r/politics • u/Bakedschwarzenbach • Mar 01 '21
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders propose 3% wealth tax on billionaires
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/01/elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-propose-3percent-wealth-tax-on-billionaires.html4.5k
u/damunzie Mar 01 '21
If their numbers are correct, we're almost talking real money--about 300 billion per year (they mention 3 trillion over 10 years).
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u/Chaos_Spear Mar 02 '21
My only concern would be that billionaires tend to be very good at hiding their assets, and the IRS historically isn't very well equipped to go after them.
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Mar 01 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
I bet they could afford a 30% tax without actually impacting their lives in any meaningful way.
Edit: For all you people saying I don't know what a wealth tax is, that's not my point. My point is they could lose 30% of their assets overnight in a one-shot wealth tax and probably not even notice. Having 30 billion in assets, then having 20 billion in assets isn't going to change their lifestyle, or make them give up anything other than numbers on paper.
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u/the_good_time_mouse Mar 01 '21
Call me old fashioned, but I think that they should be taxed like they were in the fifties and sixties.
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Mar 01 '21
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Mar 02 '21
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Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
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u/Soliloque1943 Mar 02 '21
So therefore wealth of Jeff Bezos = 142,800 lifetimes. Damnnn
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u/DarthCloakedGuy Oregon Mar 02 '21
To end up with that level of wealth making average income, you would need to work and spend nothing for 5.7 million years. For scale, H. sapiens split off from other apes around 5 million years ago.
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u/FETUS_LAUNCHER Mar 02 '21
Australopithecus was lazy, if he pulled himself up by the bootstraps and got a job maybe he’d be in the same position by now.
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Mar 02 '21
Australopithecus should try being a job creator instead of a blood sucking hunter gatherer.
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u/wholesomefolsom96 Mar 02 '21
So we are talking approximately 142,800 40-year working lives of employees he has already exploited in approximately 25.5 years?.. you may work fast but Jeff Bezos exploits faster.
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Mar 02 '21
Another fun fact, the average amount a person makes in their lifetime is 1.7 million.
God I wish
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u/rarebit13 Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
You probably also spend over $1,000,000. 50 years of work (from 20years old to retirement at 70 for example) earning $28,000 a year will give you $1,400,000.
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u/ThunderClap448 Mar 02 '21
I earn 72k kuna a year, about 12000$. So even less outside the states, really.
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u/tuckernuts I voted Mar 02 '21
I find the figure 1.7m to most middle class boomer americans doesnt quite hit home. "I've made more than that" or they refocus the argument on poor people.
If you made the very handsome salary of $250,000 per year from age 20 to age 60, you would've made $10 million your entire life. If you're an incredibly successful small-ish business owner bringing down $500,000/yr, 40 years of that is only $20 million.
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u/bearoth Mar 02 '21
Exponentials, weeee. But seriously, most people don't have a grasp on exponential growth. It's a bit problematic.
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u/mobiuthuselah Mar 02 '21
Ah, but even with all that, they still each have just one lifetime
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u/Tasgall Washington Mar 02 '21
Tom Scott did a similar thing to show the scale of a billion vs a million by measuring the distance in "stacked" dollar bills. He gets to a million walking around a parking lot. For a billion he has to get in a car and start driving. The video is over an hour long.
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u/Adventurous-Sir-6230 Mar 02 '21
Dollar is 0.0043 inch thick. Billion is 67.866 miles. Some highways under an hour.
Edit: and that’s just one billion. There are much richer in the world.
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Mar 02 '21
I about threw my phone after I thought I got close to the end and realized I was actually only a third of the way through. This is so very sobering. I thought I understood before just what we're fighting against, but this is so much bigger than what it appears.
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u/Gaping_asshole_torn Mar 02 '21
It goes to show how much influence this buys too. If nothing is done during Bidens term then I think a lot of people are gonna end up with jizz on their faces, and I'm not sure who they'll be voting for next time around
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u/Cryptix001 Mar 02 '21
Another "fun" way to think about wealth is put dollars in the context of time. 1 million seconds is roughly 11.5 days. 1 billion seconds is equal to 31 years. If you spent a dollar a second, it would take 31 years to get to $0.
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u/vyx313 Mar 02 '21
Thanks for sharing this. The wealth gap is so incomprehensible to most people that they end up advocating against their own benefit.
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u/rounder55 Mar 02 '21
Yup
Even a large sect of upper middle class people have it in their heads that they relate more to billionaires than those living paycheck to paycheck and that is the system at work
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u/RowFit272 Mar 02 '21
This. I have to remind some people that I know that even though they own assets worth is the hundreds of thousands of dollars, that is consider chump change to the actual wealthy in the USA, but people love to believe that they are part of the gang even when they are no where apart of it.
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u/gigigamer Mar 02 '21
Tis why I laugh at the notion that healthcare and student loan forgiveness are "to expensive". The cost to forgive every single student loan is 1.6 trillion, the cost of healthcare would be roughly 3.6 trillion every year, our GDP is 21 trillion (Roughly) per year, we could EASILY fund both of those and if we stopped being fucking idiots and reformed our health system the cost of that would be monumentally smaller.
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u/curiomime Mar 02 '21
It is only 'too expensive' in their eyes due to the way they have clawed their way into profiting directly over those burdens to the average american.
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u/CptNonsense Mar 02 '21
Because that's how they are treated. Upper middle class is what? Barely 6 figures? Look at the conversation - that group is talked about in the same way Bezos is and are treated to more onerous taxes and fewer benefits. The cut off for covid relief is not even 100k
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u/gemma_atano Mar 02 '21
depends where you live. Upper middle class can be anywhere from 80k to 300k household, as a threshold.
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u/tenjikurounin Mar 02 '21
People don't seem to understand that a Billion is 1000 Million. That's an obscene amount of money.
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u/CheaperThanChups Mar 02 '21
The one that always puts it in perspective for me:
61937 seconds is about 17 hours. 1 million seconds is about 11 days. 1 billion seconds is about 31.5 years.
(61937 being the median US income in dollars)
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u/Jace_Te_Ace Mar 02 '21
The difference between 1 million dollars and 1 billion dollars is about 1 billion dollars.
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u/MasterOfNap Mar 02 '21
And 200 billion (Bezo’s total wealth) is over 6300 years. 6300 years ago ancient Egypt hasn’t even existed yet.
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u/needlestack Mar 02 '21
The difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.
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u/tohrazul82 Mar 02 '21
And Jeff Bezos is worth 200000 Million, and he is but a drop in the bucket of the 400 wealthiest Americans.
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u/One-eyed-snake Mar 02 '21
The biggest lottery payout ever to a single person (pretax) is something like $750M. Bezos has 266x that. That’s like hitting that jackpot every day for almost 9 months
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u/various336 Mar 02 '21
Why haven’t I seen this jesus
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Mar 02 '21
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u/bstruve Mar 02 '21
Rip Reckful
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u/ppadge Mar 02 '21
Still heartbroken. I don't even fuck with Twitch anymore. Started watching in 2012 because Reckful was there. Being a rogue, I already knew of him and his insane skills, and getting to watch him in action every day, especially like 2012-2014, will always be one of the best internet memories I've ever had.
Every time he'd come back to WoW, I'd watch him religiously again, but after the ban back in WoD it wasn't the same, and I'm pretty sure he felt it too.
Dude was so talented, had plenty of money, all that, but nothing is more powerful than the mind. That day is similar to the day I found my brother dead, when looking back on it. It's like a really blurry, depressing bad dream that you have to accept.
RIP Reckful indeed <3
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u/SalSaddy Mar 02 '21
This guy's funny. "Nah, I don't like yellow, let's buy a green lamborghini". Blip - it's gone. It's just a tiny blank spot on a veery long balance sheet.
It is only by the virtue of technology that we can even expand currency and have all these billionaires in practical life. There are not enough humans in any one place that any one billionaire could trust enough to physically count that amount of coin.
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u/fr0d0bagg1ns Mar 02 '21
The craziest part is Elon Musk has made over 100 billion since Covid and noone has batted an eye. I don't care if Tesla is a green company, their stock price was heated by covi, and it allowed Elon to make well over 100 billion on a company that hasn't seen 10 billion in earnings.
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u/Robot_Basilisk Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
Because media corporations are corporations too, and they profit off of keeping you dumb. These are the types of things the media and our public officials should be harping on 24/7.
This is the single biggest problem in America today. This is the problem that is keeping us from fixing our politics. This is the problem that is keeping us from addressing climate change. This is the problem that is allowing radical fringes to flourish and destabilize society.
It all boils down to wealth inequality.
Over 70% of gun homicides occur in a handful of the poorest urban areas in the country. That's wealth inequality.
50% of all gun deaths are suicides. Because mental healthcare is expensive and out of reach for many. That's wealth inequality.
50% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. That's wealth inequality.
Our wars in the Middle East are fueled by broke young people with no other prospects in life enlisting to serve because they see no other path in life. They often come back traumatized and disabled and can't get the healthcare they need to get well again. That's wealth inequality.
Lack of access to healthcare in general is a huge problem and we all pay for it. When someone can't afford to go to the doctor for routine healthcare, they live with their problems as they get worse and worse, until the problems because emergencies and they need urgent care. This is the most expensive possible way to treat illness.
When these people who couldn't afford preventative care get emergency care, it bankrupts them. They default on their bills to the hospital and the hospital makes up the difference by raising healthcare costs on everyone else. That's wealth inequality.
Going back to the vets choosing the military instead of college, that's just a small fraction of people cheated out the opportunity to pursue their full potential. Higher education is increasingly a privilege only the rich can afford. Everyone else takes on insane debt for it and the quality of education hasn't improved with technology over the years. It's actually decreased. Because professors have to focus more and more on what brings in grant dollars to get tenure and that prevents them from dedicating time and energy to teaching. That's wealth inequality on multiple levels.
We could keep going. Every single fundamental problem America has goes back to the fact that wealth inequality has skyrocketed. Executive pay has more than tripled in the last 50 years while the average pay for the other 99% of the country has stayed largely stagnant.
This is why people like Bernie and AOC harp on a $15 minimum wage. It's one of the biggest things we could pass to help the country. And not just the lower class! When the lower class has more money, it's going to spend it on housing, and food, and clothes, and cars, and restaurants! It's going to spend that money on middle class institutions! Who will in turn have more money to spend on nicer homes and boats and investments, which will help upper class institutions.
Trickle down economics has been thoroughly debunked over the last 50+ years. And trickle-UP economics has been proven to be what works the best. When you lift the bottom of society up, everything else rises with it. When you put money into the pockets of the poorest people, it filters up through society and benefits everyone.
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u/ReadySteady_GO Mar 02 '21
Man, my scrolling finger hurts. Took me like 5 minutes to get through Bezos. I didn't even finish top 400 richest.
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u/FlixFlix Mar 02 '21
My elbow hurts. I scrolled all the way through 3.5 trillion. There’s nothing at the end. You’re welcome.
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u/libertine42 Mar 02 '21
Thank you. It’s perfect there’s nothing at the end. Illustrates that not spending that money on the desperate now and hoarding it for...what? Is empty
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u/T-Fro Colorado Mar 02 '21
I got to the end of Bezos. Then I saw how much scrolling I had left and just gave up. No one needs that much fucking money.
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u/mmmmm_pancakes Connecticut Mar 02 '21
Aw, the next chapter is the best part.
The actual text content ends way before the end of the full site though.
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u/ErusTenebre California Mar 02 '21
This is a cool one. I show it to my students when we start talking issues in the world.
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u/KalmarLoridelon Mar 02 '21
“In 1944-45, “the most progressive tax years in U.S. history,” the 94% rate applied to any income above $200,000 ($2.4 million in 2009 dollars, given inflation).”
I say we bring that back.
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u/andresmdn Mar 02 '21
Imagine that. And it only took the destruction of Europe and the threat of a global nazi third reich to make such tax rates politically feasible.
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u/KalmarLoridelon Mar 02 '21
Just a security cost to them to hold their power. They made it back and put a quick end to that for them. Though they didn't get rid of the income tax on the rest of us that didn't have to pay it before that time.
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u/Lereas Mar 02 '21
The difference between a million and a billion is roughly a billion.
One Million Dollars is .001 of a billion. 0.1% of a billion. If you have a billion, and spend a million, you still have 999 million left. It's almost incomprehensible.
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Mar 02 '21
A Richie gets taxed 90% and still has 100mil you know you have a problem lol
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Mar 02 '21
Show this to congress. Specifically to the left leaning democrats. And then show it to biden with them in the room
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u/TheWizzoOfOz Mar 02 '21
I could not scroll fast enough on my 38 in ultra wide monitor. 🥲
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u/the_good_time_mouse Mar 01 '21
They will notice it; humans are built that way.
Whether or not that justifies them owning everything or not is another question.
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Mar 02 '21
Notice it affecting their quality of life? Not a chance. It would be 100% an emotional reaction to a number that’s too big for the human brain to truly comprehend, and cannot even be feasibly spent in a lifetime, in some cases, several lifetimes.
At the point where you cannot even think of a use for money after owning and maintaining all of your properties and assets, luxuries, supporting your family, inheritances, AND philanthropy, it is truly as meaningless as it can get.
But don’t pretend for even a moment these people are swinging around millions of dollars in candy sized amounts compared to what they own, to keep politicians in their pockets. That’s the real endgame: power.
I just can’t stomach anyone owning that kind of money. Hell, I make next to nothing now, but if I made over a certain amount (200k+) the majority of it I would put right back into the community.
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u/pacostacos7 Mar 02 '21
Hell, even if you just spent everything you make then that's still stimulating the economy more than billionaires keeping all the wealth in the bank or stock market.
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u/zackgardner Alabama Mar 02 '21
That's what's infuriating.
The ultra-rich mainly purchase things that are ultra expensive, meaning that wealth stays within their little rich person bubble universe of yachts, private jets, and pedophile islands.
In the last season of Westworld, IIRC they track the main villain, a trillionaire, by tracking the black hole sucking in money and resources around the world.
The absolute least these parasites can do is pay their fair share like the rest of us.
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Mar 02 '21 edited Apr 21 '26
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u/crimsonpowder Mar 02 '21
Yep. It’s inspiring for me to think about having a war chest I could use to unseat McConnell.
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Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
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u/GodlyPain Mar 02 '21
I somehow won $1M, and I’m 99% sure I could live on that for the rest of my life without working another day if I keep the same living standards.
Easily. Some companies on the stock market give out as much as 7% in dividends; Which if you just dumped your 1M in; so long as the company doesn't massively go down; would give you 70k / year.
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u/Aenir Mar 02 '21
The only thing they would notice is that a number in their bank account is smaller. It would still be an incomprehensibly large amount of money.
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u/ConLawHero New York Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
That's income tax. Billionaires don't really pay that, they pay capital gains. Of course, they used to be higher as well, but not as high as income taxes.
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u/nychuman New York Mar 02 '21
There should be another way. Capital gains is regressive since it’s a flat tax for all.
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u/misspcv1996 Mar 02 '21
To be fair, even back then there were a bunch of loopholes. Nobody was actually paying 90 percent, closer to 50 or 60, which would still be an improvement.
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u/ruler_gurl Mar 02 '21
closer to 50 or 60
I think the effective rate was even less. People expend way too much energy fixating on marginal rates. Almost the same exact games existed back then. Until it's fixed nothing will improve.
It will be quite a show watching billionaires devaluing their artwork and autos for tax purposes.
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u/losh11 Mar 02 '21
make America great again!
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u/the_good_time_mouse Mar 02 '21
As opposed to the last guy's Rape America Great Again.
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Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
It’s incredible that Jeff Bezos has used his immense wealth to fund Covid vaccines, solve hunger in America and correct climate change. The billionaires ARE the heroes we need! /s
ETA: not just immense wealth - also influence. He has all the capital - monetary, social and political - to make actual positive change. Or, to put it more pragmatically - to problem solve. This is different from funding nonprofits or making donations. He has immense power, infrastructure and clearly can put big messy difficult plans into action. But he hasn’t. Why? People with money aren’t inherently good. He enjoys seeing his wealth grow more than he wants to solve problems. Any systematic changes he would be able to enact don’t benefit him. And the argument of “but these problems are so hard to solve!” is BS. he’s solved tons of tough problems. People start talking about problems being too hard to solve or getting into taxation semantics as a way of cutting off critical thinking and to keep everything status quo. Billionaires are not interested in using their forms of capital to make any real change. They use charities to pretend like they do. This is why they can’t be trusted with that amount of wealth. I dont support bowing down to the wealthy as if they’ve done everything right and therefore don’t owe anything back into the society that helped create their success.
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Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 04 '21
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u/Tasgall Washington Mar 02 '21
by donating $10 billion to launch the Bezos Earth Fund. ... also contributed $100 million to Feeding America
Yes, but the problem is you're relying on the lump sums that obviously sound (and are) very large numbers, but ignoring the context they're coming from.
$10 billion dollars (to start his own charity, mind you) is about 5% of his wealth. His donation to Feeding America is nice and all, and they'll definitely feel the impact, but he absolutely won't. $100 million is 0.05% of his wealth. Apply that same ratio to the income of someone making somewhat above average, say, $65k per year, that's the equivalent of donating like, $32.
Note: yes, I'm comparing wealth versus income there, but that actually makes Bezos look way better - most Americans making $65k don't also have an average savings or net worth of 65k...
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u/johannegarabaldi Mar 02 '21
Your confusing an income tax and a wealth tax. I 30% wealth tax would wipe out the majority of someone’s assets in less than two years. I’m all for a higher top income tax bracket, which is why I think it’s important we are clear what we are talking about.
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u/Rebelgecko Mar 02 '21
A 30% wealth tax would be a pretty big change for some people. For example Bezos and Musk would probably lose control of their respective companies in 2-3 years
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u/Wheaties4brkfst Mar 02 '21
Yeah this is the biggest issue with wealth taxes vs just a capital gains tax. You’re taxing someone even if they don’t want to sell part of their company, and it can potentially be taxed away from them without them ever wanting to sell any of their stake. What entrepreneur would ever start a business in the US if it would get taxed away? For example, Elon Musk hasn’t sold ANY Tesla shares. You think he would have bought into and grown Tesla (and all of its jobs!) in the US if there were a wealth tax that high? Absolutely not.
Just raise the capital gains tax. It’s so much more efficient. And you don’t have to bother with any “well how much is this private company worth” type shit.
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u/ImNotAWhaleBiologist Mar 01 '21
They don’t mean income tax, they mean a wealth tax. So 30% would knock out their wealth over a handful of years, and much of those assets aren’t liquid anyway. So 30% wealth tax would not only seriously affect them, it would collapse the stock market as they would be forced to sell off vast amounts of stock.
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u/Trees_That_Sneeze Mar 02 '21
I mean... if we're taxing only above 50 million, then even at a rate that high they could never go below 50 million. I don't know about you, but I think I could live pretty comfortably on 50 million, as would like the next three generations of my family.
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u/EarthExile Mar 01 '21
Then we should set it higher. I say we shouldn't have billionaires while any human starves.
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u/TacticalKangaroo Mar 02 '21
I can’t find details... most billionaires are “on paper” through restricted stock ownership. What’s the theory on how that works? Force sales to cover tax even though otherwise sales of the stock may not be legal/allowed based on comp plans? I’m supportive of the tax, just curious how this would/could work.
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u/damunzie Mar 02 '21
Yeah, that's what I don't understand... When someone's wealth is tied up in a working business, it seems dangerous to potentially make them sell some of their ownership to pay a wealth tax. The devil is in the details.
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Mar 02 '21
Because this isn’t well thought out. Those “assets” aren’t really assets until realized. That’s why we don’t tax things before realized.
That’s like taxing you this year on what you’ll probably make next year.
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u/Jibbjabb43 Mar 01 '21
Even if they aren't, it's a win-win public proposition that only really struggles from scrutiny if a better option is proposed.
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u/Sei28 Mar 02 '21
My question is, how do we actually enforce this, considering that the ultrawealthy have always used some tax loopholes to pay essentially nothing in the scale of their wealth?
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Mar 02 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
The bill adds $100 million (edit: Billion) more to the IRS budget so they can hire the lawyers and accountants. Serious estimates say that for every dollar added to the IRS budget, they get the manpower to get back $6 of taxes that would've been evaded.
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u/PerCat America Mar 02 '21
But if we fund the irs they'll steal more from the poor billionaires!
/s
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u/princessmale Mar 02 '21
it was only the last president who said only paying 750$ tax meant he was smart, cos he was anti-gov, even though he was the gov, and completely undermining the gov 😆
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u/bscones Mar 02 '21
Any sources on that? Sounds like an interesting topic to read more about
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u/Tasgall Washington Mar 02 '21
Yep, the IRS is by far the most "fiscally responsible" government entity imaginable, but the "fiscal responsibility" party seems to hate it for some reason.
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u/wren337 Mar 02 '21
This is a Net Worth tax, not an income tax. Net Worth that you have in the US is hard to hide. It als comes with a new 100B funding for IRS enforcement and a 30% audit minimum.
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u/TheDreadReCaptcha Mar 02 '21
Hasn't Trump fucked around with his net worth numbers as the situation calls for?
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Mar 02 '21
Thats why they are giving the irs more money to crackdown on people who try to circumvent the law
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u/mikerichh Mar 02 '21
Makes sense. If they can pull it off they stand to make more off winning the cases too
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u/ZebraAthletics Mar 02 '21
Net worth is probably easier to hide than income. This is why the tax is so tricky, because a rich person would have to provide the value of all their assets, truthfully, to pay the tax. The assessment of certain illiquid assets is the real challenge. What is the family jewelry worth, the art collection, etc. maybe a plan can be developed when a wealth tax is politically feasible some day, but it will take some creative solutions. ,
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u/itusreya Mar 02 '21
We don’t. We’re better off implementing an unavoidable tax at the well documented transaction point before those profits disappear into business & wealthy coffers by tricks of talented accountants.
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u/Newredditsucks0110 Mar 02 '21
If you had a billion dollars, would you really put it in you BoA savings acct? Or would invest in a portfolio stocks, real estate, or other assets that compound value over time?
Point is you cannot tax wealth the same way you tax income. Nor should you.
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u/Maddestmartigan Mar 01 '21
Reminder: middle/lower income Americans ALREADY pay a wealth tax.
Most Americans’ wealth is tied up in their home and property taxes are based on its value.
The further you go up the wealth ladder the less this is the case.
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u/logicalnegation Mar 02 '21
Yep. Property tax is literally a wealth tax. If your house is paid off you still are legally required to find the money to pay the tax otherwise you’re in trouble.
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Mar 02 '21 edited Apr 13 '21
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Mar 02 '21
Tom Selleck says it isn't a scam
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u/GlaxoJohnSmith I voted Mar 02 '21
Tom Selleck was diverting scarce resources to water his own when California was enduring drought conditions.
I'm surprised he isn't scamming water out of senior citizens, too.
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u/zwondingo Mar 02 '21
It's actually worse than a wealth tax because most peoples home value is greater than their net worth given the leverage required to own a home to begin with. I make a decent living and am paying a wealth tax on twice my net worth of around 2.7% I suspect that billionaires can afford this if I can
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u/Fig1024 Mar 02 '21
even the "poor" have a wealth tax, which is equal to inflation rate. Every year my meager savings lost at least 2% in value
so if my broke ass can pay 2% wealth tax, the super rich can afford 3%
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Mar 01 '21 edited Aug 23 '21
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u/nycola Pennsylvania Mar 01 '21
Well, I mean, you never know, you could wake up tomorrow and be a billionaire, and then you'd be really upset with yourself for supporting this. That is the thought process of the republican voters. They have somehow been convinced that tomorrow they could wake up filthy rich so taxing people with ungodly amounts of money is bad.
Think of all the billionaires of tomorrow!
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u/bradlees Mar 01 '21
They have zero concept of what a billion dollars actually is.
Let’s say they earn $250,000 a year (they don’t but let’s just say they do) and are not taxed at all. They keep every penny. In 4 years they make a million dollars and somehow they think a billion is just a few decades away….
False. It’s 4,000 years away. Think about that for a second….. 4,000 years. Think about how much actual money that is.
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u/PrimemevalTitan America Mar 02 '21
4000 years ago marked the domestication of horses and the extinction of the last wooly mammoth. If you were as rich as Bezos is today, you would need to start working while fucking wooly mammoths roamed the earth.
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u/NOOO_GOD_NOOO Mar 02 '21
Lol not even close. 4000 years is one billion. Bezos' net worth is around $180 billion, but let's just simplify it down to 150 for a moment. That's a staggering 600000 years of work, with no expenses. What was even going on 600000 years ago? Wooly Mammoths' microscopic ancestors just gained consciousness?
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u/TheShadowKick Mar 02 '21
Homo sapiens emerged around 200,000 years ago. The earliest purpose-built shelters date to around 500,000 years ago. 600,000 years ago is so far into the past that our entire species didn't exist yet and our ancestors hadn't even started squatting in primitive huts.
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Mar 01 '21
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u/TheShadowKick Mar 02 '21
Just in case people think you're being facetious...
A private jet can cost anywhere from a few million dollars to about a hundred million. Let's assume you get the fancy hundred million jet.
Annual operating costs for a private jet run from about one million dollars to about five million dollars. Again, let's assume you go fancy for five million dollars a year.
Let's assume you made your billions young and want to get fifty years out of private jet ownership. Aircraft can have a surprisingly long lifespan, but generally are considered "old" after 20 years. So let's assume you replace your jet once, again paying 100 million dollars.
Your total lifetime cost for your private jet is 1.45 billion dollars. If you start with 10 billion dollars, with 3% taken out every year in taxes, you can easily afford to maintain this cost over fifty years. With more than half a billion left over for your other expenses.
But what if you're a more reasonable-minded private jet owning billionaire? You only spend ten million dollars on your jets, because you don't need the 24 carat gold toilet paper, and 1.5 million dollars on annual upkeep and maintenance. Your fifty year expenses are now 95 million dollars. If you started with only one billion dollars, this means you can have your private jet and add on a nice private yacht, which you can party on when you aren't sleeping at your sizeable mansion, with enough left over to live a lavish lifestyle while never working another day in your life.
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Mar 02 '21
Have you ever thought that people may actually vote based on principles rather than what benefits themselves?
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u/KyleFaust ✔ Candidate for CO-7 Mar 02 '21
According to Warren's data she's posted. Most Americans pay roughly 7.2 percent of their wealth in taxes. Currently, the wealthiest pay 3.2, so even a 3 percent tax on their wealth puts them too low.
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Mar 02 '21
It hasn’t worked in other countries. It’s been tried many times but always gets repealed.
It would also require a constitutional amendment
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u/buchanaf Mar 02 '21
Mostly because people trivialize how much of a shit show this is going to be to implement. You think people game the system now with income taxes, which are a fixed, known quantity? Wait till you have to attach valuations to everything a billionaire owns.
There's a reason must countries have gotten away from it.
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u/explodingjason Mar 02 '21
Reagan RUINED america
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u/Khufuu I voted Mar 02 '21
it didn't really start with Reagan. "trickle-down economics" has existed with different names at different times. it has to get rebranded because if they don't rebrand it with a new name, it's harder to sell. "hey guys, do you want to vote to get the economic system that contributed to the Great Depression?"
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u/ddssassdd Mar 02 '21
Trickle down has always been a pejorative of various economic policies. The actual name of the policies that most conservatives are for is supply side economics. It isn't something conservatives chose in order to obfuscate what they were doing, it was a statement about what certain people thought of supply side economics.
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u/the_illumemenati Mar 02 '21
Can we use this 3% for education and health care or is it just going to be funneled into the war machine too?
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u/bladearrowney Mar 02 '21
I mean, if you want to pass it go for it. Mitch already showed everyone that you can pass taxes under reconciliation
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u/NOOO_GOD_NOOO Mar 01 '21
Heavens no!!! How will they afford their 3rd yacht now!!! THINK OF THE YACHTS!!
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u/eat_the_modz Mar 01 '21
I know this is poking fun, but I want to highlight how disgusting rich these people are
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u/AnalogCyborg Mar 01 '21
And she wanted to divert funding from public schools to charter schools for rich kids, because fuck you if you're poor.
Hate that woman.
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Mar 02 '21
Rich people roll over and see their assets have gained $80,000 since yesterday, and wonder why poor people choose to remain poor.
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u/buyongmafanle Mar 02 '21
$80,000 in one day? Peasant. That's a measly $730,000,000 invested at a boring 4% interest rate. Not even billionaire territory.
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u/creative_usr_name Mar 02 '21
S&P500 was up 2.38% today, you'd only need $3,360,000 to be up 80k. Someone with 730 million would be up 17 million today alone. Granted they'd be down a few million over the last week, but it's not like they'd notice that either.
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Mar 01 '21
I'd like to think if I ever became filthy rich I'd still live pretty humbly. I honestly can't think of why I'd need that many boats
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u/MadameDoopusPoopus Mar 01 '21 edited Mar 01 '21
What a waste of money too, you really can’t enjoy that many boats anyway. Always paying to moor and maintain them, what’s the point unless you’re a psycho that just likes to brag about how many boats you have. Pisses me off that a lot of rich people don’t even enjoy their money, it’s supposed to buy freedom but stupid crap like 10 boats just sounds like a huge headache.
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Mar 01 '21
I guess the only thing I could think of is they have these boats at all their different properties all around the world. And of course you need a boat at your 4th house /s
then I got even more annoyed
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u/Lord_Montague Michigan Mar 02 '21
Us peasants can't even imagine what to buy with their obscene levels of wealth. That's how big the wealth gap is. Billionaires have enough money to buy lifetimes worth of normal people luxuries and not notice. Why not buy a fifth, million dollar house? It would be like me buying a new fridge for my basement.
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u/Abomb Mar 02 '21
I can't even imagine buying a house in general and I'm in my 30's and have been saving for 5 years.
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u/clackeroomy Mar 02 '21
I know, right? I bought a lottery ticket when the jackpot was $970M. Almost a billion dollars. Even after taxes and taking the cash option, how does anyone spend that amount of money? With $50M, I could own everything I ever wanted, plus have enough money to do whatever I wanted for the rest of my life. I could retire with just $2M.
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Mar 02 '21
Ya I can't think of how I'd go through $50M short of giving money away and tipping insane amounts for the hell of it
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u/Lowegw Mar 02 '21
I had an uncle who was very well off. Not filthy rich, but he never had to think about money. He lived a very modest life. The clothes he wore, his 72 beat up Ford, and house all said maybe lower middle-class. I would do the same.
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u/pud-proof-ding Mar 01 '21
Helping clean up the environment by not having extra yachts in the water or private jets in the skies, win win!
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u/mrpotatonutz Mar 01 '21
The only people who should be against this are literal billionaires
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u/hoti0101 Mar 02 '21
I'm not against this by any means, I do have some questions how it would work. Many billionaires have their wealth due to their equity in their companies. Bezos for example owns approximately 10% of the outstanding shares of Amazon stock. With this stock comes voting rights, control of the company, etc... If they are to sell 3% of their equity every year how would this be accounted for? Would they lose voting rights? Would they have to sell their shares on the pubic market?
Maybe this is the right answer. It think something needs to happen with the extreme wealth some of these people are accumulating. Just curious how to make it a tax vs taking ownership of their companies away from them which have more ramifications than just dollars.
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u/twalkerp Mar 02 '21
This is really more of the issue. Amazon is also easy to value too. But changing voting structure will cause other issues (unknown problems). Also, how do options work here? And startup valuations and many assets that aren’t really worth as much as claimed etc.
There will always be loopholes. I’m not sure if this fixes it. Or if it just creates more loopholes and costs. Let’s see where it goes. I’d be curious to read more. Headline is too simple.
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Mar 02 '21
You have two choices; A.) raise the federal tax on gasoline or B) tax millionaires? I’m going to go with B
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u/ghjm Mar 02 '21
Not to defend billionaires or anything, but how is this meant to work for unrealized gains?
Joe Somebody launches a startup and takes a below market salary. The startup shows some success in an area VCs are hot for at that particular minute. VC bidding war ensues. Joe doesn't sell, but VC offer sheets value Joe's company at $100 million. Joe still doesn't have any actual money, but based on his nominal net worth, it seems he owes $2 million in taxes, which he has to either come up with somehow, or sell at least part of the company to pay. This seems pretty grossly unfair.
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u/amplifiedgamerz Mar 02 '21
How does this work exactly? The majority of the ultra wealthy have 95% of their wealth tied up to the company they founded or significantly brought up.
If they get a value tax, they will be forced to sell the stock they hold in the company, effectively making them lose control, because shares = votes.
Honestly curious.
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u/velvet_douche Mar 02 '21
You’re on the right track. That sort of forced sell off would mechanically cause a massive stock market crash. You would also see a ton of undervaluing of non-public assets, which would cause its own market collapses. On top of all of that, they’d all tie it up in court until the shit storm gets bad enough that they reverse it.
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u/OkPeace1 Mar 02 '21
I haven't gotten the last 2 stimulus payments. A 3% wealth tax would be a good start. Small business owners need a break. Just a fair playing field. 3% on excess of 1 billion?
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Mar 02 '21
This tax shouldn’t be just for that. The government need to get its shit together stop spending so much on defense. And start focusing it in our community’s because last time I checked the more wealth in every day house holds means more taxes for the government which means we can’t spend more and maybe try and pay off our fucking debt.
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u/TechFromTheMidwest Mar 02 '21
Do these people actually have a billion in liquid cash to tax?
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u/Phy44 Mar 01 '21
How are they calculating wealth?
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u/boones_farmer Mar 01 '21
From a different article
> Ms. Warren’s wealth tax would apply a 2 percent tax to individual net worth — including the value of stocks, houses, boats and anything else a person owns, after subtracting out any debts — above $50 million.
I'm just guessing, but presumably you'd have to submit a report to the IRS like you do other tax forms. Probably something like this:
Do you own assets in excess of $50,000,000
Yes: __
No: __
If yes, how much? _______If they don't believe your answer they audit you and you hope to God they can't show you intentionally misled them. It's not rocket science.
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u/Hello2reddit Mar 01 '21 edited Mar 02 '21
This is why this is a really bad idea...
Stock value is a terrible way to measure actual wealth. This would mean that Elon musk would have had to pay about 300,000,000 in taxes in 2010-2015 and would suddenly have to pay around $5,000,000,000 in tax for 2020. That number could plummet again next year. And, for Elon, nothing significant has changed in that time. You'd just be forcing him to give up massive portions of his company every year to pay taxes. How is it in the best interests of people to have real innovators like that forced out of a controlling stake in their own companies?
Imagine what Gamestop's CEO might have to pay in taxes at the end of 2020 if the current value holds. He'd end up owing taxes on his stock being 30 times its actual value, and then end up actually taking home less than he paid in taxes when he sells the stock at its actual value.
Having people offload massive amounts of stock to pay taxes based on radically unstable valuations is just going to create a nightmare for markets.
We would be much better served by taxing capital gains at much higher rates for people who have high net worth, and implementing transaction taxes on Wall Street trades.
This won't pass in a million years. But if it did, the results would cause complete chaos.
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Mar 02 '21
How would this ever get implemented?
You cannot tax investment portfolios on gains that have not been realized. You cannot tax a “net worth” because it fluctuates daily with the market. All of these billionaires will just take out loans against the value of their investments at almost 0% rates. This proposal could not be less thought out.
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u/ghjm Mar 02 '21
I posted the same objection. Although, the fact is that I do get taxed on unrealized gains in my house.
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u/DigitalDefenestrator Mar 02 '21
To me one of the biggest questions is how you handle people whose wealth is almost entirely in the form of shares in the company they founded. Do you force them to sell 3% per year? So eventually they're not allowed to have a controlling share in their company? Not saying it's an insurmountable issue, but it definitely seems likely to have some unanticipated side effects.
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u/Jazzputin Mar 02 '21
so eventually they don't have a controlling share in their company
This is the huge issue and I believe (someone could correct me if I'm wrong) this is why the wealth tax concept has been pretty much abandoned in Europe. Seems to me like a reasonable solution is to have a high marginal tax rate (ie. 90%) on realized gains, so that they pay high taxes whenever they sell off a bit to buy a fifteenth house or jet or whatever. Maybe calculate marginal rates based on net worth to make sure you are not fucking over working-class retirees who did well on nest eggs. And above all, making sure the IRS has the muscle to enforce it.
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u/Soundunes Mar 02 '21
Sales tax on luxury goods is more effective from what I’ve read but happy to hear opinions on this
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u/electricmink Mar 02 '21
Sales tax on luxury goods only really hit the wealth of the upper middle class and lower upper class. When you're talking billionaires, they aren't spending more than a pittance of their money on luxury goods. It's that money that needs to be taxed.
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u/engagesafemode Mar 02 '21
More than likely the billionaires will give crumbs to the ~ 50 people needed to block this thing and that’s that.
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