This chart is bullshit. Scale the taxes owed the same as the money remaining so we can visualize what a fuckall pittance it is in comparison.
this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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they'd get more after tax?
The top numbers are what they'd pay in tax, not what they have
I personally really hate the term "pay their fair share" because if it's implications. I would much rather hear something like "pay like the rest of us" because it's about percentages, not actual dollars.
Bezos looks kind of like Putin in that pic.
But it only takes $50k to buy a congress person, so this will never happen.
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Bill Gates looks like a loser with his 372kk compared to other guys.
Fuck the "fair share". Seize their stupid asses away from under them. Followed by the means of production.
Can somebody please fix the bar scales? Nothing corresponds to anything else, and as such the difference between "millions" and "billions" is indicated by just 1 letter. Not to mention, there is no source for the data or indication why their rates are different (3.05% for Musk and Bezos, 0.309% for Gates).
Indeed! This chart is crap. How are these values even calculated? Is this a flat tax on their networth? Nobody gets taxed like this, at least that I'm aware of - people get taxed on their profits.
I'm completely for taxing billionaires (individuals and corps) heavily on their profits, but let's use proper arguments, not intentionally misleading bullshit.
people get taxed on their profits.
yes but a wealth tax is a tax on what you own or what you could buy, aka your net worth
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While I agree with the sentiment it's worth noting that this wealth isn't usually liquid. It's tied up in other assets. Like shares in companies. Liquidating those shares to pay a wealth tax will also dilute their influence in those companies. Not to mention liquidation comes with additional taxes.
How is 4% "fair share" when I am paying 24%
4% every year, perhaps?
Anyway, this graph assumes something between 3.0 and 3.1%, and exactly 10 times less (decimal point error?) for Gates.
I assume that you pay tax on your income, not your wealth/assets, so that is something different.
Yes, but you also pay tax on everything else including housing and every day goods via Sales tax. And as a percentage of wealth I'm sure that adds up to way more than 4%
But my taxes as a percent of my wealth are probably closer to 20 percent (e.g. 20,000 in taxes on 100,000 in wealth), than the 2 percent suggested here.
But these aholes take loans out on their wealth, thus effectively using this wealth as cash. Cash that is not taxed.
I don't question that their income from what ever source should be (highly) taxed. However the wealth tax should be on top to fix the errors made in the past (and are currently made) leading to such accumulation of assets. The question is how should non-liquid wealth, such as estates, shares and bonds, be taxed.
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Look, our politicians are bought and paid for so I'm going to suggest something unorthodox here: we get the blood boys to float the idea of a wealth tax with these people.
A man's never as vulnerable and open to new ideas as when he's siphoning the life force from his best blood boy.
'Open veins open brains', as they say.
The only gripe I have with this is settling for billionaires paying ‘their fair share’. That would have been acceptable if they paid that while hoarding these unimaginable levels of wealth.
At this point; the amount they should be due to pay should be punitive - to discourage anyone from attempting anything similar in the future.
I think you'll find more gripes once you compare the bar widths and corresponding amounts.
I cannot see why anyone should ever have more than 10 million dollars. How much is the billionaire's fair share? Enough to bring them down to 10 million.
We could quibble on 10 million. Maybe it should be 1 million. But that is a separate end less interesting question.
10 million dollars is not as much wealth as it was ten years ago.
It's still enough to live off the interest.
Isn't that the point? If I wrote 2 or 3, people could talk about absurd land prices in San Francisco or medical emergencies for five of their children simultaneously. But when we are talking about 10, it's pretty hard to come up with a plausible hypothetical situation where the money is actually necessary, ever. I'm not questioning your ability to do craft such a hypothetical, but I am questioning your ability to do so while keeping a straight face.
Agreed. It's also a question of power: no one should have enough money to amass that much power. It's barely an exaggeration to say that the Koch brothers bought themselves a political party and doomed the entire planet to climate catastrophe. No one should have that much money.
Why is Gates' rate so much lower than the other guys'?
My guess is that tax-deductible philanthropy is factored in here.
I actually disagree with a straight wealth tax, I believe the approach of adequately taxing the wealthy needs a more two pronged approach, which I happen to have pitched already, so I'll just copy paste that comment here to explain what I think will work instead:
I believe someone suggested loans collateralized on stock and other such speculative assets be taxed as realized gains, which should go a long way to stop the absolutely mindbogglingly obscene displays of mega wealth we've been seeing as of late.
As for income, there should be nominal brackets established at the 20th, 40th, 60th, 80th, 95th, and 99th percentiles of income for a given year, with 20th, 40th, and 60th percentile income taxed at the percent of national wealth each of those brackets owns, income in the 80th and 95th brackets being taxed at twice their respective shares of the national wealth, and income above the 99th income being taxed at three times their share of the national wealth. Then have a half a percent multiplier for every multiple of twenty times the median income of the 0-20 percentile bracket an income crosses.
Doesn't just tax the rich, it directly makes it their class interest to spread the wealth to lighten the crunch on their top dollar. The rich literally can get their own tax cuts by sharing the wealth.
It actually even incentivizes the ultra rich to police each other since one of them building up the riches too much hits all of them, meaning the rich will be eating each other whenever one of them steps out of line!
While I definitely agree with the approach, would it not make sense to also run a wealth tax alongside this, to ensure that assets aren't just stored outside of the US?
I'd be all for all of the below:
- Taxation on loans taken against collateral above x
- A cap on executive pay, especially in instances where an executive is paid more than the company takes in income. This would stop instances like Musk getting paid a fuck-ton when their company has very little income.
- A wealth tax to take a percentage of wealth, with yearly audits of accounts held by wealth management firms to ensure that no one is fiddling with the books.
The problem with some of the listed names is that they don't own their companies. Bezos hasn't owned Amazon for 3-4 years now, and he's been dumping stock for years. If we only taxed against specific types of collateral, the rich would just move to something else.
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Neat part is that Bill Gates has been saying he wants taxes to increase for the ultra-rich, he is on board, if only all of them thought that way
I wonder how quickly he'd change his mind if we also removed the ability to ~~launder funds~~ donate money for tax breaks from your bank account into your foundation's bank account.
Something tells me Bill is saying that publicly, then discreetly paying lobbyists to oppose such moves.
Bill Gates is a higher class of billionaire. He funnels money through philanthropy and charities. Lonnie just lights it on fire. They are not the same. What I mean is that Billy Boy is doing exactly what you said because he’s much smarter than Lonnie.
Bill Gates is a higher class of billionaire.
And I'm sure there were some relatively nice nazis in WWII Germany. Still nazis.
Charities that he controls. He's shifted power to nonprofit companies, getting additional protection from taxes in order to push his ideas. For example you may be for nuclear power or against it, but he's able to get one built. Isn't that the sort of thing the people should decide?
Yep. Gates came from Rich. Legit rich. Hence his education and upbringing and investor support early on. But he coupled it with, well, talent and appetite hence eh overall.... I prefer him to musk I guess?
It's a hard ask because SpaceX. Otherwise... fuck that guy.