I was just rereading something by Ernest Bywater. At the end was a note about it being available on Bookapy. That caused me to wonder.
Does his son/estate get the income from his Bookapy sales? I hope so, but I just wondered if there is a procedure in place to handle that. I have no clue how the funds from Bookapy are handled.
Most likely: By Will or By Law
From some things EB posted in the forums, I think he had a Will. If he did not, then it would be by Australian Laws of inheritance.
As a practical matter, whomever has control of his accounts, email and banking, would be receiving whatever income from Bookapy.
I haven't looked into the matter of USA taxes and required reporting; c.2019 there was discussion about sales on Amazon and eBay being mandatorily reported to the IRS. Also, sales such as "garage" sales, "flea markets" and Everything else being declared to the IRS. However, since Bookapy is based in Canada, I am not sure if they automatically report any income (of authors who reside in the USA) is automatically reported to the USA IRS. Even less so than Australia.
I presume that Bookapy pays all relevant Canadian taxes, as well as Laz's nation of residence. I doubt that income information is automatically provided to ALL nations that might deem they are due a share of such income.
There has been some reporting about the Brazilian Government considering enacting a law that would impose a "global" on all Billionaires! I doubt that Communist China, nor Russia, Switzerland, Luxemburg, etc. would comply with such legislation.
c.2019 there was discussion about sales on Amazon and eBay being mandatorily reported to the IRS.
Amazon KDP royalties have always been reported to the IRS. The IRS sends out a 1099-MISC to anyone with income.
Bookapy pays with PayPal. For the past year or two, the IRS said they were going to make PayPal report transactions. Then it would be up to each individual to prove a PayPal deposit was not income, but something like from a friend. But they keep delaying the implementation of that.
There has been some reporting about the Brazilian Government considering enacting a law that would impose a "global" on all Billionaires!
That's not quite what they are proposing.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/02/brazil-global-tax-billionaires-perfect-sense
The Brazilian government has an even more ambitious proposal – for an annual global tax levied at 2% on the wealth of the world's billionaires. The French economist Gabriel Zucman has been asked to draw up a detailed plan for how a billionaire wealth tax would work ready for a meeting of G20 finance ministers in July.
The Brazilian government isn't just looking to pass a law that would be impossible to enforce, they are trying to get an international body to adopt this global tax.
What a great idea :-(
...with the best of intentions. What could possibly go wrong?
https://reason.com/video/2024/03/08/great-moments-in-unintended-consequences-road-noise-meters-san-francisco-red-state-boycott-and-pennsylvanias-political-cartoon-ban-vol-15/
I have absolute confidence that anybody with a billion dollars or more in personal wealth is able to get in touch with some subset of the G20 finance ministers and express their opinion on a proposed wealth tax. "Taxation without representation" doesn't strike me as an active concern here.
Really? Let me know when you get a vote on the subject. No need to tell me whether you're for or against a global wealth tax.
AJ
Sure thing! My state and federal elections will be in November this year, which is when I will cast votes for representatives and legislators who will propose (or decline to propose) things like a tax on personal wealth in excess of 1,000,000,000 United States Dollars. Those representatives and legislators will then debate and negotiate those proposals and ultimately vote to enact or not enact them, as well as fund the government organizations in charge of collecting the taxes and auditing the population taxed. It's not a perfect system, lord knows I've been plenty unhappy with it at times, but you asked when i get to vote on a wealth tax and that's when (:
And who decides where money collected from US citizens et al would be spent. A 'global' organisation, I believe someone mentioned. Hopefully not an institutionally racist and corrupt organisation like the United Nations.
AJ
That is not an answer to my question! The answer is "the united states government, in which I am represented, decides if united states citizens are subject to this global tax", which is why your initial descriptor of this being taxation without representation is incorrect. There may be other nations in which it would be accurate, but as a broad generalization your statement was wrong.
The US government might be the body to decide whether the US uber-rich are subject to the tax, but it sounds as though the income wouldn't go to the US government but to an international body over which the electorate would have no say - taxation without representation.
AJ
I'm not sure I've ever seen that interpretation of the phrase before! It doesn't appear to align with how I've commonly understood it, e.g. "it is suppos'd an undoubted Right of Englishmen not to be taxed but by their own Consent given thro' their Representatives" as written by Benjamin Franklin, who lamented to William Shirley[1] that the colonies had no representation in the government levying taxes on them, and therefore had no say in the expenses being incurred which necessitated the taxes themselves.
[1]https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-05-02-0125
There still has to be a treaty approved by the Senate for the US to participate.
That's entirely aside from the fact that a wealth tax is impossible to enforce. They've been tried and failed numerous times in the past and people just work around them. Even if they were enforceable, they are self limiting: if you tax wealth, you reduce it and soon wind up with no one to collect from.
a wealth tax is impossible to enforce
Yeah, I'm curious to see what the proposal is - arguably there are some forms of wealth tax that exist, like I think I could make a plausible argument that the property tax on my house is a form of wealth tax, but of course property ownership is a matter of public record and not every other form of wealth is so handily tracked. And yeah, it also runs into issues where somebody's net worth is calculated on the expected future value of income streams available to them etc etc, it's a tricky problem but probably not unsolvable.
Even if they were enforceable, they are self limiting: if you tax wealth, you reduce it and soon wind up with no one to collect from.
This is true in some but not all cases. The tax rate would have to be somewhere above the rate of growth for the wealth in order for an individual to end up with less wealth than they started - remember that wealth compounds starting from your first dollar, while the wealth tax only starts counting the dollars after your first billion, so a tax of 2 percent on wealth over a billion would only reduce somebody to having less than a billion dollars if their fortune CONSISTENTLY grew by under two percent year over year.
If you set the tax at some significantly higher rate, like 25 percent, then yes: the tax would be self-limiting and you'd end up with a population of people with personal fortunes that hovers just below the cutoff of a billion dollars, occasionally popping above that line and getting trimmed down by tax. At that point, I suppose people would feel emboldened by success and move on to the next problem they want to solve.
it's a tricky problem but probably not unsolvable.
It is unsolvable.
Real property taxes work to a certain extent because the asset is both immovable and relatively easy to appraise if a real effort is made. Even there people contest the appraisal more often and more successfully than you would think.
Even wealth taxes involving easy to change parts of real property such as window, frontage and hearth taxes were complete failures.
Personal property is extremely difficult to either find or appraise. Most personal property is easily transferred in both location to tax-free zones, to different ownership or different forms. Most share value in public companies is illusory: you own 25% of a $100B market value company, it does not have a value of $25B.
All a tax like this would do is discourage investment and raise the cost of easily concealed tangible assets.
Personal property is extremely difficult to either find or appraise. Most personal property is easily transferred in both location to tax-free zones, to different ownership or different forms.
Tax personal property based on insured value over some threshhold? If you don't want to pay tax on it, you run the risk of loss in fire or disaster.
Most share value in public companies is illusory: you own 25% of a $100B market value company, it does not have a value of $25B.
Tax shares at their FMV when you use them as collateral in a loan, which is what people do to avoid having taxable capital gains when they want to realize value from their stocks without paying taxes.
Tax personal property based on insured value over some threshhold? If you don't want to pay tax on it, you run the risk of loss in fire or disaster.
Insured value is not FMV. You insure things for more than they are worth to cover future appreciation. Regardless of the insured value almost no policy will pay more than the actual value at time of loss.
Tax shares at their FMV when you use them as collateral in a loan, which is what people do to avoid having taxable capital gains when they want to realize value from their stocks without paying taxes.
If you are a major shareholder the actual value of your shares is substantially less than the share price. You can't liquidate your shares without major depression of the share value.
Insured value is not FMV. You insure things for more than they are worth to cover future appreciation. Regardless of the insured value almost no policy will pay more than the actual value at time of loss.
Handily, that doesn't matter here! If you want to inflate the value of your possessions and net worth, then you pay more in taxes.
If you are a major shareholder the actual value of your shares is substantially less than the share price. You can't liquidate your shares without major depression of the share value.
Yep, so we'll say that the value of your stock holdings is the lesser of cost basis or FMV for the purposes of wealth calculation, and then let's tax capital gains on sale and additionally let's tax a stock at FMV when you pledge it as collateral in a loan and reset the cost basis of the stock, so that you don't get double-taxed if you sell it (:
I just wondered if there is a procedure in place to handle that.
The author has to have a relationship with someone, say his son, who he instructs how to take ownership of his novels and accounts. He'd have to provide that person the user-ids and passwords for the accounts and the procedures for managing the accounts and getting paid.