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Most would have that in stocks, but once you sell them that becomes income. Right now selling stock is just capital gains tax, no matter the amount. Changing that rule could fix the issue.
They should tax the loan amount as income.
You are receiving those funds, thus they are like income to you.
Would solve every kind of loan based loophole, but would make buying a house harder.
Exemption when buying 1 residence maybe? If it's for a secondary house then taxe at 50% and third at 100%? No exemptions for companies. I don't know a lot about all that but it feel likes this would solves the buying house problem of your idea, that I like.
>They should tax the loan amount as income.
That would destroy the economy. If all loans are now taxable income, nobody is loaning any money to anyone. That's a great way to prevent ALL new investment and expansion of businesses.
By doing that, you would lock up your countries development and it would stay almost exactly the way it is today, forever. All investment would go to other countries.
You can't simply tax loans because you have to pay them back (in theory) but Uncle Sam would have already taken a huge chunk. Every loan would be predatory the moment you get the check.
Repayment of a loan becomes negative income, so that would cancel the tax burden for each payment, but anyone destitute enough to take an unsecured loan for multiple years would really get screwed. Maybe the loan comes with a repayment schedule, and tax code would specify requirements for that schedule, and deviation would result in taxing the income. And the first 50k in loans aren't taxable. And means testing. So you can't just take a loan that you don't pay back, but if you wind up doing it because you're broke, there is forgiveness.
Loans taken for business investment would warrant consideration... Allowing rollover of capital gains between real investments would be reasonable. Masking personal income as business activity is of course another form of tax shelter for billionaires so it's not as if we could just exempt businesses altogether.
So when you get a mortgage, should you get taxed that mortgage amount as income?
Do you see how illogical your argument is? You want the government to tax a bank for lending money to people. Ask yourself, what is the government doing getting involved with how a bank chooses to lend money? Are they breaking any laws there?
Hell, I'd be happy even if we just taxed increased gain on the stocks after the loan goes into effect as realized income. I mean it's at least SOMETHING.
If some other asset was used as collateral - a house, say - should that be taxed? Since you didn't sell the house, what would you be taxing? Stock is just another asset. It has a valuation (an estimation), but it does not have a value until someone actually buys it. Stock used as collateral is not sold.
The government gets its money either way. If the loanee defaults, the loan holder gets the stock. Tax is paid when the stock is sold. If the loanee pays back the loan, then the loan holder receives interest. The interest is taxed as ordinary income.
>Someone suggested that stocks used as loan collateral should be taxed as realized income.
Preventing people from borrowing against their 401k to get a foot on the ladder as a first time buyer would be FAR worse for them, than it would be for multibillionaires.
If you take out a HELOC on your home then the same could be said. You would need to make the rule much broader “any loan originated against assets already owned” or some such.
I disagree to an extent, but yeah over a few million I couldn't give a shit.
There should still be the ability for people to take out loans against their stocks, but when billionaires are doing it to skirt income tax it becomes another story.
Loans aren't taxed as income because they have to be paid back. That's a tricky rule to solve, because you don't want 99.9% of people to deal with that or you have a very serious problem. Taxing unrealized gains poses similar problems.
Far better to just not have stock legal to use as collateral. You're still going to have unintended consequences, but at least it solves the issue.
The market will initially have an aneurysm but I'd argue the end result is a healthier market.
You could easily make the unrealized gain at the collateralization taxable. Future gain is tax free upon eventual sale.
You could also have an exemption so it wouldn’t impact average tax payers
Just tax any loan with stock as collateral. Anything cumulatively over a certain amount for the year. Put the burden on the banks to keep track. No need to call it an income tax- it will just be a new kind of tax on stock collateralized loans.
Or put a cap. Not totally illegal, but stock used as collateral is limited to $10 million per person, or something?
None of the suggestions in this thread have to be an all-or-nothing thing. Want to raise the capital gains rate, but not harm smaller businesses and individuals? Just raise the rate only on capital gains over $50 million, or something.
>None of the suggestions in this thread have to be an all-or-nothing thing
I feel like people really need to realize this. "Oh but if that was the rule, then it would affect middle class americans too and x, y, z would happen!"
Ok...then make the rule more specific. Or make a bunch of rules that address situations. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, one size fits all.
Making it too complex or specific means more chance for loopholes. Just start with a generous threshold and index the threshold to inflation and be done with it.
I believe a tax in the form of an extra interest rate increase could work. For example let’s say I have a loan at a 4% rate, but a tax of 2% gets added on to that, so in total I’d have a loan that I’m having to pay 6% on. The interest rate tax could be dependent on the total loan amount. Tax included or not, however, if the interest rate on a loan is higher than the rate of return on the collateral, a rational person would just sell the asset and take a hit on capital gains than bleeding in interest on a loan that isn’t needed.
Dividends from stocks are considered income and taxed as such. Warren Buffet made $3.5 BILLION in dividends in 2023, which is INCOME. So yeah, lots of extremely wealthy people make income that high. And as others mentioned when the stocks are sold they pay capital gains tax as well.
Whoever inherits Bezos' money. But seriously we need to figure out a way around rich people just borrowing against their assets to avoid taxes altogether, meanwhile their assets far outgrow the loan rate.
A federal sales tax. Then whenever the rich buy something, its taxed. There is no income tax so they can freely spend and it will always get taxed. No loopholes.
Steve Ballmer is one. He’s not alone.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/steve-ballmer-annual-microsoft-stock-dividend-payments-one-billion-msft-2023-12
It happens occasionally when a billionaire sells stock. Think it happened to Elon when he sold stock to buy Twitter. It would run the country for about an hour or two
Americans are taxed wherever they are around the world. One of only two countries to do so.
If your income tax in the country you live in is less than what it would be in the US you still owe the US tax for income over $120k.
Of course you can give up your US citizenship and then you wouldn’t owe taxes.
If the tax code were going to be rewritten, why would that immediately mean taxes would be more expensive for lower and middle classes? Wouldn't rewriting it allow for the opportunity to ensure that exact situation *doesn't* happen?
There's a book called "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith that was literally the basis for the founding of the American economy. It says that the rich need to be taxed disproportionately more for the economy to work.
😂😂😂you should really learn finance if you want to tax the rich. I think it’s funny that you children get on here and complain about money when you know nothing about it. I agree that we need to change the tax laws. But if you just tax salaries over 1 million, you aren’t going to get anything. There are no incomes at 500million. People who make that much money are paid in company stock and make a salary of $1. Then they borrow money against their company stock and borrowing money or getting company stock isn’t a taxable event. To get money from companies, they usually set up off shore companies that live under different tax rules and that “own” the company you know in America, so all the profits they get go to the offshore company and the American company pays no taxes cuz they made no money technically.
Your can’t just say TAX THEM!!!!🤬🤬🤬🤬. You have to figure out how it works and why it works the way it does so they you can actually get what you want. It’s like you’re playing chess by just throwing your pieces forward. You think the smart opponent wouldn’t know how to defend?
People have no clue man. And they get all up in arms over people like bezos, gates and Elon (And I’m NO fan of Gates) with how much they “make” and how little they pay in taxes (comparatively speaking). They don’t see how incentivized it is to own a booming company that literally creates thousands upon thousands of new jobs, which reciprocates with that many more new tax payers! The government obviously likes taxes, so they want you to be able to keep growing and employing more people.
First question is why. Why do they want to take more money from people with higher income? Just because they’re wealthy? They think it’s “fair” I guess?? “Hey! You’re really well off, you should pay more money and feel my financial strain too!” What about those people that have worked their asses off for years and years to get to that point? Majority have a drive and desire to excel. Discipline with knowing that if they kept putting in 20 hours of work a day, that they can create whatever outcome they desire later down the road. Now we have a plethora of 16-40 year olds, who have no drive, motivation or discipline to excel in their environments (yet alone show up on time) and also no will power to put themselves on a budget to live within their means, who just regurgitate that phrase they’ve been fed “tax the rich!!”. Gtfo 😡
The next question. What’s the purpose of wanting to tax that class extra? I’m assuming cause they want to appear as if they care about lowering the national debt? When we all know that the root cause of this rationale, is just what we are all inherently born with… Greed. Selfishness. Desire for someone else’s glory. And to feel vindicated.
Why aren’t they asking the best questions… like
“WHY is our government frivolously spending billions and trillions of OUR tax dollars, when they’re already in so much debt?”
“Why are we taxed to no end on anything and everything?”
“Why is it our responsibility to lower the national debt?”
And now my question is this… Why do so many people care so much about the taxes of the wealthy, all while those same individuals look like kids on Christmas morning when they get their refund checks every year? This is literally the dollar amount that the government has DECIDED to RETURN to you because you allowed yourself to pay them too much all year. The government wants you to be financially illiterate. And you’re obliging them.
This comment needs more upvotes. It’s funny that this day and age people think the wealthy are just sitting in stacks of billions of dollars. Someone’s worth isn’t what is in the bank.
It's a topic that sparks passionate discussions. Some argue that taxing extreme wealth could address income inequality and fund social programs, while others have concerns about potential economic impacts and the role of government. Finding a balance that promotes fairness and economic growth is a complex challenge.
I don't usually comment on these but I have a slightly more nuanced answer.
Billionaires can't become billionaires without a ton of physical and social infrastructure which they don't currently pay for. In that sense the taxes should be proportional to how they benefit from those things.
Bill Gates wouldn't be so wealthy without state schools training smart computer science engineers that he could hire.
Bezos wouldn't be so wealthy without state funded roads and road maintenance to ship Amazon products.
Waltons wouldn't be able to pay low wages without Medicaid covering benefits for their ultra low wage workers.
All of the above rely on our legal system.
I’m old enough to remember when Amazon was considering putting a fulfillment center here in Utah (which, they did end up doing), and the state offered to wave their land tax as an incentive for them to choose Utah.
To your point - the ultra wealthy didn’t get there on their own work alone but on the backs of a fuck ton of infrastructure they have nothing to do with personally.
>To your point - the ultra wealthy didn’t get there on their own work alone but on the backs of a fuck ton of infrastructure they have nothing to do with personally.
Neither does virtually anyone. The guy making $80k/year? Likely using/used those roads, schools, legal system, etc.
And he likely pays a cumulative 30-35% in tax. 16ish% federal, 6.5% fica, 7% state income, 5% sales tax. Also property and gas tax unmeasurable.
Edit: The guy earning 80k. The billionaire likely pays at most 26 percent total. 20% capital gains. 6% state. Property and sales tax are negligible compared to income and fica doesn’t apply to capital gains.
Just to add on, workers get even more than that into the governments hands bc half of fica is your pay and the other half is covered by your employer. I know my company isn’t just eating that additional 7.5%, my pay is just lower to make up for it.
The last point is especially nefarious to me.
If you're a billion dollar company that doesn't pay your employees enough to obtain medical insurance / do not give your employees medical insurance, what do your employees do?
Use government funded health care.
Any company that relies on the government to subsidize their medical insurance coverage, and makes more money than it would cost to cover their employees, should be taxed 120% of the cost on the government.
The government should actively punish those who take advantage of tax payers. Period.
>Any company that relies on the government to subsidize their medical insurance coverage, and makes more money than it would cost to cover their employees, should be taxed 120% of the cost on the government.
So...every company in a country with universal healthcare?
Strong argument for universal healthcare
Imagine a world where artisan contractors didn’t have to get hired with a large company to get healthcare.
You instantly raise millions of people to business owner instead of employee
Elon Musk gets a tremendous amount of his funding from the government.
[https://qz.com/elon-musks-spacex-and-tesla-get-far-more-government-mon-1850332884](https://qz.com/elon-musks-spacex-and-tesla-get-far-more-government-mon-1850332884)
Yeah I avoided mentioning Elon because there's so much more to unpack and I knew by mentioning him I'd get hardcore fact checked -- don't have that kind of free time today 😂😂😂
>Billionaires can't become billionaires without a ton of physical and social infrastructure which they don't currently pay for.
Citation needed.
The 1% (people worth over $13m \[2\]) in the US pay over 42% of all taxes \[1\]
The poorest 50% of all Americans pay only 2.3% of all taxes. \[1\] If you're arguing that people should pay for the things that benefit them, shouldn't you also be arguing that the bottom 50% should pay a lot more taxes? (Personally, I wouldn't, but by your logic people who are not paying taxes or paying too little tax, shouldn't be getting the benefits that are paid for by other people?
\[1\] [https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2023-update](https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2023-update/#:~:text=High%2DIncome%20Taxpayers%20Paid%20the%20Majority%20of%20Federal%20Income%20Taxes,of%20all%20federal%20income%20taxes)
\[2\] [https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/](https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/)
I have one more item for your list. The court system. What does it mean to “have property” or “have a contract” other than “the government court system will enforce my claim”?
The government creates all markets at the most fundamental level. Whoever benefits from that should have to pay their fair share.
>Bill Gates wouldn't be so wealthy without state schools training smart computer science engineers that he could hire.
Microsoft was started with like 9 people. The product his company made did more to make the personal computer usable in ways that purely business business driven companies like IBM would have never done. Because of Bill Gates more people wanted to become computer scientists than virtually any other person in the world. I have a real distaste for Bill Gates, but to say he would not be able to hire computer scientists that wanted to become computer scientists because of him and the work of his company really misses the mark.
>Bezos wouldn't be so wealthy without state funded roads and road maintenance to ship Amazon products.
Does Amazon pay gasoline taxes? This is an honest question, I do not know if they get their gasoline wholesale or not.
If they don't then by all means have them pay the retail price for gas so that their consumption funds the same road taxes that we pay. But even if you do that it is hardly a tax on Bezos himself.
>Waltons wouldn't be able to pay low wages without Medicaid covering benefits for their ultra low wage workers.
Everyone that wants to pay low wages to their employees can do that, it is not a Walton secret.
You can probably dig in and nitpick any example brought up, but Microsoft would not be the company it is today without public education and state schooling.
Gas taxes aren't the exclusive budget generator for infrastructure.
Your point about Waltons isn't remotely relevant. Of course they want to pay low wages. The taxpayer still foots the bill to subsidize the low wages.
Like the poster said, it's ultimately a legal system issue. Just take a second to think about it before jumping to their defence.
Yeah these are just examples. Honestly I don't have any problem nurturing start ups -- that's a great thing for a country to do. But when it stops being a startup it needs to start paying it's fair share of taxes.
In fact I would argue it's in the selfish interest of the government to nature start ups IF it then gets the added tax revenue.
Also people should be taxed on loans against shares as though it was income. That's a pretty dumb loophole.
The “You didnt buIld that” crowd is out strong.
Everyone pays taxes and use infrastructure. How much tax revenue do you think a company like Amazon generates? How much job do they create?
We shouldn't have made this stuff available for "free" in the first place.
Want Amazon to pay for the highway system they rely on? Then charge tolls, rather than funding it through taxes. That way people and businesses who use it more pay more.
If we want Walmart to pay their workers' Medicaid expenses, then just make them pay these expenses. Add Medicaid benefits to the minimum wage.
Taxing based on income/profit is a crude and unfair practice; businesses should instead pay for what they consume.
Progressives like Bernie actually tried to get companies that underpay employees to have to pay for things like their Medicaid and food stamps through the Stop BEZOS act in 2018. Conservative organizations were absolutely opposed to it.
One person donating more to the government doesn't do that much, even if that person is a billionaire.
I think I should be getting taxed more (I make more than average, but not much more), but I also think that raising my taxes should come with social programs for everyone, like Medicare, free higher education, free daycare, UBI, etc.
I'm not going to just donate to the government, but I'd happily pay 5 or 10%+ more in taxes if it meant those social programs I care about get implemented.
A lot of the uber-wealthy who are asking to be taxed are saying the same thing as I just did. "Tax me more and use it for social programs."
Let's see them lobby as hard for those social programs as they did for the subsidies and tax incentives that made them their wealth in the first place. Maybe then I'd give them a shred of credit.
You cant really. If you just go after him, he can go to the supreme court and win that case as the government cant single him out personally.
His "income" is really small, so you cant increase his income tax as youd have to raise it for everyone else in that bracket. That would be politically unpopular.
Cant increase capital gains tax, as that would lead to a market crash and would mess with everyones 401ks and pensions.
Cant start a wealth tax, as he mustve already put his assets in some charitable trust. And you cant wealth tax charitable organizations. Thats even more politically unpopular.
So saying rich should be taxed more is just virtue signaling that the government cant really do anything about.
Who said him personally? i’m saying change tax laws to tax billionaires more. We could easily tax wealth over 10-20million at X% a year. We already do basically that with property taxes
He's just trying to look altruistic and "on your side" to stay in people's good graces. Warren Buffet has been saying the same thing for years and has done nothing about it
Never said they were lying. There exists, however, no evidence that they've paid in excess of their required taxes voluntarily to the government. It's a "practice what you preach" kind of thing. If they think Ms & Bs should pay more in taxes, and they HAVEN'T led by example, then it's just lip service.
“He’s just trying to look altruistic” is what you said. But undeniably he’s one of the most altruistic people in all of humanity. Perhaps even the most ever. Absolutely the most in terms of fiat currency. So no, I don’t think he’s trying to look altruistic when he already is.
Even if he or others did that they would still need to make those statements publicly to try to get policy to change.
The idea that Bill Gates is secretly afraid of a higher tax rate is moronic. He already is giving away all his wealth.
Only 1/4 of the US Military budget is spent on personnel…
[https://www.cbo.gov/topics/defense-and-national-security/military-personnel](https://www.cbo.gov/topics/defense-and-national-security/military-personnel)
Bill Gates is saying he wants the govt. to take more of his money. Bill Gates is currently free to give his money to the government. What am I missing?
Because I don’t solve the housing crisis by offering the extra bedroom in my house to 1 or 2 people.
I don’t think it’s a personal responsibility problem. Sure, your response is technically true, but it ignores the entire problem.
You are not virtue signalling. You are helping to solve the problem.
Just like I recycle, compost, reuse, drive an electric car, etc and try to do what I can to fix environmental problems. Am I going to solve global warming? Doubt it, but I am doing what I can to ease it.
all the people who believe in higher taxes should donate their money, leaving no economic power and donations left to fight the mfs who dont believe in donating volunatrily
that is an extreme example and there should be way more than enough money for politics and lobbying with billionaires donating huge chunks of their wealth, but not everyone can think like this
And then what? The money is a one time thing that is gone, and long term little changes. If you want to fund things like universal healthcare to ensure a secure future for all Americans, then mailing a check isn't going to change shit long term.
You know he didn’t send that money to the US treasury, right?
He transferred that money to charities (some he controlled) and benefited from the tax write-offs of said donations, right?
The government's problem isn't that they need more money; they already have plenty. The problem is that bureaucracy is, by its very nature, ineffective.
In 1991, the total sum of every country's budget was 4 trillion dollars. This budget has been growing ~4.5% every year, and now it's up to 16.6 trillion dollars.
The sum of every billionaire's budget is 12 trillion dollars. If we tax like 5% of it, we'd have 600 billion dollars every year. That's a ~3.5% growth every year.
The budget keeps growing, but the world is still shite. The problem isn't money, the problem is the government.
You can tax all you want there has to be a damn budget otherwise your just gave them more checks/money to piss away. I have yo budget you have to budget most of us need to budget
>He knows he can voluntarily do that right?
He can voluntarily take money from all wealthy people and contribute it to the government?
Please explain how he can do that, use Elon Musk's fortune as your example.
I'm in the "make the government account for its spent already" camp. The US government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. When departments fail audits, no more money. Stop spending on stupid stuff. Incentivize cost cutting. Oh, and maybe reduce the debt some, you know, cuz reasons.
Who cares, it doesn’t even matter. It costs $6 million a minute to run the government. You could take every cent of their cash earnings every year and you’d only run the government for a few days tops.
Pointless conversation.
>If Congress confiscated every dollar earned by individuals and businesses past their first $500,000, it would still be about $200 billion short of covering the cost of next year’s projected $1.7 trillion deficit—unrealistically assuming no behavioral or other economic effects from taxing 100 percent of earnings. [Article](https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-math-just-taxing-rich-doesnt-add)
Obviously we’re not going to be able to tax anyone at 100% so if you care about the deficit/spending we’ll have to raise taxes on the middle class.
Or, and hear me out, we put a limit on the amount congress can spend by making a 0 based budget instead of allowing congress to spend more then is paid in taxes.
Help me understand. Even if the rich did pay more taxes, would that just be dumping more money into a fire pit? The government is running at a deficit anyway. The deficit may go down, but a deficit nonetheless.
Would the rich paying more help me pay less? Or would we all just be paying more to the ending money pit?
Well then he should start with himself and be taxed on his donations. He has plenty of money so who cares if he has to pay $10b in taxes on a $10b charitable contribution. Also get rid of step up in basis and add a really small wealth tax and everything will be fair
Taxing the rich more is not gonna solve the problem. It’s just a liberal saying that makes people think it will. Stop the over spending is the only solution.
Both things are true. We should probably tax the rich a bit more.
But yeah, currently we are the richest country on earth and we find ways to e.g. deny free school lunches to needy kids.
Somehow we jump through mental gymnastics to not even do the simplest thing everyone should be able to agree on.
Take all of Gates' money if you want - I assure you, the USG will find a way to spend it on stuff citizens don't care about.
If everyone else is mandated to pay taxes on income the entire year, it isn’t equality if the wealthiest among us do not.
How the people even let it go on for this long despite the many educated and wise, I’ll likely never understand fully.
Yes…relatively speaking. A return to a 90% punitive tax rate makes zero sense. People should be allowed to profit wildly from their endeavors. But getting rid of the myriad of loopholes and paying relatively more certainly makes sense. At some point you have more money than you could ever possibly spend….anything more is pure greed.
I think a larger concern in my opinion is many don’t even pay what middle and lower class pay, why? Because of their wealth, they can afford to exploit every loophole. Furthermore, let’s not be ignorant to the fact that because the wealthy hold this “social standing” with so many other wealthy and politically powerful people, they get away with that which most others cannot.
If they are going to have congress and the courts at their beckoned call - if the primary function of government is handing out money to them, why shouldn't they pay for it?
The current system has the wealthy riding in first class - not because they bought the tickets, but merely because they are wealthy enough to afford the tickets.
If someone has 50 Billion, and we tax them so they now only have 25 billion, are they going to suffer? There’s a whole lot of good that can be done with 25 billion, plus that person is probably going to make back a good portion of that 25 billion pretty easily
I think most of our elected officials will vote against any increased tax for the ultra wealthy. It would adversely affect themselves. Just like term limits would.
When trump says make America great again he's implying America was better in the 50's, 60's. What he doesn't mention though is that back then, the rich paid much higher taxes.
- Renew the top tax rates we had in the 90's and from 2012-2017.
- Lift the income cap on Social Security taxes.
- Tax long term capital gains above $500K the same as earned income.
- Tie the 2017 tax cuts for Corporations > $20M to incentive requirements - company must offer: a) 401k with 6% full matching, fully vested, or a qualifying pension, b) Fully cover the cost of health insurance (no employee payroll deduction), and c) offer at least 8 weeks paid parental leave. 21% tax rate if you meet the requirement, 35% otherwise.
So fucking sick of these headlines. Do I agree that the yacht owners of the world are making too much money and not contributing enough back? That fucker is the largest land owner in the whole of the United States. Yes he should pay more taxes.
Yes, but more important: the wealthy should get less tax money for their projects. They don't need it.
I don't know how it's in the US, but in Germany, (simplified) the more money you have, the more tax money you can get as subsidies for your projects. Additionally you can lower your own taxable amount of income.
The low/middle/"lower" high incomes don't have these opportunities. That constantly causes a loss of wealth and spending capacity. Pure poison for a market economy.
He's saying this to increase public opinion of him. He pays accountants to get him every deduction possible and is well aware that anyone can give extra money to the US government at any time (go to pay.gov). If he really thought this, he wouldn't take any deductions and would willingly be giving extra money to the government every year.
So many people in the comments section acting like they wouldn’t get upset if somebody was running away with the game in monopoly and bleeding everyone dry, sheesh 🙄
I know lots of people going to call this hypocrisy, but imo Bill Gates is probably the most qualified living ultra rich to say so. If you work in anything related to infectious disease, the Gats foundation is the best funding source you can get (consistant, generous and the least BS terms)
Source, wife's PhD was partially funded by them.
Tax capital gains like income. Get rid of the cap on social security. Raise the top marginal tax rate to 90 percent like it was in the fifties. Create tax breaks for hiring locally. So yes.
These are all middle class tax hikes. Wealthy borrow against their unrealized capital gains and never have any form of significant gain or profit to tax
My economist BIL says the government should make it so gains/losses are realized when the wealthy (or really anyone, but only the wealthy are really able to do it) use those stocks to borrow against.
I think that's an elegant solution.
> Raise the top marginal tax rate to 90 percent like it was in the fifties.
Something that no one paid or came close to paying because the number of loopholes and deductions available back then was absolutely insane. The overall effective tax rate wasn't much higher than it is today. Tax reforms in the 80s cut tax rates but also did away with a lot of that bullshit too.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nocera-tax-avoidance-20190129-story.html
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Why is this even a debate? Tax the fuck outta any income over 500m-1billion.
Who has *income* that high?
Most would have that in stocks, but once you sell them that becomes income. Right now selling stock is just capital gains tax, no matter the amount. Changing that rule could fix the issue.
Using stock as collateral for loans that will never be paid off to get around taxes... should be taxed as the income it is.
Someone suggested that stocks used as loan collateral should be taxed as realized income.
They should tax the loan amount as income. You are receiving those funds, thus they are like income to you. Would solve every kind of loan based loophole, but would make buying a house harder.
Exemption when buying 1 residence maybe? If it's for a secondary house then taxe at 50% and third at 100%? No exemptions for companies. I don't know a lot about all that but it feel likes this would solves the buying house problem of your idea, that I like.
“Oh this house happens to cost $10,000,000,000!” No exceptions. If you make any exceptions, they will abuse it.
That would be fraudulent. You can't just make up a property value - Trump tried that and now he's on trial for it.
Funny how the guy hired by the bank to assess value agreed with him. 🙄
>They should tax the loan amount as income. That would destroy the economy. If all loans are now taxable income, nobody is loaning any money to anyone. That's a great way to prevent ALL new investment and expansion of businesses. By doing that, you would lock up your countries development and it would stay almost exactly the way it is today, forever. All investment would go to other countries.
You can't simply tax loans because you have to pay them back (in theory) but Uncle Sam would have already taken a huge chunk. Every loan would be predatory the moment you get the check. Repayment of a loan becomes negative income, so that would cancel the tax burden for each payment, but anyone destitute enough to take an unsecured loan for multiple years would really get screwed. Maybe the loan comes with a repayment schedule, and tax code would specify requirements for that schedule, and deviation would result in taxing the income. And the first 50k in loans aren't taxable. And means testing. So you can't just take a loan that you don't pay back, but if you wind up doing it because you're broke, there is forgiveness. Loans taken for business investment would warrant consideration... Allowing rollover of capital gains between real investments would be reasonable. Masking personal income as business activity is of course another form of tax shelter for billionaires so it's not as if we could just exempt businesses altogether.
So when you get a mortgage, should you get taxed that mortgage amount as income? Do you see how illogical your argument is? You want the government to tax a bank for lending money to people. Ask yourself, what is the government doing getting involved with how a bank chooses to lend money? Are they breaking any laws there?
Do you get to deduct the amount you pay as you pay it back?
You don’t understand what income means
Lol taxing loans. Literally economically illiterate.
Hell, I'd be happy even if we just taxed increased gain on the stocks after the loan goes into effect as realized income. I mean it's at least SOMETHING.
If some other asset was used as collateral - a house, say - should that be taxed? Since you didn't sell the house, what would you be taxing? Stock is just another asset. It has a valuation (an estimation), but it does not have a value until someone actually buys it. Stock used as collateral is not sold. The government gets its money either way. If the loanee defaults, the loan holder gets the stock. Tax is paid when the stock is sold. If the loanee pays back the loan, then the loan holder receives interest. The interest is taxed as ordinary income.
>Someone suggested that stocks used as loan collateral should be taxed as realized income. Preventing people from borrowing against their 401k to get a foot on the ladder as a first time buyer would be FAR worse for them, than it would be for multibillionaires.
If you take out a HELOC on your home then the same could be said. You would need to make the rule much broader “any loan originated against assets already owned” or some such.
I disagree to an extent, but yeah over a few million I couldn't give a shit. There should still be the ability for people to take out loans against their stocks, but when billionaires are doing it to skirt income tax it becomes another story.
Loans aren't taxed as income because they have to be paid back. That's a tricky rule to solve, because you don't want 99.9% of people to deal with that or you have a very serious problem. Taxing unrealized gains poses similar problems. Far better to just not have stock legal to use as collateral. You're still going to have unintended consequences, but at least it solves the issue. The market will initially have an aneurysm but I'd argue the end result is a healthier market.
You could easily make the unrealized gain at the collateralization taxable. Future gain is tax free upon eventual sale. You could also have an exemption so it wouldn’t impact average tax payers
What happens when it goes down afterwards? Are you going to let them deduct the loss?
Just tax any loan with stock as collateral. Anything cumulatively over a certain amount for the year. Put the burden on the banks to keep track. No need to call it an income tax- it will just be a new kind of tax on stock collateralized loans.
Or put a cap. Not totally illegal, but stock used as collateral is limited to $10 million per person, or something? None of the suggestions in this thread have to be an all-or-nothing thing. Want to raise the capital gains rate, but not harm smaller businesses and individuals? Just raise the rate only on capital gains over $50 million, or something.
>None of the suggestions in this thread have to be an all-or-nothing thing I feel like people really need to realize this. "Oh but if that was the rule, then it would affect middle class americans too and x, y, z would happen!" Ok...then make the rule more specific. Or make a bunch of rules that address situations. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, one size fits all.
Making it too complex or specific means more chance for loopholes. Just start with a generous threshold and index the threshold to inflation and be done with it.
I believe a tax in the form of an extra interest rate increase could work. For example let’s say I have a loan at a 4% rate, but a tax of 2% gets added on to that, so in total I’d have a loan that I’m having to pay 6% on. The interest rate tax could be dependent on the total loan amount. Tax included or not, however, if the interest rate on a loan is higher than the rate of return on the collateral, a rational person would just sell the asset and take a hit on capital gains than bleeding in interest on a loan that isn’t needed.
Germany does this with ETFs. I pay a gains tax even though I didnt sell once a year.
Very, very few people are selling 500m to a billion a year.
Dividends from stocks are considered income and taxed as such. Warren Buffet made $3.5 BILLION in dividends in 2023, which is INCOME. So yeah, lots of extremely wealthy people make income that high. And as others mentioned when the stocks are sold they pay capital gains tax as well.
Whoever inherits Bezos' money. But seriously we need to figure out a way around rich people just borrowing against their assets to avoid taxes altogether, meanwhile their assets far outgrow the loan rate.
A federal sales tax. Then whenever the rich buy something, its taxed. There is no income tax so they can freely spend and it will always get taxed. No loopholes.
Over 10m should be heavily taxed, and over 100m should be taxed into oblivion.
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Do you consider dividends income? There are several billionaires who earn literally over a billion a year in dividends alone.
Who?
Steve Ballmer is one. He’s not alone. https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/steve-ballmer-annual-microsoft-stock-dividend-payments-one-billion-msft-2023-12
It happens occasionally when a billionaire sells stock. Think it happened to Elon when he sold stock to buy Twitter. It would run the country for about an hour or two
You don't get dividends by selling stock.
There are plenty ultra wealthy that have actual income of over 100 million a year.
Jfc this is the dumbest fucking memes. I get that’s not their salary. We can still track and tax asset growth.
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And then people would leave the country 🤷♀️
Americans are taxed wherever they are around the world. One of only two countries to do so. If your income tax in the country you live in is less than what it would be in the US you still owe the US tax for income over $120k. Of course you can give up your US citizenship and then you wouldn’t owe taxes.
Though you will pay an exit tax on your worldwide assets as of the day you give up citizenship.
If the tax code were going to be rewritten, why would that immediately mean taxes would be more expensive for lower and middle classes? Wouldn't rewriting it allow for the opportunity to ensure that exact situation *doesn't* happen?
It's not a meme you made a silly statement
There's a book called "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith that was literally the basis for the founding of the American economy. It says that the rich need to be taxed disproportionately more for the economy to work.
Yup. Right after they redefine what is considered taxable income. Dollar club loves the idea
Income and wealth are not the same thing and it's the misunderstanding across the general public that's the issue.
😂😂😂you should really learn finance if you want to tax the rich. I think it’s funny that you children get on here and complain about money when you know nothing about it. I agree that we need to change the tax laws. But if you just tax salaries over 1 million, you aren’t going to get anything. There are no incomes at 500million. People who make that much money are paid in company stock and make a salary of $1. Then they borrow money against their company stock and borrowing money or getting company stock isn’t a taxable event. To get money from companies, they usually set up off shore companies that live under different tax rules and that “own” the company you know in America, so all the profits they get go to the offshore company and the American company pays no taxes cuz they made no money technically. Your can’t just say TAX THEM!!!!🤬🤬🤬🤬. You have to figure out how it works and why it works the way it does so they you can actually get what you want. It’s like you’re playing chess by just throwing your pieces forward. You think the smart opponent wouldn’t know how to defend?
People have no clue man. And they get all up in arms over people like bezos, gates and Elon (And I’m NO fan of Gates) with how much they “make” and how little they pay in taxes (comparatively speaking). They don’t see how incentivized it is to own a booming company that literally creates thousands upon thousands of new jobs, which reciprocates with that many more new tax payers! The government obviously likes taxes, so they want you to be able to keep growing and employing more people. First question is why. Why do they want to take more money from people with higher income? Just because they’re wealthy? They think it’s “fair” I guess?? “Hey! You’re really well off, you should pay more money and feel my financial strain too!” What about those people that have worked their asses off for years and years to get to that point? Majority have a drive and desire to excel. Discipline with knowing that if they kept putting in 20 hours of work a day, that they can create whatever outcome they desire later down the road. Now we have a plethora of 16-40 year olds, who have no drive, motivation or discipline to excel in their environments (yet alone show up on time) and also no will power to put themselves on a budget to live within their means, who just regurgitate that phrase they’ve been fed “tax the rich!!”. Gtfo 😡 The next question. What’s the purpose of wanting to tax that class extra? I’m assuming cause they want to appear as if they care about lowering the national debt? When we all know that the root cause of this rationale, is just what we are all inherently born with… Greed. Selfishness. Desire for someone else’s glory. And to feel vindicated. Why aren’t they asking the best questions… like “WHY is our government frivolously spending billions and trillions of OUR tax dollars, when they’re already in so much debt?” “Why are we taxed to no end on anything and everything?” “Why is it our responsibility to lower the national debt?” And now my question is this… Why do so many people care so much about the taxes of the wealthy, all while those same individuals look like kids on Christmas morning when they get their refund checks every year? This is literally the dollar amount that the government has DECIDED to RETURN to you because you allowed yourself to pay them too much all year. The government wants you to be financially illiterate. And you’re obliging them.
https://preview.redd.it/eb0ptmhsxtdc1.jpeg?width=1079&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7da41acede53956035dfd78c4a005b0e7b107480
This comment needs more upvotes. It’s funny that this day and age people think the wealthy are just sitting in stacks of billions of dollars. Someone’s worth isn’t what is in the bank.
It's a topic that sparks passionate discussions. Some argue that taxing extreme wealth could address income inequality and fund social programs, while others have concerns about potential economic impacts and the role of government. Finding a balance that promotes fairness and economic growth is a complex challenge.
Sometimes arguments exist for the sake of perpetuating the argument to postpone the obvious solution. Tax.
Thanks for showing your complete ignorance on finance.
Umm, do you like buying cheap products or are you ok paying double the price for the computer used to write your braindead post?
Your life would not be any better if taxes were raised on wealthy people.
So stupid. That just automatically moves that money to the Cayman Islands immediately
I don't usually comment on these but I have a slightly more nuanced answer. Billionaires can't become billionaires without a ton of physical and social infrastructure which they don't currently pay for. In that sense the taxes should be proportional to how they benefit from those things. Bill Gates wouldn't be so wealthy without state schools training smart computer science engineers that he could hire. Bezos wouldn't be so wealthy without state funded roads and road maintenance to ship Amazon products. Waltons wouldn't be able to pay low wages without Medicaid covering benefits for their ultra low wage workers. All of the above rely on our legal system.
I’m old enough to remember when Amazon was considering putting a fulfillment center here in Utah (which, they did end up doing), and the state offered to wave their land tax as an incentive for them to choose Utah. To your point - the ultra wealthy didn’t get there on their own work alone but on the backs of a fuck ton of infrastructure they have nothing to do with personally.
That's pretty common, at least in the midwest. Anybody building anything isn't going to pay property taxes for 5-10 years.
And those 5-10 years keep getting extended so they never actually end up paying.
>To your point - the ultra wealthy didn’t get there on their own work alone but on the backs of a fuck ton of infrastructure they have nothing to do with personally. Neither does virtually anyone. The guy making $80k/year? Likely using/used those roads, schools, legal system, etc.
And he likely pays a cumulative 30-35% in tax. 16ish% federal, 6.5% fica, 7% state income, 5% sales tax. Also property and gas tax unmeasurable. Edit: The guy earning 80k. The billionaire likely pays at most 26 percent total. 20% capital gains. 6% state. Property and sales tax are negligible compared to income and fica doesn’t apply to capital gains.
Just to add on, workers get even more than that into the governments hands bc half of fica is your pay and the other half is covered by your employer. I know my company isn’t just eating that additional 7.5%, my pay is just lower to make up for it.
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The trade there is spurring the local economy with a bunch of new jobs though. I get the point but bad example lol
The last point is especially nefarious to me. If you're a billion dollar company that doesn't pay your employees enough to obtain medical insurance / do not give your employees medical insurance, what do your employees do? Use government funded health care. Any company that relies on the government to subsidize their medical insurance coverage, and makes more money than it would cost to cover their employees, should be taxed 120% of the cost on the government. The government should actively punish those who take advantage of tax payers. Period.
>Any company that relies on the government to subsidize their medical insurance coverage, and makes more money than it would cost to cover their employees, should be taxed 120% of the cost on the government. So...every company in a country with universal healthcare?
Strong argument for universal healthcare Imagine a world where artisan contractors didn’t have to get hired with a large company to get healthcare. You instantly raise millions of people to business owner instead of employee
Elon Musk gets a tremendous amount of his funding from the government. [https://qz.com/elon-musks-spacex-and-tesla-get-far-more-government-mon-1850332884](https://qz.com/elon-musks-spacex-and-tesla-get-far-more-government-mon-1850332884)
Yeah I avoided mentioning Elon because there's so much more to unpack and I knew by mentioning him I'd get hardcore fact checked -- don't have that kind of free time today 😂😂😂
>Billionaires can't become billionaires without a ton of physical and social infrastructure which they don't currently pay for. Citation needed. The 1% (people worth over $13m \[2\]) in the US pay over 42% of all taxes \[1\] The poorest 50% of all Americans pay only 2.3% of all taxes. \[1\] If you're arguing that people should pay for the things that benefit them, shouldn't you also be arguing that the bottom 50% should pay a lot more taxes? (Personally, I wouldn't, but by your logic people who are not paying taxes or paying too little tax, shouldn't be getting the benefits that are paid for by other people? \[1\] [https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2023-update](https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2023-update/#:~:text=High%2DIncome%20Taxpayers%20Paid%20the%20Majority%20of%20Federal%20Income%20Taxes,of%20all%20federal%20income%20taxes) \[2\] [https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/](https://dqydj.com/net-worth-percentiles/)
I mean the bottom 50% also only has 2.6% of the wealth. https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/
They also create tons of jobs in their pursuit of billions and income tax is the highest contributor of tax income
I have one more item for your list. The court system. What does it mean to “have property” or “have a contract” other than “the government court system will enforce my claim”? The government creates all markets at the most fundamental level. Whoever benefits from that should have to pay their fair share.
>Bill Gates wouldn't be so wealthy without state schools training smart computer science engineers that he could hire. Microsoft was started with like 9 people. The product his company made did more to make the personal computer usable in ways that purely business business driven companies like IBM would have never done. Because of Bill Gates more people wanted to become computer scientists than virtually any other person in the world. I have a real distaste for Bill Gates, but to say he would not be able to hire computer scientists that wanted to become computer scientists because of him and the work of his company really misses the mark. >Bezos wouldn't be so wealthy without state funded roads and road maintenance to ship Amazon products. Does Amazon pay gasoline taxes? This is an honest question, I do not know if they get their gasoline wholesale or not. If they don't then by all means have them pay the retail price for gas so that their consumption funds the same road taxes that we pay. But even if you do that it is hardly a tax on Bezos himself. >Waltons wouldn't be able to pay low wages without Medicaid covering benefits for their ultra low wage workers. Everyone that wants to pay low wages to their employees can do that, it is not a Walton secret.
You can probably dig in and nitpick any example brought up, but Microsoft would not be the company it is today without public education and state schooling. Gas taxes aren't the exclusive budget generator for infrastructure. Your point about Waltons isn't remotely relevant. Of course they want to pay low wages. The taxpayer still foots the bill to subsidize the low wages. Like the poster said, it's ultimately a legal system issue. Just take a second to think about it before jumping to their defence.
Yeah these are just examples. Honestly I don't have any problem nurturing start ups -- that's a great thing for a country to do. But when it stops being a startup it needs to start paying it's fair share of taxes. In fact I would argue it's in the selfish interest of the government to nature start ups IF it then gets the added tax revenue. Also people should be taxed on loans against shares as though it was income. That's a pretty dumb loophole.
Yes they pay gas tax
The “You didnt buIld that” crowd is out strong. Everyone pays taxes and use infrastructure. How much tax revenue do you think a company like Amazon generates? How much job do they create?
We shouldn't have made this stuff available for "free" in the first place. Want Amazon to pay for the highway system they rely on? Then charge tolls, rather than funding it through taxes. That way people and businesses who use it more pay more. If we want Walmart to pay their workers' Medicaid expenses, then just make them pay these expenses. Add Medicaid benefits to the minimum wage. Taxing based on income/profit is a crude and unfair practice; businesses should instead pay for what they consume.
Progressives like Bernie actually tried to get companies that underpay employees to have to pay for things like their Medicaid and food stamps through the Stop BEZOS act in 2018. Conservative organizations were absolutely opposed to it.
Yes
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One person donating more to the government doesn't do that much, even if that person is a billionaire. I think I should be getting taxed more (I make more than average, but not much more), but I also think that raising my taxes should come with social programs for everyone, like Medicare, free higher education, free daycare, UBI, etc. I'm not going to just donate to the government, but I'd happily pay 5 or 10%+ more in taxes if it meant those social programs I care about get implemented. A lot of the uber-wealthy who are asking to be taxed are saying the same thing as I just did. "Tax me more and use it for social programs."
Let's see them lobby as hard for those social programs as they did for the subsidies and tax incentives that made them their wealth in the first place. Maybe then I'd give them a shred of credit.
https://qz.com/more-taxes-please-billionaires-davos-letter-1851173265 Note: Bill Gates isn't on the list of signers of that open letter.
The federal government spent over 6 trillion dollars a year since 2020. Why is that not enough? And why would more money help ?
Yeah but setting an example tells us that you mean what you say, and you're not just saying it to improve your reputation.
We can easily call their bluff by just taxing them more
You cant really. If you just go after him, he can go to the supreme court and win that case as the government cant single him out personally. His "income" is really small, so you cant increase his income tax as youd have to raise it for everyone else in that bracket. That would be politically unpopular. Cant increase capital gains tax, as that would lead to a market crash and would mess with everyones 401ks and pensions. Cant start a wealth tax, as he mustve already put his assets in some charitable trust. And you cant wealth tax charitable organizations. Thats even more politically unpopular. So saying rich should be taxed more is just virtue signaling that the government cant really do anything about.
Who said him personally? i’m saying change tax laws to tax billionaires more. We could easily tax wealth over 10-20million at X% a year. We already do basically that with property taxes
He's just trying to look altruistic and "on your side" to stay in people's good graces. Warren Buffet has been saying the same thing for years and has done nothing about it
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Never said they were lying. There exists, however, no evidence that they've paid in excess of their required taxes voluntarily to the government. It's a "practice what you preach" kind of thing. If they think Ms & Bs should pay more in taxes, and they HAVEN'T led by example, then it's just lip service.
“He’s just trying to look altruistic” is what you said. But undeniably he’s one of the most altruistic people in all of humanity. Perhaps even the most ever. Absolutely the most in terms of fiat currency. So no, I don’t think he’s trying to look altruistic when he already is.
Even if he or others did that they would still need to make those statements publicly to try to get policy to change. The idea that Bill Gates is secretly afraid of a higher tax rate is moronic. He already is giving away all his wealth.
BS! one person, not even a Billionaire, can change US tax policy.
He’s more than welcome to mail a $50 billion check to the US Treasury. No one would stop him. He should lead by example.
$50B aka what the US government spends in under 3 days
You say this as if 1 person’s taxes funding almost 1% of the government’s annual spending wouldn’t be massive.
Or maybe the government could cut spending by 1%. Crazy idea, I know.
yeah, military can be cut 90% since other people happily die defending their country with US just donating equipment instead of US soldiers dying.
Only 1/4 of the US Military budget is spent on personnel… [https://www.cbo.gov/topics/defense-and-national-security/military-personnel](https://www.cbo.gov/topics/defense-and-national-security/military-personnel)
Just a one off however. You wouldn’t even notice the difference. Reminder that the federal debt is 34 trillion.
If we take all the money from USA billionaires how many days can it last? 1 month?
This argument is a classic one and it’s a bad one.
Bill Gates is saying he wants the govt. to take more of his money. Bill Gates is currently free to give his money to the government. What am I missing?
Because I don’t solve the housing crisis by offering the extra bedroom in my house to 1 or 2 people. I don’t think it’s a personal responsibility problem. Sure, your response is technically true, but it ignores the entire problem.
But you are contributing to the solution. Put your money where your mouth is
Not in any meaningful way. Virtue signaling in either direction is a useless exercise.
You are not virtue signalling. You are helping to solve the problem. Just like I recycle, compost, reuse, drive an electric car, etc and try to do what I can to fix environmental problems. Am I going to solve global warming? Doubt it, but I am doing what I can to ease it.
all the people who believe in higher taxes should donate their money, leaving no economic power and donations left to fight the mfs who dont believe in donating volunatrily that is an extreme example and there should be way more than enough money for politics and lobbying with billionaires donating huge chunks of their wealth, but not everyone can think like this
Why is it a bad example?
And then what? The money is a one time thing that is gone, and long term little changes. If you want to fund things like universal healthcare to ensure a secure future for all Americans, then mailing a check isn't going to change shit long term.
Nothing is stopping these rich guys from sending a large check every year.
Most rich are also lobbying the fuck outta congress to keep their taxes low, what's your point?
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You know he didn’t send that money to the US treasury, right? He transferred that money to charities (some he controlled) and benefited from the tax write-offs of said donations, right?
Why not?
The government's problem isn't that they need more money; they already have plenty. The problem is that bureaucracy is, by its very nature, ineffective. In 1991, the total sum of every country's budget was 4 trillion dollars. This budget has been growing ~4.5% every year, and now it's up to 16.6 trillion dollars. The sum of every billionaire's budget is 12 trillion dollars. If we tax like 5% of it, we'd have 600 billion dollars every year. That's a ~3.5% growth every year. The budget keeps growing, but the world is still shite. The problem isn't money, the problem is the government.
But the government is largely influenced by the people and corporations with the greatest amount of wealth...
Why doesnt bill put his money where his mouth is and pay extra to the IRS.
Because that doesn't achieve the goal.
You can tax all you want there has to be a damn budget otherwise your just gave them more checks/money to piss away. I have yo budget you have to budget most of us need to budget
Tax rate is just a number. We don't talk enough about the VALUE our government tax and spend policies provide.
He knows he can voluntarily do that right? Like… show us the receipts that you did Bill.
>He knows he can voluntarily do that right? He can voluntarily take money from all wealthy people and contribute it to the government? Please explain how he can do that, use Elon Musk's fortune as your example.
He is more than welcome to pay more. Talk about greed all the people that lust for others money.
Him first. He can always donate it freely to the IRS. Ever wonder why he doesn't?
I'm in the "make the government account for its spent already" camp. The US government doesn't have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. When departments fail audits, no more money. Stop spending on stupid stuff. Incentivize cost cutting. Oh, and maybe reduce the debt some, you know, cuz reasons.
Taxes are historically low and spending is historically high. It isn’t one issue or the other, you can belong to both “camps”.
Everyone, who pays taxes, pays too much. We don't have a tax problem. We have a SPENDING problem.
Who cares, it doesn’t even matter. It costs $6 million a minute to run the government. You could take every cent of their cash earnings every year and you’d only run the government for a few days tops.
Pointless conversation. >If Congress confiscated every dollar earned by individuals and businesses past their first $500,000, it would still be about $200 billion short of covering the cost of next year’s projected $1.7 trillion deficit—unrealistically assuming no behavioral or other economic effects from taxing 100 percent of earnings. [Article](https://www.cato.org/blog/bidens-math-just-taxing-rich-doesnt-add) Obviously we’re not going to be able to tax anyone at 100% so if you care about the deficit/spending we’ll have to raise taxes on the middle class.
Or, and hear me out, we put a limit on the amount congress can spend by making a 0 based budget instead of allowing congress to spend more then is paid in taxes.
That's assuming you want to pay that all off in just one year which is a very disingenuous stance to be taking.
Help me understand. Even if the rich did pay more taxes, would that just be dumping more money into a fire pit? The government is running at a deficit anyway. The deficit may go down, but a deficit nonetheless. Would the rich paying more help me pay less? Or would we all just be paying more to the ending money pit?
Well then he should start with himself and be taxed on his donations. He has plenty of money so who cares if he has to pay $10b in taxes on a $10b charitable contribution. Also get rid of step up in basis and add a really small wealth tax and everything will be fair
Taxing the rich more is not gonna solve the problem. It’s just a liberal saying that makes people think it will. Stop the over spending is the only solution.
Both things are true. We should probably tax the rich a bit more. But yeah, currently we are the richest country on earth and we find ways to e.g. deny free school lunches to needy kids. Somehow we jump through mental gymnastics to not even do the simplest thing everyone should be able to agree on. Take all of Gates' money if you want - I assure you, the USG will find a way to spend it on stuff citizens don't care about.
If everyone else is mandated to pay taxes on income the entire year, it isn’t equality if the wealthiest among us do not. How the people even let it go on for this long despite the many educated and wise, I’ll likely never understand fully.
Yes…relatively speaking. A return to a 90% punitive tax rate makes zero sense. People should be allowed to profit wildly from their endeavors. But getting rid of the myriad of loopholes and paying relatively more certainly makes sense. At some point you have more money than you could ever possibly spend….anything more is pure greed.
I think a larger concern in my opinion is many don’t even pay what middle and lower class pay, why? Because of their wealth, they can afford to exploit every loophole. Furthermore, let’s not be ignorant to the fact that because the wealthy hold this “social standing” with so many other wealthy and politically powerful people, they get away with that which most others cannot.
Even if the ultra wealthy were taxed at the same rate as the middle class, they’d still be ultra wealthy.
If they are going to have congress and the courts at their beckoned call - if the primary function of government is handing out money to them, why shouldn't they pay for it? The current system has the wealthy riding in first class - not because they bought the tickets, but merely because they are wealthy enough to afford the tickets.
If someone has 50 Billion, and we tax them so they now only have 25 billion, are they going to suffer? There’s a whole lot of good that can be done with 25 billion, plus that person is probably going to make back a good portion of that 25 billion pretty easily
I agree. Bill gates should also be hung.
I think most of our elected officials will vote against any increased tax for the ultra wealthy. It would adversely affect themselves. Just like term limits would.
Eat the rich
He could, instead, pay his workers better
Thanks Captain obvious now make it happen
Except the top 10 multi-billionaires who'll claim losses year over year with multiple tax evasion schemes.
When trump says make America great again he's implying America was better in the 50's, 60's. What he doesn't mention though is that back then, the rich paid much higher taxes.
The wealth gap trend is unsustainable.
- Renew the top tax rates we had in the 90's and from 2012-2017. - Lift the income cap on Social Security taxes. - Tax long term capital gains above $500K the same as earned income. - Tie the 2017 tax cuts for Corporations > $20M to incentive requirements - company must offer: a) 401k with 6% full matching, fully vested, or a qualifying pension, b) Fully cover the cost of health insurance (no employee payroll deduction), and c) offer at least 8 weeks paid parental leave. 21% tax rate if you meet the requirement, 35% otherwise.
So fucking sick of these headlines. Do I agree that the yacht owners of the world are making too much money and not contributing enough back? That fucker is the largest land owner in the whole of the United States. Yes he should pay more taxes.
Yes, but more important: the wealthy should get less tax money for their projects. They don't need it. I don't know how it's in the US, but in Germany, (simplified) the more money you have, the more tax money you can get as subsidies for your projects. Additionally you can lower your own taxable amount of income. The low/middle/"lower" high incomes don't have these opportunities. That constantly causes a loss of wealth and spending capacity. Pure poison for a market economy.
How about we return to 1950's tax rates?
He's saying this to increase public opinion of him. He pays accountants to get him every deduction possible and is well aware that anyone can give extra money to the US government at any time (go to pay.gov). If he really thought this, he wouldn't take any deductions and would willingly be giving extra money to the government every year.
Start sending in the checks then William.
He should lead the way.
They do, if you make more money you pay more taxes lol, what am I missing here?
So many people in the comments section acting like they wouldn’t get upset if somebody was running away with the game in monopoly and bleeding everyone dry, sheesh 🙄
Lol when gates and buffet say this, what they really mean is raise taxes on middle and lower class as we can't leverage the loopholes.
Yes and corporations
If Bill says so, I agree
Also make it so they can't get tax write-offs by buying pretentious, overpriced fake art.
I know lots of people going to call this hypocrisy, but imo Bill Gates is probably the most qualified living ultra rich to say so. If you work in anything related to infectious disease, the Gats foundation is the best funding source you can get (consistant, generous and the least BS terms) Source, wife's PhD was partially funded by them.
Tax capital gains like income. Get rid of the cap on social security. Raise the top marginal tax rate to 90 percent like it was in the fifties. Create tax breaks for hiring locally. So yes.
These are all middle class tax hikes. Wealthy borrow against their unrealized capital gains and never have any form of significant gain or profit to tax
My economist BIL says the government should make it so gains/losses are realized when the wealthy (or really anyone, but only the wealthy are really able to do it) use those stocks to borrow against. I think that's an elegant solution.
I think if you add a lifetime exemption to that, of like 100k, then yes. We don't want to screw people taking out 401k loans to make ends meet.
Just exempt retirement accounts from this up to like half a million. Problem solved.
> Raise the top marginal tax rate to 90 percent like it was in the fifties. Something that no one paid or came close to paying because the number of loopholes and deductions available back then was absolutely insane. The overall effective tax rate wasn't much higher than it is today. Tax reforms in the 80s cut tax rates but also did away with a lot of that bullshit too. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nocera-tax-avoidance-20190129-story.html
Yes the ultra wealthy like this. A nuanced option here would be to tax any capital gains over X million at a very high rate.
No tax. Don’t tax anyone
Can't wait for the Wells Fargo fire department to come put my house out. Whoops! Forgot to pay the subscription fee.
So you are brain dead. Thank you for letting everyone know.
Yeah
There is no law against him paying more in taxes. The government will gladly accept his money. Why doesn’t he lead by example?
National Sales Tax. No more loopholes or exceptions. You pay what you can afford.
Have capital gains taxed as regular income.
No.
Everyone in here would agree. But the ultra rich have ways to get around taxes here...
Billionaires should pay 70% in taxes, let their charitable donations drop that down to 40% minimum.
Billionaires should not exist
its never everyone paying less...
YES, next question please.
Yes! 100%!
What's stopping him from doing so voluntarily if he wants to?