Part of the problem is the super wealthy have found a way to generate a ton of wealth without calling it "income." They're paying their "income" tax - it's a fraction of a fraction of their actual net worth.
For example - most of Jeff Bezos's wealth comes from the value of his Amazon shares. His salary from Amazon is only something like $82,000 plus the cost of his security detail. That's not him being charitable, that's him finding a way to not pay more than around 21% effective tax between income and capital gains. That $82,000 puts him literally something like $1000 under tax bracket limit that would otherwise push the money made over that up to 25%. This is the guy whose net worth just jumped $24 billion during the last month.
Edit: Yes, I know Bezos is taxed on realized capital gains, and it would be unrealistic to tax him from day to day or month to month fluctuations in the market. That doesn't mean we should allow it to be a free for all - especially as the ultra wealthy build more political safety nets into the stock market, where the risk is reduced and volatility has a buffer, carried by the rest of us tax payers if it threatens to collapse.
The point of this comment was only to say that hoping to tax the ultra wealthy through "income" is not meaningful since that's not how most generate their wealth. Doctors, lawyers, some celebrities, athletes, and actual small business owners would be subject to the 40%+ bracket. The ultra wealthy would remain paying whatever is owed on their nominal salaries and whatever they sell in shares, at a rate of between 10-20% - until they achieve the GOP dream of a 0% capital gains rate.
Finally, I looked up Bezos's salary on SEC filings several years ago to figure out what his tax liability would be out of curiosity, and because it was so close to under the amount that would move anything above that to the next tax bracket, I assumed he was being an extreme miser on even his nominal salary in not wanting to pay a rate of 25% on even the few hundred dollars that might put him over. However, it turns out he's had the exact same salary since he started at Amazon, so the relation to marginal tax brackets is actually a coincidence. I apologize for the confusion in suggesting otherwise.
That still doesn't absolve his building his entire business model on undercutting brick and mortar stores by not forcing customers to pay sales taxes on out of state mail orders, resulting in the loss of hundreds of millions in state revenue for emergency services, education, and infrastructure while he created what is a virtual monopoly. It's not his job to regulate that though. It's ours. Go vote.
facepalmforever on April 17th, 2020 at 11:46 UTC »
Part of the problem is the super wealthy have found a way to generate a ton of wealth without calling it "income." They're paying their "income" tax - it's a fraction of a fraction of their actual net worth.
For example - most of Jeff Bezos's wealth comes from the value of his Amazon shares. His salary from Amazon is only something like $82,000 plus the cost of his security detail. That's not him being charitable, that's him finding a way to not pay more than around 21% effective tax between income and capital gains. That $82,000 puts him literally something like $1000 under tax bracket limit that would otherwise push the money made over that up to 25%. This is the guy whose net worth just jumped $24 billion during the last month.
Edit: Yes, I know Bezos is taxed on realized capital gains, and it would be unrealistic to tax him from day to day or month to month fluctuations in the market. That doesn't mean we should allow it to be a free for all - especially as the ultra wealthy build more political safety nets into the stock market, where the risk is reduced and volatility has a buffer, carried by the rest of us tax payers if it threatens to collapse.
The point of this comment was only to say that hoping to tax the ultra wealthy through "income" is not meaningful since that's not how most generate their wealth. Doctors, lawyers, some celebrities, athletes, and actual small business owners would be subject to the 40%+ bracket. The ultra wealthy would remain paying whatever is owed on their nominal salaries and whatever they sell in shares, at a rate of between 10-20% - until they achieve the GOP dream of a 0% capital gains rate.
Finally, I looked up Bezos's salary on SEC filings several years ago to figure out what his tax liability would be out of curiosity, and because it was so close to under the amount that would move anything above that to the next tax bracket, I assumed he was being an extreme miser on even his nominal salary in not wanting to pay a rate of 25% on even the few hundred dollars that might put him over. However, it turns out he's had the exact same salary since he started at Amazon, so the relation to marginal tax brackets is actually a coincidence. I apologize for the confusion in suggesting otherwise.
That still doesn't absolve his building his entire business model on undercutting brick and mortar stores by not forcing customers to pay sales taxes on out of state mail orders, resulting in the loss of hundreds of millions in state revenue for emergency services, education, and infrastructure while he created what is a virtual monopoly. It's not his job to regulate that though. It's ours. Go vote.
fuckofakaboom on April 17th, 2020 at 12:15 UTC »
Billionaires are giving back? There are over 2000 of them worldwide. I must be missing a lot of news stories...
SpookStormblessed on April 17th, 2020 at 13:21 UTC »
Yes and do the same with mega-churches