Raise taxes on all 930 billionaires in the United States
8d 19h ago by lemmy.zip/u/favoredponcho in progressivepolitics from files.catbox.moe
Time to bring back the 90% tax bracket.
That was on income, accounting practices mean they have fuck all income. He's right, go after the wealth.
How about we just get rid of them and take the wealth and distribute it that way? They'd do the same to us.
Fine by me.
If you're writing a novel, that might work, but most of us need a solution that can actually be implemented. Taxing capital gains is a solution that can be implemented.
Taxing capital gains wouldn't do much since the rich don't sell their stocks they just use them for collateral on loans. You need to tax them based on the current value of their stocks similar to property taxes.
That's a practice that should be outlawed anyway. Stocks are inherently volatile, so using them to back loans is a really bad idea. I'm surprised lenders allow them to do it, because you'd think they'd want to be sure their investments are secure.
That being said, raising tax brackets on capital gains is only a partial solution. We'd also need to close loopholes that allow them to defer taxation indefinitely, such as eliminating exemptions for reinvesting dividends. The interest they accrue in a year should all be subject to that year's taxation.
Write-offs need to be fixed as well. So many of them use shell companies to buy a bunch of luxury items as "business expenses" just to lower their tax liability. That needs to change.
The whole tax code needs to be reworked, but assuming we can manage to do that, then a one-time wealth tax (along the lines of 99% after the first billion) followed by higher, fully-graduated capital gains tax brackets (up to say 99% after the first 100 million) would be enough.
As long as it's combined with more comprehensive reforms such as repealing Citizens United, and reinstating Net Neutrality and the Fairness Doctrine, among other things.
Oh, and moving beyond FPTP to proportional representation and/or ranked-choice voting. Maybe adding a few political parties to break up the duopoly (at a minimum I say five: centrists, moderate left, moderate right, hardline left, and hardline right; this would effectively force parties to build coalitions and govern by consensus, rather than endless campism and mudslinging).
Disclaimer:
I know, it might sound questionable to give hardline right-wingers a party but the reasons for doing so include maintaining a semblance of impartiality and balance, as well as containment.
It doesn't mean every party is guaranteed 20% of seats in congress. Let them have their lunatic fringe* and let the voters show what they think of them. Lots of republican voters hate maga and wish there were more moderate republicans (doesn't mean I agree with them on most things, but I've spoken to many who think they just don't have any other option).
*(this doesn't mean tolerating hatred, oppression, or treasonous and unconstitutional conduct, by the way; but if 3 or 4 out of 5 parties can agree to censure such conduct, then that makes it a lot easier to manage than when you just have two parties divided neatly down the middle).
It also enables progressives to untether from the Democratic Party, and guide their own policy agendas. This will, in the long run, demonstrate which is more popular with the voters, without the artificial suppression from the DNC leadership.
Bring back luxury taxes and inheritance taxes.
it was 35% after obama left, trump reduced it to 20% in his first term. we will never get back to even where obama's taxes was.
This man SEXTED me so PLEASE vote for Susan Collins (who will Promise to Keep RICH PEOPLES taxes LOW!)!
-The NY Times!
I've heard she's very concerned about things.
she votes whatever the gop, and murowski votes tells them when to vote or not vote against.
Her brow has never been so furrowed.
or the other schumer fossil, Mills.
Biggest tax scams foisted on us by those in power and their buddies:
- All taxes are bad
- Private is always better than public
- Cutting taxes to the bone will always benefit you.
On the other hand I'm sick of seeing funds designated for a specific use (like education) that end up being used for everything else instead.
especially since we saw how high taxes lead to a large middle class and lowering them has been eroding it ever since.
Kansas proved how stupid their Supply Side/ Trickle Down bullshit really is.
we should not even need that. we see historically it results in short term boost and long term suffering. we keep digging that hole lower and don't understand how we are not getting out.
Well sources are nice to have regardless of how blatantly obvious
yeah. unfortunately we live in an age where we constantly have to prove that vaccines and masks are good for preventing contagion and the earth is getting hotter due to us putting various things in the air and that water is wet.
My anxiety is skyrocketing as it seems it's just bad news after bad news. I've been in tears about the recent India heatwave.
Unfortunately its hard to give comfort from my perspective as I getcha and we see the stuff and we know its from stuff we saw coming but the ones with money and power call the shots. I think Ive felt similarly with like bombed out complexes with ukraine. I mean like even if they were all alive the thought of all those homes gone. We have a building across the street that had a fire like a half decade ago. It mostly rebuilt but still surrounded by construction fence. I don't think anyone living there before will be living there when its finally occupable again. Im sorry I don't mean to add to the stuff I more want to relate that you are not alone. Other people see it and are sad, depressed, anxious, etc. it sucks and yeah I hate it.
Thanks for getting it. I need to spend more time outdoors because it's so distressing and me being miserable doesn't help anyone.
yeah the things that bring me the greates comfort is pets, the outdoors, and being immersed in water.
You're speaking my language! I'm cuddling with my cat right now and planning a camping trip with a swimming hole for the weekend. Life ain't so bad after all
education is almost always the last thing heavily funded in the usa, even if its funded its very inadequate. even in middle income neighborhoods , the students are still barely passing hs with ALGEBRA, and 9th grade english skills at best. of course theres exceptions, theres always 1 or 2 near-genius intellect students in each graduating class. AI has so far degraded the learning abilities of students from an already low point of education.
I agree with him in principle but the "poverty" line hasn't been raised in years. The amount needs to be in the lower middle class bracket. $75-80k is probably good so if you make that much, you won't pay income taxes.
What he and other progressives need to hammer home is that billionaire wealth doesn't help society and in fact hurts it. Money is only useful when it's used. Billionaires literally can lose a million dollars and they won't feel it.
Poverty is probably closer to $130-150k for a family of four than the $31k calculated by the fed. Mostly because we still calculate the poverty line as "food costs equal to or more than 30% of your take home" and then we pour mountains of money into food subsidies, keeping the poverty line artificially low.
They can dump millions into any political campaign they want. For the avg citizen every dollar has to be carefully rationed.
We also need to fix the welfare cliff. Gaining a raise should always increase the money in your pocket or break even unless you're making a theoretical maximum wage.
You don’t need to tax the morbidly wealthy to fund anything, you do it to prevent the perversion of social conduct their resource hoarding facilitates.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
The concept is nothing new, do Bernie and AOC support him? Would be nice to see like-minded politicians work together to adopt this more efficiently.
Bernie endorsed him
Is “Taxes” the name of your guillotine?
Was married to someone from a billionaire family:
They had so many tricks to get out of paying taxes. There’s an amount of money you can give as “gifts” to your family tax free, there’s ways of playing real estate where you never get taxed, and they always would donate a specific amount right before taxes were due to a specific charity that aligned with their right wing wants.
They can afford lawyers to do whatever they want. I had it in writing that my ex husband and I would split our $200,000 that they had given us evenly, but then that somehow got turned into an “inheritance” for him that I had no access to (despite being there when we set up the account, and having my name on it.) My ex also maxed out my credit cards before he kicked me out (with the help of the police, who apparently have no report of helping kick me out.)
So despite having worked full time to support my ex husband while he attending college free on his family’s dime, I will spend the rest of my life in poverty and debt. (He made sure to marry me after I graduated, so of course my student loans are also all my own)
Money gives people too much power.
I remember that interview where Bezos said that raising his taxes alone would not solve the USA's problem. And I think he thought he was making a clever argument there, the mealy-mouthed sniffer of his own farts.
PS: who's the guy in the video? (oops I didn't see the last frame of the video. The broader question still stands though, considering other comments in this thread)
Graham Platner, Senate candidate
hes hoping it wont increase his own taxes, thats what he really wants.
First pass a emigrant bill that taxes money leaving the country like Norway has. If they try to run they'll pay.
on billionaires specifically.
You know the system is corrupt as fuck when there are only 930 billionaires out of almost 400 million people.
There should be 0.
Do you want more billionaires???
No. Do you?
Then why are you complaining that there are only 930 billionaires?
Is that what I was complaining about? I thought it was the corruption. I want everybody to have everything. Sometimes it's pretty hard to find fault with something but you were able to in a heartbeat. Good stuff!
and australia has 178 billionaires in it for a pop of 30+million, thats just even more dispropotinate. billionaires like to say and imagine a dictatorship like argetina, russia and china, but they would NEVER live there, because they arnt safe because they are rich, because they will defenesatrated or thier assets stolen by said dictator.
This is why Platner is going to win.
Love it.
Heck yeah! Also it's super obvious by the smear campaign directed at him that he scares the shit out of the wealthy oligarchs.
He scares the shit out of Corporate Establishment Dems just as much, which is nearly as much fun as scaring the shit out of MAGAs.
Yeah true!
They can keep $10 mill. Take EVERYTHING else. And if they bitch about it, take it all.
Best we can do is more tax breaks for data centre construction to keep the AI bubble from bursting today
Does anyone have a link to the interview?
Well said. I wonder if there’s a explainer video that breaks down how the system works based on what he said. Since most people doesn’t understand completely what he is talking about, need to start educating on the issues.
They may leave
US taxes global assets
They may renounce citizenship.
Renouncing citizenship triggers taxes on unrealized gains
Still taxed for 10 years.
Do as Norway has done: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/taxes/get-the-taxes-right/abroad/exit-tax/
That may disincentivize entrepreneur immigrants like Elon Musk.
illegal immigrant elon musk and KIMBALL MUSK.
Illegal or not, he pays his taxes
No, they should be exterminated and their assets seized, liquidated and used to start UBI.
Just block them from reentering the US or doing any business, owning property or investing in the US until they pay taxes.
No. They have already done too much damage. Expulsion isn't good enough. They need to be made an example of. We need to make it scary to be greedy.
They would simply take their investments abroad.
Seize their investments
That would end businesses being owned by citizens.
No, allowing oligarchs to take our capital with them when they flee overseas to avoid paying taxes ends businesses being owned by citizens
Would you rather the wealth be owned by the government?
Than taken overseas by fleeing oligarchs? Yes, obviously. What are you doing in this com?
Agreed but there are better options than government ownership
Lol, you were literally saying that we can't raise tax then because they'll leave, you don't fucking agree you lying slug, you literally do think those assets are best off being clutched too by oligarchs
Nope. I'm just being honest. Socialism cannot be implemented at the national level. There's a reason communists are internationalists.
Yeah man, communists definitely ring their hands about how we can't seize assets from billionaires because the government is worse, definitely
Depends on the type. I'm a market socialist. Leninism isn't good enough.
That's unsustainable
But it's a start and the money would be moving again.
For how long?
How long will the money stay moving? Well if we make it dangerous to hoard wealth then the money will basically always keep moving.
How long will the initial slush fund last? Probably just long enough to get society working for itself. It's not like it's the only change that would have to happen. A whole lot of corruption and waste will have to be eliminated,to start with, which will be easier with there being no billionaires left to buy politicians.
No, if we make it dangerous to hoard wealth, then there will be no incentive to create wealth.
Also, you don't need to be a billionaire to buy politicians. Multi millionaires can very well afford to do it as well.
Cool, let's do nothing and continue on this path then. You sound just like all the other temporarily embarrassed millionaires out there to *get yours and fuck everyone else *. Your defense of capitalistic greed is disgusting. You are part of the problem.
Lol no shot. I'm a socialist myself. I just don't think billionaires are the enemy. Hate the game, not the player. We need systemic change, not temporary measures.
The ultrarich players are ones making the rules, and surprise, the rules allow them to shut out the majority so they can have the most. Taxing them is no longer enough. At this point they need to be punished for being what they are and eliminated. Then real rules and enforcement need to be put in place to make things fair and equitable to everyone. That will never happen as long as the rich are making the rules. Period. Extreme greed must be made deadly or others will choose the path of hoarding wealth and they will deliberately cause suffering to do so just as all their kind do and have done.
Disagreed. If the ultra rich made the rules, we wouldn't have elections. The rules definitely don't allow to shut out the majority afaik. The choice to hoard wealth itself must be removed.
If you tax all billionaires at 100%, it would cover the cost of the government for a few months.
The problem with taxing wealth like stocks, so the money comes from somewhere. It would come from stock sales. Which means our 401k pays the tax. They will just issue new stocks on the next compensation package and dilute your shares.
If you say you can't issue new stocks, they lose investors and stick prices fall, and we can't realize gains on falling stock prices.
And ultimately, if we do say fuck it and tax it anyways and crash the markets, the cost will be passed down to the consumer as CEO come up with a different compensation package.
But they don't necessarily have to sell stock. They currently use the stock as collateral for loans that they use to get what they want/need. They can take out a loan against the stock to pay their fair share. They only have to sell some if they can't raise the capital some other way.
If we don't want to tax them that way, make loans recieved using non-taxable assets taxable.
If we don't want to do that, make compensation via stock taxable the same way that compensation via cash is.
I like the last two ideas. Those could work. the first one wouldn't work at all.
Paying taxes on stocks received is my favorite. That was they pay their fare share at the time, and when they eventually sell it down the road, and still incentives increasing share value.
neat. so you’re saying we need to feel it enough to fire up the wood chippers?
A very well spoken blurb from him. I am actually impressed how polished he has gotten. Also it looks like he believes what he is saying, even if he doesn't fully understand it.
If it wasn't for his ridiculous list of red flags I think I could fall for his new flavor of populism.
Taxes
Liberals still not eliminating the problem.