2020- 2022 Policy Process | Green Party of Canada

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G21-P056 Eliminate Extreme Wealth Via Progressive Taxation

Official proposal

05/06/2021 13:25

Submitter Name

Atul Bahl

Ratification Vote Results: Adopted

PDPC Comment: P056 has significant content overlap with P057. Both P056 and P057 were adopted at the 18th General Meeting.

Proposal

The GPC will advocate for: increasing tax rates for higher income brackets; imposing steep, progressive wealth and inheritance taxes on net worth and estates over $10 million and 100% on wealth and estates above a certain cap; and taxing income from capital at a rate equal to income from labour.

Objective

To reduce wealth concentration and inequality in Canada and thereby to protect and strengthen Canadian democracy.

Benefit

Extreme wealth threatens democracy. The ultra-rich have the resources to bend the political and legal systems and the corporate media to their will. To prevent this and create the conditions in which democracy can thrive, we must greatly reduce the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

Supporting Comments from Submitter

1. From the late 1930s to the early 1970s, the top marginal tax rate in Canada exceeded 70% and, for some years during that period, it exceeded 90%. See: How Much Income Tax Could Canada’s 1% Pay?, October 2015. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2015/10/How_Much_Tax_Could_Canadas_Top_1_Pay.pdf.

2. See Wetiko: On Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition:

https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/seeing-wetiko-on-capitalism-mind-viruses-and-antidotes-for-a-world-in-transition/

3. Capital and Ideology, Thomas Piketty.

4. Canada’s top billionaires are $37 billion richer since start of the pandemic, September 16, 2020. Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:

https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/billionaires-wealth-pandemic

5. Growing wealth inequality 'dangerous' threat to democracy: experts, April 15, 2016, Reuters:

https://ca.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0XC1Q2.

6. Wealth Tax? Canadians like the idea. November 19, 2020, Abacus Data:

https://abacusdata.ca/wealth-tax-canada-poll/.

Green Value(s)

Ecological Wisdom, Sustainability, Participatory Democracy, Social Justice, Respect for Diversity, Non-Violence.

Relation to Existing Policy

Add to current GPC policies G18-P021 Eliminate the Use of Tax Havens, G14-P02 High-frequency Stock Trading Tax, G10-p23 Robin Hood Tax, and G08-p026: Tobin Tax to Increase Foreign Aid.