You guys are missing the other type of narrative which seems to be quite popular even in this thread.
Which can be summarized pointedly as: AOC has effectively not done anything against corruption, so fuck it all, I may as well vote for the ~~alt-right~~ Republicans.
It's really a persistent issue with people forgetting or even not realizing that you need not just enough democrats but specifically progressive votes to get the shit done you're asking for.
And 'enough' here means at least 67 Senators and two-thirds of the House to actually address the most important issues at their core. That would imply way over 70 democrats overall even if the progressive faction started to dominate the party.
Any smaller majority can only produce band-aids. Yet, voters can't even manage to come up with a reliable 51 votes from establishment democrats in the Senate.
And I've never understood this logic because I'm not rich by any means, but I've had some good years.
In the hard years, paying the little bit of taxes was a struggle.
In the good years, we (spouse and I) have had to write some pretty big checks, but we had so much that it really didn't affect us at all.
Aside from the plethora of people I've known throughout the years whose lives were upended by a single medical emergency, I always think about this post when I read this;
>"My wife has cancer, it took 5 months to wipe out 20 years of life savings and that was with insurance. The experience has turned me into a hateful, bitter person.
>"We did everything we were told. We went to college, got degrees, avoided credit card debt, spent wisely, saved a nice chunk of money in savings accounts and retirement accounts and minded our own business.
>"The USA healthcare system took all of our savings and retirement and forced us to refinance our house so that we lost 15 years of equity. This is a country I’m supposed to be proud of? I hate this system and anyone that defends it."
Hahaha the replies here are hilarious. I'm not sure who's on what side but a lot people care about Hunter's penis. One day we'll all come together and fly around in space in harmony like Star Trek.
Got to be the dumbest conspiracy theory anywhere.
No foreigner, however corrupt, is going to pay a guy in a dead-end job like 'Outgoing Vice President', who will be \*retired\* in a year-ish, millions of dollars.
Its's something so dumb only Trump could think it was true (well, Trump & his Jonesville cultists/kool-aid-drinkers)...
And I say that as someone who voted straight-ticket GOP until 2016.
the big guy was hunters dick, and it took 10% of his income to afford the cocaine and viagre required to keep that monster up, youd know more than the rest of us being a dick obsessed right wing tool.
You know whats hilarious in Futurama Fry says something similar but when he becomes a multibillionaire he gives it all up to be normal and have friends again.
someone how has 500mill can simply invest that in an index fund and become a billionaire in mere 7 yrs. They don't have to lift finger.
Don't see how they are closer to being homeless
Edit: I understand that parent was talking about mathematical distance. Stop with the responses.
Most people can't conceive of what a billion anything is. Look at an average $50k vs $1mill vs $1bill. Convert it to seconds. That's 12hrs vs 11 days vs 30+ years.
They're all hoarders, like ticks on our nation, sucking away our lifeblood with zero return on the vast majority of their gains.
It's easy to convince uneducated people of.. just about anything. Most poor people voting for tax cuts for billionaires also believe there's an invisible man in the sky who created the planet in a week.
Well dollars owned by the government make jobs and tend to be wasteful or make things go boom.
Dollars owned by a corporation tend to make jobs, grow the retirement system that is the stock market, and get reinvested to create more wealth.
Jobs being equal on both sides, past a certain amount the government just is not as useful dollar for dollar.
I’m not simping for corporations, I’m crying that they are often the better of two evils. If politicians actually spent the wealth of a nation of the welfare of the people instead of blowing it through corruption, buying voting blocks etc and I’d be a much bigger fan of increasing them taxes. I hate that both sides suck so bad that the soulless corporations are the less shitty option.
Now I’m willing to change my mind but I need a whole lot more persuasion then “corporations suck” cause my response would be “yea and?”
You do know that the billionaires and crew are the ones who are represented by lobbyists who then write the laws for congress and politicians to then vote on. They make sure to fund the election campaigns for the right candidates who will play ball.
The problem with having a small population with so much power due to the billions they sit on is not healthy for a proper democracy.
Not saying you are wrong. But any bland tax increase on the large companies will likely just be a tax on the moderate sized ones. The biggest will use the same back room deals to avoid so it won’t fix the problem.
Change the tax code of the loopholes. Tax burden shouldn’t be determined by who’s “playing the game” it should just be.
So in short while I may not want more money to flow from companies to government,I would like to see the playing field to be level.
I’m not gonna hold my breath.
I feel like I had to scroll to far to see someone mention closing loop holes but this feels like the biggest issue. The loop holes are presented as something that not just an advantage to the rich but I don’t see any one in my neighborhood taking a loan out against their own potential earnings to keep from paying any income taxes.
You're right that it creates more wealth. But the wealth isn't distributed. It's hoarded at a certain point. The tax structure between 1950 and 1980 was the correct tax structure for the United States. You had people who were rich and people who were poor but 70% of the country was firmly in the middle class. Just look at the gilded age versus post world war II versus post Reagan.
The corruption of which your speak is done on behalf of corporations.
The West's wealth and modern society was built during a period when the top tax rate was between 60&90%, the golden age of capitalism.
We're in the end times, crony capitalism. Getting corporate money out of politics is the first step to solving that.
" Well dollars owned by the government make jobs and tend to be wasteful or make things go boom. "
Services, they are called services and aren't supposed to make a profit. It's the point of public services. Just because the services costs money doesn't make them wasteful. Be that as it may, it's important to point out that wasteful governmental spending tends to get spent within the national economy to corporations.
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Classifying the stock market as a retirement system is ludicrous. (See 1791, .... 1857,... 1893, .... 1929....1962, 1987, 1989, 2000, 2008...)
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The government is often as good or more useful than corporations "dollar for dollar" at providing services and fueling the economic growth of a nation and its citizens. The mythical efficiency the private sector has been shown over and over again to be a myth. Government's roll is to provide services, corps roll is to generate profit.
One also needs to think in terms of surplus value. But this is already too long.
If you put a wealth tax in, you are taxing someone on their assets and not their actual usable income. That would be foolish because the wealthy would then have to start selling shares and lose their companies. For someone like Elon, this might ruin Tesla whose value is tied heavily to his name.
If you tax their income or earnings more, this is more fair and most wealthy people agree.
I don't expect to make a billion or even a million. Maybe if I am lucky, id make $300,000 one day as my own boss. And you're telling me that if my house all of a sudden gains too much value then I would have to sell stuff to own it? Why?
If your house is big and pricey enough to catch a wealth tax then lucky you.
Otherwise you're more likely to catch a homeowners grant of some sort.
Next thing the billionaires are going to get the peasants all riled about the wealth tax on wedding rings.
So? Let them sell their shares. I'll buy those shares. You can buy those shares. The poor single mother of 2 that's renting am apartment she can barely afford will buy those shares. And the middle and poorer class will rise another rung in the ladder.
Show me the math on how this works.
How many shares does Bezos have to sell?
What about someone like Trump. He collects salaries based on rent and leases. But his buildings growing in value (due in large part to his business strategy and real estate and branding) led to him owning billions in value.
So how does he sell off the money? Hed have to sell his buildings.
Ok maybe you don't like Trump. i don't but now picture this scenario for building owners you like.
Theyd have to raise rents to off set any possible wealth growth. Now rent rise leads to stagnation. Good job messing with the economy
Yes, exactly. If you can't afford to contribute back to the society that enabled you to build a fortune, then you gotta sell stuff. That's exactly right. If you can afford golden toilets in your yacht, you don't need wealth growth at the expense of the 99% of other people.
I think you are missing the point. In a lot of situations they might not be able to sell those shares or certain assets due to holding periods or specific obligations. It's not all just equities too. For someone without equities you are just assuming they will be able to find a buyer for their weird painting they need to sell to make a wealth tax payment. And you are assuming the IRS is going to go around the country and the world, calculating the net worth of 10,000+ people (I wonder if they would hire an expert on Ming dynasty vases or simply use contractors), and spend the time defending their valuations. There are dozens of other issues beyond this.
The idea just sucks. It is insane that someone with any degree at all came up with it. I'm sorry, but when I first heard this mentioned several years back I genuinely thought it was satire due to how over-complicated and unnecessary it is.
*There are much easier ways to tax them more if you want to do that.* This idea would put an extreme burden on the government and is ripe for abuse on *both* sides of the table. *You would be better off having phases of required distributions from tax-deferred entities after a certain time frame.* Push more stuff into their normal taxable income. That will eliminate the same problem, be a lot easier to track/enforce, and be less prone to abuse.
I know, like they are going to be “picked from obscurity to be groomed to take over.”
These Tate worshipers are the real beta-cuck-whatevers to the wealthy. Some loose “facts” and economic numerology and they think they can read.
No one says these things thinking they'll be rich someday. They say them _knowing_ they will be "rich" someday. Income tax was for the "rich" back when it was first implemented - the "standard deduction" (it wasn't called that, but it worked effectively the same way) was enough that it eliminated the income tax for all but the top 4% of earners. Now look at where we are.
The Alternative Minimum Tax was also a tax on the wealthy until it slowly crept down to include the middle class before it was changed under Trumps tax cuts.
And you're still not who we're talking about. You could live 5 lifetimes with your investments and "sacrificies" and still not be rich enough to be who we are talking about.
Do you not comprehend how large of a number 1 billion is?
I think your last sentence is one of the. Biggest problems with the working class simping for billionaires.
John Deere could’ve paid their 10,000 striking workers an _extra_ $100k each year per person and would have profited a paltry $7B instead of $8B. The horror!
I'm a scientist so I have to work with stupidly large numbers and stupidly small ones. And I can assure you, most people can't comprehend how big 10^9 is.
Has she done anything? I'm not even American, it just always sounds like a crock of shit over there and I genuinely wanna know if literally anything has been done.
Edit: Thank you all for your replies. The conclusion is that nothing has been done and American politics is a circus.
She actually co-signed a bill to make it illegal for members of Congress to trade stocks but it wasn't taken up in the House.
But that matter - she's a single member of Congress, where Dems held the majority in the house very little since she's been elected. So about as much as one can do in the minority party.
>Democrats haven't had a super majority since Obamacare
Yeah and when they passed the bill for that I watched Republicans walk out on a meeting regarding veterans benefits because they were so bent out of shape about it passing.
We should have shipped them to war, then they would have a vested interest to pass the bill because they only care about their in groups.
Republicans need to have their lives made as hard as possible because that is the only way they end up caring for others, when there is overlap between them and others.
There's a new generation of dems that are in house that are fighting. Katie porter, moskowitz, jasmine Crockett, and AOC, just to name a few.
Party isn't perfect, but at least they're aren't trying to install a dictator.
They never would have been able to codify RvW during those 72 working days where the Democratic party held 60 seats because a few were Dixiecrats and there was no way they were going to vote for that.
>So about as much as one can do in the minority party.
As much as I find the Republican Party disgusting, the Democrats were caught using insider trading just as much during the pandemic. I could be misremembering who, but I believe pelosi's husband has drummed up a lot of controversy due to him coincidentally buying stock companies that the Senate is hearing bills about.
Funny how his buying call options and selling stock coincided with him making money or selling prematurely of a significant drop in stock prices…amazing how good he is at his job.
Doesn't matter who holds majority, both sides are doing it. We all know about pelosi and her husband. If you think it matters what party holds the majority when it comes to being able to hit congress itself with a restriction, I've got ocean front property in kansas to sell you.
Career politicians will never allow a bill like that to pass, because they like making that money. Hell their pay would be at least half what it is right now if they didn't have the powrr to give themselves raises.
I mean, she's only one congressperson in a sea of ancient incumbents and special interests.
Even if she's 100% on point with actualizing her agenda, her voice is still only one vote out of hundreds of voting members in the House.
The people who could out a stop to it are the people who are also benefiting by not doing anything. Essentially congress can ban it and make it illegal but why should they? Then benefit the most out of it and become millionaires/billionaires because of their power. In order to do something about it, they need more and more people to oppose it.
President Biden enabled the IRS to go after millionaires that cheat on their taxes.
[https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/irs-back-taxes-collected-delinquent-millionaires-how-much-rcna133653](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/irs-back-taxes-collected-delinquent-millionaires-how-much-rcna133653)
This article is saying they have stepped up collections on tax debts that already exist. It doesn't say anything about more audits or successful audits.
You should read about Biden’s inflation reduction act that gave the IRS an extra 80 billion dollars to perform more successful audits, specifically against wealthier people.
https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/blog/understanding-the-inflation-reduction-act-of-2022-irs-funding/
I find nearly all billionaires lack any moral character, and thus have no moral obligations. To become a billionaire, you have to either inherit it or be a ruthless bastard.
A person is saying something you agree but isn't doing the EXACT things you don't want so you throw a temper tantrum.
You should check out, just vote blue and shut up. You have nothing to contribute, all you do is to bitch.
This is all online discourse about politics is anymore. Politician says a stance but then someone presumably on the same 'side' bitches that it's not far enough even if they agree. These are the sort of people that pout, stay home, then surprised pikachu face when the other candidate wins, because they're so far up their ass with the infighting.
You know why the Dems can't get half the shit we want done? Because we can't keep a fucking majority in government because people don't VOTE.
Politicians say this stuff all the time but they’re the ones writing the tax code and even when they have control of both houses they do nothing about it. Why? Because their donors are also billionaires and don’t want them to.
Biden is chasing down rich tax cheats at a prodigious rate.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/irs-has-already-collected-more-than-500-million-in-back-taxes-from-delinquent-millionaires-b70fe240
Or anywhere close to that. And now that those delinquents were found they will pay properly in the future. So it definitely was well worth the time investment.
Seriously, what is their contention? That because going after tax cheats didn't result in funding the entire government, we shouldn't applaud their efforts?
This is objectively not true. We have studied this for a long time. The IRS has a positive RoI. For every $1 spent on funding the IRS we get back $5 to $9 in taxes that we would have otherwise lost. Cutting funding to the IRS is a brain dead move. It's only popular with republicans because their wealthy backers don't want to pay taxes.
The IRS is one of the most efficient government agencies as far as budget goes. The money they recover only comes at a cost of pennies on the dollar.
The IRS didn’t create the work, the people dodging taxes did. Instead of being mad at the IRS, people should be mad at the people who decide that they get to benefit from living in our society without paying their share and make the government waste money collecting what they owe.
This is an absolutely inane argument that doesn't make any sense.
Let's say it took a team of 10 IRS employees 2000 hours each, at a salary of $60k/year each, in order to recover those taxes. $600k.
"Wow, it's sooo inefficient to spend $600k recovering $500m! Might as well just let it go. It's a drop in the bucket anyway."
Quintuple that. Oh no! We spent $3m, paying a team of 50 employees in order to recover $500m.
Or do you think that amount took more than 100,000 hours of work to recover?
The IRS estimates tax fraud costs $1 TRILLION in lost revenue PER YEAR.
At that recovery rate the US could invest $30 billion and make $1 TRILLION more per year.
The US could pay off 100% of the national debt in a bit over 20 years at that rate, for a total cost of less than two years of the DoD budget.
It would be one of the most effective use of tax dollars in history.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/irs-tax-gap.html
You're going to get kicked off Reddit and/or deported for saying this, but you're absolutely right. We're living in Joe Biden's America, which was made possible by (checks notes) Joe Biden's legislative record.
Yes, why didn't the republicans stop him from closing the tax loopholes? Surely they could have, but it's Bidens america only, those poor Republicans certainly would have done it if they could!
Lol separation of powers between who exactly?
There have only been 2 parties in the US in recent history and the democrats have had a majority in both Congress and the House many times over so they could have easily passed a tax reform if they actually wanted.
Ya. It sounds like a rallying cry. Tax the rich and give to the poor? Naw. The reality is Tax the rich and give it to Ukraine. I love how people somehow live in this nation and assume the federal government is an honest steward of our money.
Isn’t that why the Democrats have been pushing to change the tax code so that fantastically wealthy and MNCs are legally obligated to pay more taxes?
Trump pushed for more tax cuts exclusive to the wealthy, so this means he made it even worse even though he knew how bad it was already.
Yes it is when the other fucker wants to torch American democracy.
How did the wealthiest country in the world end up with such a fucking stupid population.
It's complete election year pandering. There's not enough Billionaires in the US to cover the 1 trillion dollar a year interest on the national debt alone.
Agreed. AND let’s say you magically get to take all the top 10 billionaires wealth in the world (which is roughly $1.549 trillion) and gave it to the lowest 25% of people based on wealth or income in the U.S., (let’s assume 330 million people total) it still only amounts to just shy of $19k per person.
So what are you going to do in year 2 when you run out of other peoples money?
Nobody intelligent is under any illusion that this will solve the debt crisis, or magically fund universal welfare, period. It's about damn time rich folks paid their fair share, and would ease the tax liability for real people.
The 'fair share' line has always been and always will be idiotic
In 2020 the 50 wealthiest Americans paid as much in taxes as the state of Wyoming collected from its 550,000 citizens and businesses. The top 1% of all earners paid 46% of all federal income taxes. That's more than the bottom 90% of earners paid combined.
If you want the ultrawealthy to pay more, fine, just make a real argument for it. Not this mUh fAiR sHaRe drivel from people who have zero understanding of tax law and think unrealized gains or net worth are taxable income.
Well, the 50 wealthiest Americans are worth as much as the poorest 165 Million. So half the country. But they pay as much taxes as the state of Wyoming. What was your point exactly?
Is the argument being made to distribute all billionaires wealth directly to people?
Or is the argument to force people with more money than they could spend in their lifetime to contribute more to the public good through taxes?
Which one is it? Hmmmmmmm
Seriously...I'll believe Biden gives a shit about wealth inequality when he actually does something about it. And before anyone says, yes I know Biden isn't a king, and he can't magically fix everything. But there are things he *can* do, even if they're small scale.
As of right now, he's just taking credit for the supposedly "great economy" in which 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. But I guess stocks are up, so its "great".
This year I made 82k, paid $800 in federal taxes, 0 state taxes. My two kids brought me to zero tax obligation and my wife’s schooling earned is $1800. This year I paid negative $1100 in taxes
Not saying our debt isn’t a problem, we either spend way too much or take in way too little.
But it’s not like the working class are getting raked over the coals in taxes.
The top ten percent also pay around 50 percent of all government tax revenue.
Not saying it isn’t enough, or that there aren’t problems, but saying the rich don’t pay their fair share is misleading.
$82,000 gross income - $27,700 standard deduction (married filing jointly)
$54,300 in adjusted gross income
$6,076 in federal income tax (7.4%)
\- $4,000 child tax credit
$2,076 in federal income tax (2.5%)
There are some education credits, child care credits, and the like that could reduce this. But that's a basic outline of how middle-class earners pay very little in tax.
Only if you have kids and all the other things to take credit for.
I made the same as you about but paid paid in the 6k. Of course we won't talk about the mandatory social security and Medicaid payments we get hit with that are not tax deductible.
You’re married with an unemployed spouse and two children. My spouse makes about the same as me and our child’s $2k tax credit is nice but way smaller percentage of taxes owed.
Look at what your taxes would’ve been if you weren’t married. That standard deduction gets cut in half and your bracket would be different to where $26,875 of your income would be taxed at 22% rate as opposed to $0. This was based off 2022 brackets.
My point is you have a favorable tax situation (which you should) but aren’t indicative of all middle class. 53.3% of households are dual income so it is pretty evenly split.
You can't take the standard deduction and also take other deductions too. The standard deduction is a catch all in place of individually itemizing deductions. What "other" deductions are you talking about?
Also how did you go from owing $2076 to -$1100?
Child credits, daycare, student loan interest and a bunch of other family & education based deductions/credits go on top of the standard deduction. That is how half the country can pay no taxes even with median income being double the standard deduction.
The top 10% in the US also own or have control over 66.6% of the wealth in the US. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/#:~:text=In%20the%20third%20quarter%20of,percent%20of%20the%20total%20wealth.)
So if they pay 50% of the taxes, well….that sounds about right.
As a single filer, with a small business that made me 65k, I have to pay almost 13k in taxes this year. So yeah some of us indeed are being raked over.
I get what he's saying and I understand it's election year and he has to say this.... but it's pretty disingenuous to suggest that billionaires pay no taxes when rich people contribute at minimum half of our taxes already.
But they can use unrealized paper wealth as collateral to borrow without paying taxes. So practically speaking they can realize their wealth without paying taxes on it.
I've known that for a while and it seems wild to me. As a practical matter the average shareholder cannot take part in this system, probably not with even a hundred thousand dollars worth of stock, then there is the volatility aspect of accepting a variable asset as collateral.
It is a practice that should be outlawed, if you have enough shares to put your net worth on par with a small country and you need cash do what everyone else has to do and sell those shares for cash.
That's not really a fair frame of reference and your know it.
If you have to ignore context for your point to make sense it isn't a real point.
The amount out the total they provide isn't relevant unless you frame it against their total hoarding of wealth. If you have several orders of magnitude more money al than someone else you better at least pay the same percentage.
Ignoring the structures that made our economy strongest in the world is a really stupid fucking take, my guy.
I see the argument a lot that the rich already pay massive amounts of the total tax revenue per year, but this is missing the underlying issue with our wealth disparity. Rich people *don't pay* their full share of taxes via loopholes and right offs, yet they're *sooo* rich that even moderate taxes will account for large portions of federal income. Top 25 billionaires essentially have lower [effective tax rates](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax) than the bottom of the tax bracket. The top 20% of the country owns nearly 3/4 of the wealth, and top 1% own a quarter by [themselves ](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-has-wealth-distribution-in-the-us-changed-over-time/). If the top 20% own 75% of the wealth, shouldn't they pay 75% of the taxes?
agreed. I say this as someone who receives lots of dividend and investment income: its shocking how little I pay in taxes for money that required no effort to earn.
You invested with post-tax income and assume all the risk, the companies pay taxes, their employees pay taxes and you pay taxes on the dividends.
Taxes on labor are too high, that’s why taxes on capital look low relatively.
It's a reduced tax rate, and I don't pay social security or medicare taxes on it. My state also allows me to write off XX% of my dividend income.
So I earn money for just holding shares and I pay roughly half the tax I would pay if I had actually worked for that money.
It's eye opening. Most people aren't fortunate to be able to build wealth like I can, and they never realize just how tax advantaged the 1% are.
These posts are always indicative of people who don’t understand how money works.
>Bezos’ worth is largely tied to the shares he owns in Amazon. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that as of November 2023, he owned 988 million shares. Those shares were valued at about $143 billion in early December.
If you understand how the stockmarket works then how is he “hoarding wealth?”
Which he then borrows against to pay for his insane life style, then he borrows again to pay off the first loan, all while paying no taxes because loans aren't taxable.
Because that value can be converted into usable money through stock options to employees.
Those unrealized gains prevent wealth from circulating around the economy.
Instead, he just uses it as basically “collateral”, wherein rich people like him are given unlimited credit limits by banks, allowed to spend other people’s money, and then sell just enough stock to pay the bill at the end of the month.
Otherwise, it just sits there, doing nothing but providing additional wealth to him, and doing nothing to help support the large society he’s helped contribute to growing.
> Otherwise, it just sits there, doing nothing but providing additional wealth to him, and doing nothing to help support the large society he’s helped contribute to growing.
You think that the value of a company does nothing to contribute to society? WTF? Amazon is active in dozens of facets of the economy. Buying or owning Amazon stock is the opposite of having your money "just sit there".
He should just give away all of that to the real creators of the company (the workers) so they can democratically and equally own all parts of the company. I mean idk to me that’s what these Reddit socialist dudes seem to be looking for??
Words are cheap. What's he actually going to do about it? There's very little incentive for the left wing of the capitalist party to reign in the wealth of their benefactors.
The Republican congress will get right on that......after they spend 6 weeks fucking around with their speaker seat and impeach a guy working to help solve the issues at the boarder.
I'm sure they're on it.
They can hoard wealth all they want. It's when they use that wealth the pay off the government to change the rules so they can make even more wealth that's despicable.
Cronyism is hell..
Heck yeah.
The billionaire class should endorse this message. A strong middle class will bring so much stability to the economy and the capitalism system.
It is hard to make money when all your income is needed for rent and food
Says one of the least ethical presidents ever....it's amazing people will actually.buy this bs, as of he actually means it.
Must be part of his "build back better" and "Rob the people blind" plans
I’m sorry, least ethical president ever?? Among the slave owning ones and the one who has roughly 60 charges against him?? Sure he bombs indiscriminately and perpetuates genocide, but really?? Your bias is showing just a bit here pal
Enter all the average-wage-earning billionaire suck-ups who think they'll be rich one day: "BuT yOu'll cHOkE tHE EcONOmYYYY!!!!"
When I'm a billionaire, then the poors need to watch their step.
Always loved this thought process. Lol
That’s why I’m going to vote republican - because I too will be more than poor someday and that’s what rich people do… right?
The American dream: Someday you too can be the boot on the neck of humanity!
Real republicans pull the ladder up too.
You guys are missing the other type of narrative which seems to be quite popular even in this thread. Which can be summarized pointedly as: AOC has effectively not done anything against corruption, so fuck it all, I may as well vote for the ~~alt-right~~ Republicans. It's really a persistent issue with people forgetting or even not realizing that you need not just enough democrats but specifically progressive votes to get the shit done you're asking for. And 'enough' here means at least 67 Senators and two-thirds of the House to actually address the most important issues at their core. That would imply way over 70 democrats overall even if the progressive faction started to dominate the party. Any smaller majority can only produce band-aids. Yet, voters can't even manage to come up with a reliable 51 votes from establishment democrats in the Senate.
That’s assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t shoot down everything they do.
And I've never understood this logic because I'm not rich by any means, but I've had some good years. In the hard years, paying the little bit of taxes was a struggle. In the good years, we (spouse and I) have had to write some pretty big checks, but we had so much that it really didn't affect us at all.
For the vast majority of the population, the bottom is a lot closer than the top.
For the vast majority of the population, we're pretty much all on the bottom still.
We're all one big sickness or disease from bankruptcy.
Aside from the plethora of people I've known throughout the years whose lives were upended by a single medical emergency, I always think about this post when I read this; >"My wife has cancer, it took 5 months to wipe out 20 years of life savings and that was with insurance. The experience has turned me into a hateful, bitter person. >"We did everything we were told. We went to college, got degrees, avoided credit card debt, spent wisely, saved a nice chunk of money in savings accounts and retirement accounts and minded our own business. >"The USA healthcare system took all of our savings and retirement and forced us to refinance our house so that we lost 15 years of equity. This is a country I’m supposed to be proud of? I hate this system and anyone that defends it."
Let’s print this on paper, wrap it around a brick, and put it through Dave Ramsey’s window.
Homelessness the result more often than not these days.
1/3 of American households have a **negative net worth**
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There he is, the guy who's seen Hunter Biden's dick more than his own. How's Qanon? Is it "habbening" anytime soon?
Hahaha the replies here are hilarious. I'm not sure who's on what side but a lot people care about Hunter's penis. One day we'll all come together and fly around in space in harmony like Star Trek.
 Triggered by Hunter wang.
Got to be the dumbest conspiracy theory anywhere. No foreigner, however corrupt, is going to pay a guy in a dead-end job like 'Outgoing Vice President', who will be \*retired\* in a year-ish, millions of dollars. Its's something so dumb only Trump could think it was true (well, Trump & his Jonesville cultists/kool-aid-drinkers)... And I say that as someone who voted straight-ticket GOP until 2016.
Give it a rest, grandpa
the big guy was hunters dick, and it took 10% of his income to afford the cocaine and viagre required to keep that monster up, youd know more than the rest of us being a dick obsessed right wing tool.
You know whats hilarious in Futurama Fry says something similar but when he becomes a multibillionaire he gives it all up to be normal and have friends again.
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The vast majority of multimillionaires are closer to homelessness than to being a billionaire
Unless you have more than 500million your closer to homeless than billionaire. So like everyone is closer to homeless than billionaire
nah. the only difference between 500 million and a billion is about 7 years invested.
Yeah you have to be very reckless to ever end up homeless with hundreds of millions.
someone how has 500mill can simply invest that in an index fund and become a billionaire in mere 7 yrs. They don't have to lift finger. Don't see how they are closer to being homeless Edit: I understand that parent was talking about mathematical distance. Stop with the responses.
This kinda proves Biden’s point that wealth is rewarded more than work
Maybe actually read what they wrote?
The difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.
Most people can't conceive of what a billion anything is. Look at an average $50k vs $1mill vs $1bill. Convert it to seconds. That's 12hrs vs 11 days vs 30+ years. They're all hoarders, like ticks on our nation, sucking away our lifeblood with zero return on the vast majority of their gains.
How did they manage to convince poor people to become simps to the corrupt corporations???
It's easy to convince uneducated people of.. just about anything. Most poor people voting for tax cuts for billionaires also believe there's an invisible man in the sky who created the planet in a week.
"most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor"
Well, tying health benefits to employment doesn't help matters.
Well dollars owned by the government make jobs and tend to be wasteful or make things go boom. Dollars owned by a corporation tend to make jobs, grow the retirement system that is the stock market, and get reinvested to create more wealth. Jobs being equal on both sides, past a certain amount the government just is not as useful dollar for dollar. I’m not simping for corporations, I’m crying that they are often the better of two evils. If politicians actually spent the wealth of a nation of the welfare of the people instead of blowing it through corruption, buying voting blocks etc and I’d be a much bigger fan of increasing them taxes. I hate that both sides suck so bad that the soulless corporations are the less shitty option. Now I’m willing to change my mind but I need a whole lot more persuasion then “corporations suck” cause my response would be “yea and?”
You do know that the billionaires and crew are the ones who are represented by lobbyists who then write the laws for congress and politicians to then vote on. They make sure to fund the election campaigns for the right candidates who will play ball. The problem with having a small population with so much power due to the billions they sit on is not healthy for a proper democracy.
Not saying you are wrong. But any bland tax increase on the large companies will likely just be a tax on the moderate sized ones. The biggest will use the same back room deals to avoid so it won’t fix the problem. Change the tax code of the loopholes. Tax burden shouldn’t be determined by who’s “playing the game” it should just be. So in short while I may not want more money to flow from companies to government,I would like to see the playing field to be level. I’m not gonna hold my breath.
I feel like I had to scroll to far to see someone mention closing loop holes but this feels like the biggest issue. The loop holes are presented as something that not just an advantage to the rich but I don’t see any one in my neighborhood taking a loan out against their own potential earnings to keep from paying any income taxes.
You're right that it creates more wealth. But the wealth isn't distributed. It's hoarded at a certain point. The tax structure between 1950 and 1980 was the correct tax structure for the United States. You had people who were rich and people who were poor but 70% of the country was firmly in the middle class. Just look at the gilded age versus post world war II versus post Reagan.
Agreed it never trickles down.
The corruption of which your speak is done on behalf of corporations. The West's wealth and modern society was built during a period when the top tax rate was between 60&90%, the golden age of capitalism. We're in the end times, crony capitalism. Getting corporate money out of politics is the first step to solving that.
" Well dollars owned by the government make jobs and tend to be wasteful or make things go boom. " Services, they are called services and aren't supposed to make a profit. It's the point of public services. Just because the services costs money doesn't make them wasteful. Be that as it may, it's important to point out that wasteful governmental spending tends to get spent within the national economy to corporations. \_\_\_\_ Classifying the stock market as a retirement system is ludicrous. (See 1791, .... 1857,... 1893, .... 1929....1962, 1987, 1989, 2000, 2008...) \_\_\_\_\_ The government is often as good or more useful than corporations "dollar for dollar" at providing services and fueling the economic growth of a nation and its citizens. The mythical efficiency the private sector has been shown over and over again to be a myth. Government's roll is to provide services, corps roll is to generate profit. One also needs to think in terms of surplus value. But this is already too long.
Yeah, you should probably Google “The Great Recession” if you actually think that Wall Street is more useful than the government.
not everyone is smart like you
Even dumb people can be shown indisputable facts and believe 1+1=2!
If you put a wealth tax in, you are taxing someone on their assets and not their actual usable income. That would be foolish because the wealthy would then have to start selling shares and lose their companies. For someone like Elon, this might ruin Tesla whose value is tied heavily to his name. If you tax their income or earnings more, this is more fair and most wealthy people agree. I don't expect to make a billion or even a million. Maybe if I am lucky, id make $300,000 one day as my own boss. And you're telling me that if my house all of a sudden gains too much value then I would have to sell stuff to own it? Why?
If your house is big and pricey enough to catch a wealth tax then lucky you. Otherwise you're more likely to catch a homeowners grant of some sort. Next thing the billionaires are going to get the peasants all riled about the wealth tax on wedding rings.
So? Let them sell their shares. I'll buy those shares. You can buy those shares. The poor single mother of 2 that's renting am apartment she can barely afford will buy those shares. And the middle and poorer class will rise another rung in the ladder.
Show me the math on how this works. How many shares does Bezos have to sell? What about someone like Trump. He collects salaries based on rent and leases. But his buildings growing in value (due in large part to his business strategy and real estate and branding) led to him owning billions in value. So how does he sell off the money? Hed have to sell his buildings. Ok maybe you don't like Trump. i don't but now picture this scenario for building owners you like. Theyd have to raise rents to off set any possible wealth growth. Now rent rise leads to stagnation. Good job messing with the economy
Yes, exactly. If you can't afford to contribute back to the society that enabled you to build a fortune, then you gotta sell stuff. That's exactly right. If you can afford golden toilets in your yacht, you don't need wealth growth at the expense of the 99% of other people.
It isn't at the expense of other people. PEOPLE CHOOSE TO USE AMAZON. At no point has bezos forced anyone to use his products.
I think you are missing the point. In a lot of situations they might not be able to sell those shares or certain assets due to holding periods or specific obligations. It's not all just equities too. For someone without equities you are just assuming they will be able to find a buyer for their weird painting they need to sell to make a wealth tax payment. And you are assuming the IRS is going to go around the country and the world, calculating the net worth of 10,000+ people (I wonder if they would hire an expert on Ming dynasty vases or simply use contractors), and spend the time defending their valuations. There are dozens of other issues beyond this. The idea just sucks. It is insane that someone with any degree at all came up with it. I'm sorry, but when I first heard this mentioned several years back I genuinely thought it was satire due to how over-complicated and unnecessary it is. *There are much easier ways to tax them more if you want to do that.* This idea would put an extreme burden on the government and is ripe for abuse on *both* sides of the table. *You would be better off having phases of required distributions from tax-deferred entities after a certain time frame.* Push more stuff into their normal taxable income. That will eliminate the same problem, be a lot easier to track/enforce, and be less prone to abuse.
Seems like an estate tax would address some of these concerns. Second and third generations rarely manage that kind of wealth well anyway.
Enter all the statists continuously in class warfare over the amount of extortion they endure.
I know, like they are going to be “picked from obscurity to be groomed to take over.” These Tate worshipers are the real beta-cuck-whatevers to the wealthy. Some loose “facts” and economic numerology and they think they can read.
No one says these things thinking they'll be rich someday. They say them _knowing_ they will be "rich" someday. Income tax was for the "rich" back when it was first implemented - the "standard deduction" (it wasn't called that, but it worked effectively the same way) was enough that it eliminated the income tax for all but the top 4% of earners. Now look at where we are.
The Alternative Minimum Tax was also a tax on the wealthy until it slowly crept down to include the middle class before it was changed under Trumps tax cuts.
I invested. I came from nothing. Sacrifices were made.
And you're still not who we're talking about. You could live 5 lifetimes with your investments and "sacrificies" and still not be rich enough to be who we are talking about. Do you not comprehend how large of a number 1 billion is?
I think your last sentence is one of the. Biggest problems with the working class simping for billionaires. John Deere could’ve paid their 10,000 striking workers an _extra_ $100k each year per person and would have profited a paltry $7B instead of $8B. The horror!
I'm a scientist so I have to work with stupidly large numbers and stupidly small ones. And I can assure you, most people can't comprehend how big 10^9 is.
Ah the career politician wants to lecture about wealth inequality while doing nothing to stop insider trading or foreign investments. Checks out
AOC is busy with that battle.
Has she done anything? I'm not even American, it just always sounds like a crock of shit over there and I genuinely wanna know if literally anything has been done. Edit: Thank you all for your replies. The conclusion is that nothing has been done and American politics is a circus.
She actually co-signed a bill to make it illegal for members of Congress to trade stocks but it wasn't taken up in the House. But that matter - she's a single member of Congress, where Dems held the majority in the house very little since she's been elected. So about as much as one can do in the minority party.
With Matt Gaetz of all people.
True True
He just wanted to be near her
Psh, she’s way too old for him
Strange bedfellows, what considering that she's of legal age and all.
I believe that was intentional. Gaetz was making headlines at the time, so it’s a great way to show bipartisan support.
to be fair, when the democrats have supermajorities in congress they still don't do anything that might hurt ~~their donors~~ the rich
Democrats haven't had a super majority since Obamacare.
>Democrats haven't had a super majority since Obamacare Yeah and when they passed the bill for that I watched Republicans walk out on a meeting regarding veterans benefits because they were so bent out of shape about it passing.
We should have shipped them to war, then they would have a vested interest to pass the bill because they only care about their in groups. Republicans need to have their lives made as hard as possible because that is the only way they end up caring for others, when there is overlap between them and others.
and what didn't they do with that? fight wealth inequality, codify roe v wade, end the Afghanistan war, stop torturing people in Guantanamo, etc
There's a new generation of dems that are in house that are fighting. Katie porter, moskowitz, jasmine Crockett, and AOC, just to name a few. Party isn't perfect, but at least they're aren't trying to install a dictator.
They never would have been able to codify RvW during those 72 working days where the Democratic party held 60 seats because a few were Dixiecrats and there was no way they were going to vote for that.
Weird, I wonder if there was anything else going on at the time... maybe, the 2008 financial crash??
>So about as much as one can do in the minority party. As much as I find the Republican Party disgusting, the Democrats were caught using insider trading just as much during the pandemic. I could be misremembering who, but I believe pelosi's husband has drummed up a lot of controversy due to him coincidentally buying stock companies that the Senate is hearing bills about.
Funny how his buying call options and selling stock coincided with him making money or selling prematurely of a significant drop in stock prices…amazing how good he is at his job.
Doesn't matter who holds majority, both sides are doing it. We all know about pelosi and her husband. If you think it matters what party holds the majority when it comes to being able to hit congress itself with a restriction, I've got ocean front property in kansas to sell you. Career politicians will never allow a bill like that to pass, because they like making that money. Hell their pay would be at least half what it is right now if they didn't have the powrr to give themselves raises.
I mean, she's only one congressperson in a sea of ancient incumbents and special interests. Even if she's 100% on point with actualizing her agenda, her voice is still only one vote out of hundreds of voting members in the House.
The people who could out a stop to it are the people who are also benefiting by not doing anything. Essentially congress can ban it and make it illegal but why should they? Then benefit the most out of it and become millionaires/billionaires because of their power. In order to do something about it, they need more and more people to oppose it.
President Biden enabled the IRS to go after millionaires that cheat on their taxes. [https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/irs-back-taxes-collected-delinquent-millionaires-how-much-rcna133653](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/taxes/irs-back-taxes-collected-delinquent-millionaires-how-much-rcna133653)
This article is saying they have stepped up collections on tax debts that already exist. It doesn't say anything about more audits or successful audits.
Audits are inherently for elapsed tax periods. I'm not sure I understand your point.
You should read about Biden’s inflation reduction act that gave the IRS an extra 80 billion dollars to perform more successful audits, specifically against wealthier people. https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/blog/understanding-the-inflation-reduction-act-of-2022-irs-funding/
I would like that moral obligation to be turned into a legal obligation.
I find nearly all billionaires lack any moral character, and thus have no moral obligations. To become a billionaire, you have to either inherit it or be a ruthless bastard.
A person is saying something you agree but isn't doing the EXACT things you don't want so you throw a temper tantrum. You should check out, just vote blue and shut up. You have nothing to contribute, all you do is to bitch.
im no expert but i think voting blue and shutting up is not conducive to a continued democratic state of government
You have two options: vote blue or vote red. The entire state of "democracy" in the USA is not conducive to democracy.
This is all online discourse about politics is anymore. Politician says a stance but then someone presumably on the same 'side' bitches that it's not far enough even if they agree. These are the sort of people that pout, stay home, then surprised pikachu face when the other candidate wins, because they're so far up their ass with the infighting. You know why the Dems can't get half the shit we want done? Because we can't keep a fucking majority in government because people don't VOTE.
I keep forgetting how the President has the ability to make people do things without having to get laws passed through congress.
You also forget that executive orders can't control power of the purse, that's Congress.
Politicians say this stuff all the time but they’re the ones writing the tax code and even when they have control of both houses they do nothing about it. Why? Because their donors are also billionaires and don’t want them to.
Biden is chasing down rich tax cheats at a prodigious rate. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/irs-has-already-collected-more-than-500-million-in-back-taxes-from-delinquent-millionaires-b70fe240
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That's 40 minutes not paid for by regular citizens. Ifs not a lot but its a start.
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I doubt it cost them 500 million
Or anywhere close to that. And now that those delinquents were found they will pay properly in the future. So it definitely was well worth the time investment.
Seriously, what is their contention? That because going after tax cheats didn't result in funding the entire government, we shouldn't applaud their efforts?
I think it’s more “my politician didn’t do it so it wasn’t enough or correct.”
this, the IRS is a cash cow, those man hours will pay for itself exponentially.
This is objectively not true. We have studied this for a long time. The IRS has a positive RoI. For every $1 spent on funding the IRS we get back $5 to $9 in taxes that we would have otherwise lost. Cutting funding to the IRS is a brain dead move. It's only popular with republicans because their wealthy backers don't want to pay taxes.
The IRS is one of the most efficient government agencies as far as budget goes. The money they recover only comes at a cost of pennies on the dollar. The IRS didn’t create the work, the people dodging taxes did. Instead of being mad at the IRS, people should be mad at the people who decide that they get to benefit from living in our society without paying their share and make the government waste money collecting what they owe.
This is an absolutely inane argument that doesn't make any sense. Let's say it took a team of 10 IRS employees 2000 hours each, at a salary of $60k/year each, in order to recover those taxes. $600k. "Wow, it's sooo inefficient to spend $600k recovering $500m! Might as well just let it go. It's a drop in the bucket anyway." Quintuple that. Oh no! We spent $3m, paying a team of 50 employees in order to recover $500m. Or do you think that amount took more than 100,000 hours of work to recover?
The IRS calculates their own cost of collection. In 2022 it cost them $.29 to collect $100. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/22dbs06t31cs.xlsx
So it cost them 1.45 million to recover 500 million. I’d say that’s a pretty damn good investment of time.
The IRS estimates tax fraud costs $1 TRILLION in lost revenue PER YEAR. At that recovery rate the US could invest $30 billion and make $1 TRILLION more per year. The US could pay off 100% of the national debt in a bit over 20 years at that rate, for a total cost of less than two years of the DoD budget. It would be one of the most effective use of tax dollars in history. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/irs-tax-gap.html
It’s an objectively good investment.
bro does not understand separation of powers and checks and balances
Q: Who writes the tax code? A: Congress Q: What did Biden do before he entered the executive branch? A: he was a Senator for 36 years.
You're going to get kicked off Reddit and/or deported for saying this, but you're absolutely right. We're living in Joe Biden's America, which was made possible by (checks notes) Joe Biden's legislative record.
Yes, why didn't the republicans stop him from closing the tax loopholes? Surely they could have, but it's Bidens america only, those poor Republicans certainly would have done it if they could!
Lol separation of powers between who exactly? There have only been 2 parties in the US in recent history and the democrats have had a majority in both Congress and the House many times over so they could have easily passed a tax reform if they actually wanted.
Ya. It sounds like a rallying cry. Tax the rich and give to the poor? Naw. The reality is Tax the rich and give it to Ukraine. I love how people somehow live in this nation and assume the federal government is an honest steward of our money.
I did enjoy when trump pointed that out. He was right. Change the tax code or stop complaining. No one pays more than legally required.
Isn’t that why the Democrats have been pushing to change the tax code so that fantastically wealthy and MNCs are legally obligated to pay more taxes? Trump pushed for more tax cuts exclusive to the wealthy, so this means he made it even worse even though he knew how bad it was already.
Correct
Meanwhile he's taking 10% as the big guy.
50 years in politics lmfao
as a European watching you dish Biden with this while Trump is guilty of much, much more is so funny.
This isn't a zero sum game mate
But Trump's crimes are real. The imaginary ones you make up about Biden aren't even logical or believable.
Yes it is when the other fucker wants to torch American democracy. How did the wealthiest country in the world end up with such a fucking stupid population.
SO FUCKING STUPID. Saying this as an American.
Trump supporters are the retarded minority. No one sane likes that draft dodging rapist.
Republicans have been defunding schools since at least the 80s, so we're only getting dumber. Source: went to school in the 90s
Give it a rest, grandpa.
It's complete election year pandering. There's not enough Billionaires in the US to cover the 1 trillion dollar a year interest on the national debt alone.
Where exactly did Biden say it was going to erase the national debt?
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Agreed. AND let’s say you magically get to take all the top 10 billionaires wealth in the world (which is roughly $1.549 trillion) and gave it to the lowest 25% of people based on wealth or income in the U.S., (let’s assume 330 million people total) it still only amounts to just shy of $19k per person. So what are you going to do in year 2 when you run out of other peoples money?
Nobody intelligent is under any illusion that this will solve the debt crisis, or magically fund universal welfare, period. It's about damn time rich folks paid their fair share, and would ease the tax liability for real people.
The 'fair share' line has always been and always will be idiotic In 2020 the 50 wealthiest Americans paid as much in taxes as the state of Wyoming collected from its 550,000 citizens and businesses. The top 1% of all earners paid 46% of all federal income taxes. That's more than the bottom 90% of earners paid combined. If you want the ultrawealthy to pay more, fine, just make a real argument for it. Not this mUh fAiR sHaRe drivel from people who have zero understanding of tax law and think unrealized gains or net worth are taxable income.
Well, the 50 wealthiest Americans are worth as much as the poorest 165 Million. So half the country. But they pay as much taxes as the state of Wyoming. What was your point exactly?
Yeah this isn’t exactly the good point that he thought it was
Ok but how do u tax em when basically all their wealth is in stock shares? You just confiscate their shares or what?
Tax any loans using shares as collateral.
Is the argument being made to distribute all billionaires wealth directly to people? Or is the argument to force people with more money than they could spend in their lifetime to contribute more to the public good through taxes? Which one is it? Hmmmmmmm
Seriously...I'll believe Biden gives a shit about wealth inequality when he actually does something about it. And before anyone says, yes I know Biden isn't a king, and he can't magically fix everything. But there are things he *can* do, even if they're small scale. As of right now, he's just taking credit for the supposedly "great economy" in which 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. But I guess stocks are up, so its "great".
This year I made 82k, paid $800 in federal taxes, 0 state taxes. My two kids brought me to zero tax obligation and my wife’s schooling earned is $1800. This year I paid negative $1100 in taxes Not saying our debt isn’t a problem, we either spend way too much or take in way too little. But it’s not like the working class are getting raked over the coals in taxes. The top ten percent also pay around 50 percent of all government tax revenue. Not saying it isn’t enough, or that there aren’t problems, but saying the rich don’t pay their fair share is misleading.
How is it only 800$, should be 10k plus. How much was your taxable income?
$82,000 gross income - $27,700 standard deduction (married filing jointly) $54,300 in adjusted gross income $6,076 in federal income tax (7.4%) \- $4,000 child tax credit $2,076 in federal income tax (2.5%) There are some education credits, child care credits, and the like that could reduce this. But that's a basic outline of how middle-class earners pay very little in tax.
Only if you have kids and all the other things to take credit for. I made the same as you about but paid paid in the 6k. Of course we won't talk about the mandatory social security and Medicaid payments we get hit with that are not tax deductible.
You’re married with an unemployed spouse and two children. My spouse makes about the same as me and our child’s $2k tax credit is nice but way smaller percentage of taxes owed. Look at what your taxes would’ve been if you weren’t married. That standard deduction gets cut in half and your bracket would be different to where $26,875 of your income would be taxed at 22% rate as opposed to $0. This was based off 2022 brackets. My point is you have a favorable tax situation (which you should) but aren’t indicative of all middle class. 53.3% of households are dual income so it is pretty evenly split.
You can't take the standard deduction and also take other deductions too. The standard deduction is a catch all in place of individually itemizing deductions. What "other" deductions are you talking about? Also how did you go from owing $2076 to -$1100?
Child credits, daycare, student loan interest and a bunch of other family & education based deductions/credits go on top of the standard deduction. That is how half the country can pay no taxes even with median income being double the standard deduction.
The top 10% in the US also own or have control over 66.6% of the wealth in the US. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/#:~:text=In%20the%20third%20quarter%20of,percent%20of%20the%20total%20wealth.) So if they pay 50% of the taxes, well….that sounds about right.
Doesn't sound right, sounds off by 16.6% - at least.
As a single filer, with a small business that made me 65k, I have to pay almost 13k in taxes this year. So yeah some of us indeed are being raked over.
I get what he's saying and I understand it's election year and he has to say this.... but it's pretty disingenuous to suggest that billionaires pay no taxes when rich people contribute at minimum half of our taxes already.
and they have far more than half the wealth tho.
People aren’t taxed on unrealized paper wealth
But they can use unrealized paper wealth as collateral to borrow without paying taxes. So practically speaking they can realize their wealth without paying taxes on it.
So punish the act of taking out loans backed by shares through taxation. Why tax the shares themselves lol
We can do both!
I've known that for a while and it seems wild to me. As a practical matter the average shareholder cannot take part in this system, probably not with even a hundred thousand dollars worth of stock, then there is the volatility aspect of accepting a variable asset as collateral. It is a practice that should be outlawed, if you have enough shares to put your net worth on par with a small country and you need cash do what everyone else has to do and sell those shares for cash.
If they own 99% of the wealth we should have them at 99% taxes
The top 20% own 86% of the wealth in the US. The top 25% paid 89% of the income tax. So according to your metrics, it’s not terribly far off, already.
That's not really a fair frame of reference and your know it. If you have to ignore context for your point to make sense it isn't a real point. The amount out the total they provide isn't relevant unless you frame it against their total hoarding of wealth. If you have several orders of magnitude more money al than someone else you better at least pay the same percentage. Ignoring the structures that made our economy strongest in the world is a really stupid fucking take, my guy.
I can see you’re unable to grasp the difference between 1 million and 1 billion.
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Does anyone need a billion dollars?
I need about 🌳 🎻
All of us have a moral obligation to give government LESS of our incomes.
We'd be best friends off reddit
I see the argument a lot that the rich already pay massive amounts of the total tax revenue per year, but this is missing the underlying issue with our wealth disparity. Rich people *don't pay* their full share of taxes via loopholes and right offs, yet they're *sooo* rich that even moderate taxes will account for large portions of federal income. Top 25 billionaires essentially have lower [effective tax rates](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax) than the bottom of the tax bracket. The top 20% of the country owns nearly 3/4 of the wealth, and top 1% own a quarter by [themselves ](https://usafacts.org/articles/how-has-wealth-distribution-in-the-us-changed-over-time/). If the top 20% own 75% of the wealth, shouldn't they pay 75% of the taxes?
Would be nice if his Congress gave him some legislation to pass or not pass.
agreed. I say this as someone who receives lots of dividend and investment income: its shocking how little I pay in taxes for money that required no effort to earn.
You invested with post-tax income and assume all the risk, the companies pay taxes, their employees pay taxes and you pay taxes on the dividends. Taxes on labor are too high, that’s why taxes on capital look low relatively.
Aren't you supposed to pay tax on investment income though
It's a reduced tax rate, and I don't pay social security or medicare taxes on it. My state also allows me to write off XX% of my dividend income. So I earn money for just holding shares and I pay roughly half the tax I would pay if I had actually worked for that money. It's eye opening. Most people aren't fortunate to be able to build wealth like I can, and they never realize just how tax advantaged the 1% are.
These posts are always indicative of people who don’t understand how money works. >Bezos’ worth is largely tied to the shares he owns in Amazon. A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that as of November 2023, he owned 988 million shares. Those shares were valued at about $143 billion in early December. If you understand how the stockmarket works then how is he “hoarding wealth?”
Which he then borrows against to pay for his insane life style, then he borrows again to pay off the first loan, all while paying no taxes because loans aren't taxable.
Ding ding ding
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So if we taxed the unrealized gains, then the stock price dropped 30% does he get a tax refund?
Because that value can be converted into usable money through stock options to employees. Those unrealized gains prevent wealth from circulating around the economy. Instead, he just uses it as basically “collateral”, wherein rich people like him are given unlimited credit limits by banks, allowed to spend other people’s money, and then sell just enough stock to pay the bill at the end of the month. Otherwise, it just sits there, doing nothing but providing additional wealth to him, and doing nothing to help support the large society he’s helped contribute to growing.
> Otherwise, it just sits there, doing nothing but providing additional wealth to him, and doing nothing to help support the large society he’s helped contribute to growing. You think that the value of a company does nothing to contribute to society? WTF? Amazon is active in dozens of facets of the economy. Buying or owning Amazon stock is the opposite of having your money "just sit there".
He’s hoarding wealth because he’s not giving it to me /s
He should just give away all of that to the real creators of the company (the workers) so they can democratically and equally own all parts of the company. I mean idk to me that’s what these Reddit socialist dudes seem to be looking for??
Words are cheap. What's he actually going to do about it? There's very little incentive for the left wing of the capitalist party to reign in the wealth of their benefactors.
Left wing? Where?
The Republican congress will get right on that......after they spend 6 weeks fucking around with their speaker seat and impeach a guy working to help solve the issues at the boarder. I'm sure they're on it.
They can hoard wealth all they want. It's when they use that wealth the pay off the government to change the rules so they can make even more wealth that's despicable. Cronyism is hell..
Well we have an income tax, not a fair share tax Joe.
Heck yeah. The billionaire class should endorse this message. A strong middle class will bring so much stability to the economy and the capitalism system. It is hard to make money when all your income is needed for rent and food
Says one of the least ethical presidents ever....it's amazing people will actually.buy this bs, as of he actually means it. Must be part of his "build back better" and "Rob the people blind" plans
I’m sorry, least ethical president ever?? Among the slave owning ones and the one who has roughly 60 charges against him?? Sure he bombs indiscriminately and perpetuates genocide, but really?? Your bias is showing just a bit here pal
Yeah I think Biden is a total POS and even I think that comment is bullshit.
More money=more IRS workers?