Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
Why should you, I, or anyone care where they get the money from?
A simple answer would be they could sell some of the assets they have which contribute to their classification as a billionaire. If they don’t have the collateral to pay the tax, they’d be able to prove it by no longer being classified as a billionaire, in which case the goal would be achieved with another billionaire being euthanised.
We just need to extend graduated tax brackets all the way up. Currently the highest tax brackets end somewhere at like six figures, and anything above that is taxed the same.
Even 90% taxes on a billion dollars still leaves you with a hundred million in spending money. There’s no way someone needs more than that. In one year? That amount alone could be put in a CD with a 3% APY and you’d make $3,000,000 in interest in one year. There’s no way someone needs even a net-worth higher than $100,000,000, but no one can complain about “only” making that much in a year after taxes.
Especially when you consider that tax rates only apply to the income above the amount specified in the bracket. That 90% would apply to your second billion made in a year. Everything below that gets taxed at the same rates as everyone else in a given bracket, i.e. your first $100,000 in a year gets taxed the same as anyone else’s first $100,000…
Billionaires have no room to complain.
Oh, and those graduated tax brackets should apply the same between capital gains and regular income. Currently, the highest capital gains tax rate in the US is about 20%… comparable to someone making about $45,000 a year in regular income…
That means the highest tax rate someone making money primarily from investments would pay is the same as someone who would be considered at or below the poverty line in most states… And the billionaires are only paying that rate on their “taxable” interest, meaning it ignores all the money they launder through shell companies and writing off large purchases as business expenses…
Poor people can’t write off rent, food, and utilities on their taxes… so why can billionaires write off mansions, yachts, and paintings…?
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wonderingwanderer