionaires
Actshually... we call them billionaires after their first billion, but many have more than just 1 billion. Btw, until recently I didn't really knew how different is a billion from a million... For the record, 1M seconds is about 11 days. Meanwhile, 1B seconds is about 31 years. I think this helps to get a sense of the scale.
And if after that, they still have a billion, half it again. Etc.
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.
They want
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.
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.
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.
Better than no coverage at all imho. 🤷
Sounds good to me
It's not fair... It should be way more than that.
Yeah, but it not unlikely that "Die Linke" wont get into Parliament because of the "5% Barrier"(A Mechanism that prevents parties from entering the German Parliament, if they are below 5% total votes. There are some complicated exceptions, but basicly this is it). Furthermore many Parties dont want to form a coalation with them and this could be against german constitution ... So this is very unlikely to happen.
They are almost certain to enter because they'll get three or more direct seats. Which isn't complicated at all. Heck there's plenty of CDU voters who'd vote for Gysi. It also doesn't look too bad when it comes to taking the 5% hurdle directly.
Of course, getting into parliament is not the same as getting into government, that would require a miracle.
Yeah, Well see :X
You can't say it'd be against the constituion. That is debatable (and debated, see e.g. Wolfgang Abendroth).
The interpretation of the constitution is subject to powerdynamics as well. And it's the only smart way to design a constitution if it's meant to be the everstanding stable foundation of a society. .. cause you know, those tend to change
The US left party too
The USA has a left party? What is it called?
The mythical left leaning USA political party. I heard a long time ago it comes out once every thousands years before quickly crawling back under the rock for whence it came.
Treating the symptom and not the problem IMO.
Invest in worker co-ops that are equally owned by the workers instead.
