I mean you could even take the bottom number and leave them with the top number and they could still live in unimaginable luxury forever. Or just take the lot because fuck em lol.
I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.
Most of their billions is ownership in companies they grew into what they are today. It's not like they have billions to spend, it's that their ownership is worth billions according to the market.
True, but that ownership gives them access to very low interest loans that they then use as spending money and don't have to pay taxes on it
If they are self-made millionaires/billionaires as they claim, take everything they have/own and tell them to start the quest again, no glitches, DLC, or saved progress.
You all realize they don't have that money laying around to pay the IRS right? They own companies, those companies are worth that much. To pay that you would have to liquidate those companies. So no more Amazon, Tesla, Space X, etc...
Don't be a bootlicker or bot or idiot.
When they sell their shares to buy twitter or pay the tax man, those companies still exist. It just means that other people get to buy those shares and that's a good thing, because that way those companies get owned by the public.
Tesla and SpaceX still exist even after Elon overpaid by some $30B for his Twitter adventure.
no more Amazon, Tesla, Space X, etc...
Oh no! Anyway, so how can we make this happen, like, yesterday?
Tax billionaires until there are no more billionaires
It's really insane that we legally treat the tenth billion dollars at the same level as a working persons house or car.
Everything is legally just "property".
No, fuck that.
The law should protect the first million of every citizen with ferver. (and when we tackle wealth inequality, most people will have this level of wealth at the end of their working life. The fact that most currently don't is due to inequality. )
Up until 100 million, it should be taxed at a reasonable level. Because at some level, it's fair that people prefer watching Taylor Swift instead of me sing on a stage.
Above that it should be taxed heavily.
And above a billion, it should be just confiscated. As in, oopsie, our system malfunctioned, you weren't supposed to end up with more wealth than what a thousand normal people would save up after a whole lifetime of work, so we are taking it back.
you weren't supposed to end up with more wealth than what a thousand normal people would save up after a while lifetime of work
I actively try to cheat at every single-player game that I play. I still don't think I've accumulated a billion anything other than self-criticisms. Even that's questionable.
Do billionaires actually have billions in real money sitting around? I've always thought the billions were in stocks and couldn't be taxed until they cashed it out and they could technically lose everything if the stock price falls. That's really fucked up if true
Nobody keeps that amount of cash. Even below a million, most people have most of their wealth in either real estate (their own house) or financial securities (stocks, ETFs, bonds).
Yet, we all gotta pay property tax and capital gains.
The billionaires just have loopholes that they use to never realize gains with loan schemes and trust funds.
The billionaires just have loopholes that they use to never realize gains with loan schemes and trust funds. <
Isnt that then bigger problem than generally tax the rich?
Is there a difference?
Closing loopholes = taxing the rich
If the tax code lost all the loopholes, there probably would be no billionaires.
Sad day when "billionaires should pay taxes" is considered a far left position.
Wealth taxes are stupid. That said, nobody needs multiple hundreds of billions of dollars.
The solution is to have regulations and laws in place that prevent them getting this large in the first place. The fact that Amazon and Google own 90% of the internet is absolutely fucked.
I agree, no one should be able to hold such an obscene amount of wealth. Right now they do, though. How do you propose this be remedied?
Right, let's go back in time and fix it.
Uhhh is the ask to liquidate their assets? They will just sell a Picaso painting that they 'value' at 60% of their gross income.
Why do you guys fetishize these billionaires and not the giant hedge fund pools that make these guys rich in the first place?
Um, tax those too.
We don't need to be perfect with just one proposal. We can have at least 2 proposals.
Yeah and maybe also cutting down on their non-profit organisations scheme to avoid taxes would be nice..
Counterpoint: But they don't wanna pay taxes! They don't wannaaaaaaaaaaa.... why are you being so mean to the precious billionaires?
So there are irreconcilable issues on this issue and Congress is currently too busy trying to impeach Biden because his son had dick pics on his laptop.
Wealth taxes actually work, that's why the rich attack them so vehemently.
I'd be willing to be taxed into oblivion if I knew it'd mean everyone else could lead full lives. And I make nothing.
Now imagine the good their excess wealth could do.
Here's the basic idea of what I'd think is fair
You have a basic rate for income below the 20th percentile of all incomes
Multiply that by 1.5 for income between that and the 40th percentile
Multiply that by 1.25 for income between that and the 60th percentile
Multiply that by 1.125 for income between that and the 80th percentile
Multiply that by 1.0625 for income between that and the 95th percentile
Multiply that by 1.03125 for income between that and the 99th percentile
Multiply that by 1.015625 for all income above the 99th percentile, with the additional caveat that people who top this bracket even once cannot hold public office, donate to political campaigns, or hire lobbyists and lobbying firms for ten years following them topping out.
Imagine something similar for taxes on units of housing owned, dividends earned, and so on and so forth.
The idea being that the highest rate can't be adjusted without significantly reducing the tax burden of the poorest, basically erasing the only way conservatives have been able to balance the books whenever they try that shit.
Unpopular opinion: You’ll get the same amount out of the billionaires if you tax them 3% or 97%.
3% is a fair share?
3% annually would be really huge, and probably shrink a lot of personal wealth out there. 3% one time is not as big of a deal, but it also doesn't raise so much revenue. The problem with a one time wealth tax is it incentivizes a future government to try a second one-time wealth tax, and then maybe a third. Soon enough it's not really a one-time tax any more.
In the United States there would also be a serious question on whether wealth tax was constitutional. The income tax was not raised until the 16th amendment explicitly gave Congress the power. It's possible the court will say there's no power to levy a national wealth tax absent an amendment.
As of this point every wealth tax that has been implemented ends up getting abandoned because if how inefficient they are. It's like rent control, it sounds great on paper bu historically never works out like it was planned.
When do we start burning things.
Even if the wealth tax will get passed, it'll cost much less than a billion dollars to hire a big and expensive team of lawyers and accountants that can find several ways to bypass it.
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