I know.
I was just saying that if we were going to change the system and get rid of the income tax that there would still need to be a significant gift tax or the death tax would not function.
Should there be billionaires?
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I was just saying that if we were going to change the system and get rid of the income tax that there would still need to be a significant gift tax or the death tax would not function.
This is a myth and actually backwards. 80% of people with a net worth of $1 million or over are first generation.
Or do you mean the dollar amount of all inherited money?
I think a good start would be removing the $640K earning max. Any person who makes over that should be taxed accordingly not the same.
I think that statistic is based on the percentage of dollars inherited, not percentage of people.
The ~930 US Billionaires are worth almost double what the bottom 66 million households are worth.
Billionaire Wealth Concentration Is Even Worse than You Imagine
The share of U.S. wealth held by the top 0.1 percent has grown nearly 60 percent since 1989.
inequality.org
That is a systemic failure. Nordic countires tax the heck out of their top 1% and they have higher living standards than we do across the board. When their is a will, there is a way.
I think these fears are overblown. Most entrepaneurship is at the small and medium buisness level. The main reason these folks have such an uphill battle is that they are taxed higher, face more scrutiny and are owner/operators and thus have far more responsibilities than the billionaire class. They tend to do more of the true innovation on top of this.
Billionaire wealth tends to be less liquid as a percentage, so I dont think many would flee. Look how much hand wringing there was in NYC over Zohran, did a single one leave? I dont think so.
Finally, I dont buy the incentive arguement for a billionaire that they meed to make yet another, bigger pile of cash to do something in useful in society. There are so many possible motivations to do something in society, maybe try doing something for less self serving reasons?
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They also have their highest income top rates apply to much lower income levels.
By doing that, they certainly expose more of a wealthy person’s income totop higher rates, but that also means more median income families pay +50% income tax.
For example, a family with two children earning $150k/year pays ~23% effective tax rate in US. In Sweden, that same family would have just under a 50% effective tax rate.
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They would not become a billionaire then flee. They would flee at the point they thought they might become a billionaire. Plenty of data on lower tax places taking on people. I don't think many would leave because of fear of a little higher tax rates. But, let Mandami come out and say "Nobody in NYC will remain a billionaire" I can assure you they would vanish before that.
You need to look into the psychology of billionaires. The people that drop out and do good things because they don't need another pile of money already exist. They just drop out, do other things and don't become billionaires. And, I can list people that did just that. If I had 10% of Musk's wealth I would never work a day again, except charitable work. That is why I'll never be a billionaire. I think it is something to harness, not eliminate. I don't think a bunch of software engineers and delivery drivers create Amazon without Bezos. I don't think that engineers create Tesla without Musk. Of course, it is excessive now, but I don't think the people making revolutionary change should be limited to less than a billion and think they will still do it for the good of man. You don't have to "buy it" but I think you are wrong and the data is with me.
You are a college football fan. The highest paid public employee in most states is the football coach. Just like "Musk isn't an engineer" a football coach can't really play football. But, the ones that make a ton of money are the ones that can bring in better players and make them play football better.
If we had anywhere near the egalitarian society you are talking about, the college football coach would make about what a Jr professor would make. The top pay at a university should go to the academic doing the most good work. But, I would bet if you added up the salaries of power 5 coaches versus other university employees it would be a similar mismatch to what you posted above.
Why not cap college coaches at $200K a year in salary. I'm sure people will still watch, right?
Comparisons like the Nordic countries are hard to push when talking taxation. It would be like saying the offense Bixby runs can't be stopped by Jenks so the Patriots were stupid not to use it.....it's not the same game. This is in no way shape or form to get an immigration debate going just a numeric example......we had more undocumented persons cross our border in the last few years than Finland and Norway have humans. If that one is too touchy at the moment we have more people with some form of disability that qualifies one for some form of benefit than the entire Nordic region population combined and you can throw in Belgium too and still not get there. You have to look at the wholistic policy of those countries.....demographics.... geography....business environment.....revenue streams....Texas would be the second largest country in Europe behind Russia......it's complex.I think that statistic is based on the percentage of dollars inherited, not percentage of people.
The ~930 US Billionaires are worth almost double what the bottom 66 million households are worth.
Billionaire Wealth Concentration Is Even Worse than You Imagine
The share of U.S. wealth held by the top 0.1 percent has grown nearly 60 percent since 1989.
That is a systemic failure. Nordic countires tax the heck out of their top 1% and they have higher living standards than we do across the board. When their is a will, there is a way.
The top 10% of wage earners in the US pay 72% of the income taxes and the bottom 40% pay zero according to Google AI.......so we don't tax the poor and all the a teacher pays more than Bezos stuff is just a lie. The top 1% already pay 40% of all taxes and they can absolutely go somewhere else.....at least on paper. It's hard to have a tax code that fits for small business growth that the same benefits don't look bad for the ultra wealthy. Bezos writing off the cost to send his plastic girlfriend and Katy Perry to space looks ostentatious......same rules let the plumber that fixed your sink write off the gas on the way there. There is a bit of baby and bathwater going on with this. I agree the wealth numbers are getting crazy but that's the bathwater the baby is all the millionaires next door that drive the day to day economy. I think taxes should be as consumption based as possibly. They should be written to where they can almost entirely be avoided by lower incomes and it wouldn't be that hard. Apples/dry beans/butcher cuts tax free......pair of standard Nike cleats that cost $80 tax free $800 red bottom pumps are taxed etc etc. That would push burden to those that have and also incentivize manufacturers to create lower cost options.
The other problem and the reason the ones writing the tax code want us fussing is one of the worst uses of your dollar whether you have $1 or $1T is to pay it into taxes. We have a government spending problem no matter who is in office. Our national deficit should be in everyone's top 3 issues that we face as a nation. It's not only the amount of money spent but the operations of the money once collected if you did use all of Musk's money for fuel as in the the example above you would get more from the warmth than if it was collected in taxes.
If there are 900 billionaires in the United States, the worst examples are Musk and Bezos for this conversation. Those two ain’t in it for the money. They just have to be building or working on something at all times. Their brains won’t let them do anything else.
I could not disagree more. They are absolutely in it for the money and the power. How much do either of them donate to charity?
Musk drones on how money is going to be obsolete in the near future while hoarding more and more.
But they want more than just money. They want power ro shape and control society which is why they have "outgrown" the need amd desire for democracy and democratic processes.
I know what you are getting at, but how much do NFL coaches make versus the players actually doing the work?
College will follow suit soon with rev share and everything else in motion. Hell, our QB makes nearly as much as our coach now.
And both can pay their fair share of taxes. If you and I can, they can too.
Athletics at a high level is still a warped example. Those guys are freaks all of them. The players are physically gifted in ways 99.999% of us aren’t and the coaches are willing to work 100+ hours a week. We when have the worker conversation should doctors make what CNA’s make? Should the person who took all the risk and put together the vision to build the factory be paid the same as the one who presses the button on the press every 30 seconds……that’s really easy to replace. Then you get to the equity discussion if most of one’s wealth is in equity how do you divide that and maintain any semblance of voting control. You get paid based on what your skill costs to replace or what you own that system isn't perfect but it has created more wealth for all than any other.
So then what is a fair share….. if 1% (that number moves but it is around 700K so we aren't just talking about Musk we are talking about the insurance agent that owns 2 carwashes, a coin laundry, and the convenience store or your dentist) by income pay 40% of dollars and 40% by income pay nothing what would a fair amount be and how do you keep people chasing the above if it all goes to taxes? And again the root cause is the government. That's the problem. The problem isn't that a guy that owns a handful of fortune 500 companies is rich....that guy is always going to exist it's either going to be rich owners or rich crooked dudes like Putin that has and always will exist regardless the system. Whether you are screaming over waste in Minn daycares or furious over the notion of buying Greenland both keep going with no plan for how to pay for any of it. The US has enough revenue our problem is spending both in amount and execution by both parties.
I think it is interesting that this is the way discussions often go when discussing taxing billionaires or the top 0.1%. I am not arguing for equal pay across all jobs. I am not arguing that less skilled jobs should be paid the same as more skilled jobs and frankly both of those things are immaterial to this debate.
There is inherent risk of starting an enterprise, but many people have something to risk because they happened to be lucky enough to be born in the right family--nothing else.
What I am saying is that nearly all of the wealth created by a business ends up going to a handful of people at best and not to the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or in some cases, millions of employees that work for them. Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds, Dollar General, Kroger, all have large amounts of full time employees on food stamps. So they have enough capital to have c level people to be wealthier than some countries, but not enough apperently to pay a livable wage. Think about that for a second.
This is not to mention that any of which are longtime employees intregal to its long term success of a business. They deserve a share of ownership and that share of ownership will grow as the company grows, which is the main way billionaires grow their wealth. It needs to work for the common person too.
Its not like no one has ever navigated it before either. There are a number of modern, well developed countries that have somehow not had this phenomena occur like it has here. We should take notes, IMO.
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