Tax billionaires until there are no more billionaires

It’s really insane that we legally treat the tenth billion dollars at the same level as a working persons house or car.

Everything is legally just “property”.

No, fuck that.

The law should protect the first million of every citizen with ferver. (and when we tackle wealth inequality, most people will have this level of wealth at the end of their working life. The fact that most currently don’t is due to inequality. )

Up until 100 million, it should be taxed at a reasonable level. Because at some level, it’s fair that people prefer watching Taylor Swift instead of me sing on a stage.

Above that it should be taxed heavily.

And above a billion, it should be just confiscated. As in, oopsie, our system malfunctioned, you weren’t supposed to end up with more wealth than what a thousand normal people would save up after a whole lifetime of work, so we are taking it back.

The problem is that this wealth is ownership in companies they made. If you start a company and it becomes too successful, Is it right that we really just forcefully take that ownership away from you? Who wants to start a company in a country that takes away your company from you if it’s too successful?

Yes, I’m sure if Jeff Bezos were worth 10 billion dollars less he would have just said forget it I’ll flip burgers instead. I don’t think you need to rip their company from them, you just need to tax them.

You are literally suggesting to rip the company away from them though. They are only worth billions because of that value, if you rant to tax them billions where do you think they are going to get that money? They only have one option, to sell their ownership in their own company. If that’s not ripping their company away from them I don’t know what is.

Are other people paying taxes described as “ripping” away their ownership in “x”? What a bizarre framing. Also, Bezos owns less than 10% of Amazon, so he’s already given away ownership of the company. He has assets, and they should be taxed

How does Amazon exist? How do they continue to operate? They run on the Internet created by the US government, they deliver packages by flying through US airspace, and driving on roads paved by several levels of government. Their factories don’t burn down because of municipal fire departments, and aren’t burglarized because of municipal police departments. Why shouldn’t they pay for those things, which they make much more use of than you or I?

Others aren’t using taxes on wealth though. Should the middle class be taxed on the amount in their retirement funds also? Or the amount in their bank accounts?

10% of Amazon is still a lot, it’s still a lot of power.

You think Amazon doesn’t pay for any of that? They pay for their use of such things like we all do. They do get some discounts thanks to scale, but they are paying way more than you or me.

The problem is that they are all employing tax avoidance schemes. Corporations like Amazon will spin off their IP to a separate off-shore corporation. Then they’ll pay that corporation for the use of their IP. That reduces Amazon’s profit to near zero, meaning they’re not paying taxes. The off shore corporation doesn’t pay taxes either.

People like Bezos won’t take salaries, because they’re taxed. Instead they’ll take stock. Then they’ll take loans against that stock, so they don’t pay taxes. They just roll that loan into another loan and continue to live off of it, never paying taxes because they have no “income”.

So yes, their wealth should be taxed. Otherwise the richest among us pay next to nothing and yet benefit the most from what our taxes buy. If we weren’t adequately capturing taxes from the middle class, then sure, but that’s not the case.

Amazon does invest most of their profits back into the business, that is why they were operating with basically no profit. They still paid plenty of taxes though, like payroll taxes, that aren’t based on profit.

Then apply income tax or something on loans against stock over a certain amount, but I’m guessing that isn’t enough for you? I’m guessing like everyone else here the only solution is to tax them so much they aren’t a billionaire anymore, forcefully taking their company away from them in the process.

We want all the tax giveaways of the past fifty years revoked. NONE of them gelp the economy in any way and have caused insurmountable destruction to civilization.

I’m fine with stopping new tax exemptions, but the ones we already gave were just have to live with. It’s not right to ask for it all back.

Yes, it is reinvestment, new ideas aren’t free, they cost startup money, it costs money to develop new products and ideas, it’s literally reinvestment of profits back into the company.