Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to impose a 50% inheritance tax on the super-rich. Approximately 79% voted against the initiative. About 43% of the Swiss population participated in the referendum.
The far-left Young Socialists party proposed a 50% federal inheritance and gift tax on estates and transfers above SFr50mn. Revenue would be earmarked for climate-related spending.
It was a proposed tax on inheritance above f50 million.
But it was a not well thought out proposal that would penalise Swiss firms owned by families.
Iâd have preferred to see a proposal for, for example, a minimum wealth tax where tax cannot be deferred or avoided using various schemes.
I heard a comment about this yesterday. The issue was not taxing the rich but politicians increasing taxes without explaining what to do with the extra revenue. âclimate policiesâ was too fuzzy, nothing concrete. This looked very bad for voters.
Reminds me of this:
Young angry people who havenât thought it through or prepared properly.
It was âpolitics of envyâ at its worst. Straight out of cloud cuckoo land. And a shame on the Swiss voting system.
âIâm not rich and I donât like it that others are - so tax the richâ.
The estate is CHF49,999,000 - OK no tax. A franc more and weâll have half. Donât worry weâll spend it on something goodâŠ
I am sure only over 50M would be taxed at 50%, not the whole estate if this had become law.
In the communist country where I was born there was a popular joke. I translated it with ChatGPT:
"In 1917, a Decembristâs granddaughter hears noise in the street and sends a servant to find out whatâs going on.
Soon the servant returns:
âThereâs a revolution, madam!â
âOh, a revolution! Wonderful! My grandfather was a revolutionary too! And what do they want?â
âThey want there to be no rich people.â
âStrange⊠My grandfather wanted there to be no poor people.â
My take is that more than 100K signatures for popular initiatives (or 50K, for the referendums)are needed âŠor people will keep on wasting time (and money) on voting senseless things proposed by airheads, which are then rejected by 80% of the population. The 1st popular initiative dates back to 1892, when 90k signatures were collectedâŠamong a 2 M Swiss population (and when and where women didnât have the right to vote). For a population of 9 M (where I assume 7M are Swiss), I am of the opinion that 100K signatures are waaaaayyy too few to maintain a âstableâ and sensical evolution of the Carta Magna.
Yah, but âŠ
I think it is an excellent way of opening discussion on important issues. Itâs also reminding Parliament that the people donât necessarily agree with what they are doing.
IMHO the initiative failed because it was not well thought out and the destination of revenue was not clearly defined.
Iâd be interested the results of a survey with the simple question would be. âDo the wealthy and ultra-wealthy pay a fair share of taxes?
Money puts our politicians into office, there is only one further authority - the people.
Well, best Switzerland could do with these piles of money would be to invest them, much like Norway invests extra cash from the Oil. The worst they could do, is to burn it on stupid things like climate change programs, thatâs exactly the model which corrupts financial systems of all âdemocraticâ countries with central government: hey thereâs a centrally collected pile of money to spend, come show your idea and participate in burning it⊠anything is better than this, even just redistributing it directly to all residents
Without women and kids (and there were much more kids back then) the number of voters was less than a million, right? So, they had to collect signatures from the 10% of voters?
pretty much⊠thatâs why I added the link; so itâs factualâŠ
@sichuan let me quote the previous (socialist) Spanish vicepresident " «Estamos manejando dinero pĂșblico, y el dinero pĂșblico no es de nadie» ( âwe (the government) manage public money, and public money is nobodyâs moneyâ ). Carmen Calvo - Wikiquote
Well, at least she didnât hide the feeling 