Progressives Unveil OLIGARCH Act to Combat 'Existential Threat' of Extreme Wealth
Progressives Unveil OLIGARCH Act to Combat 'Existential Threat' of Extreme Wealth
"American oligarchs have used their wealth to accumulate an unprecedented level of political power, which they've used to amass even greater wealth. We must stop this cycle."
According to a summary of the bill released by the Patriotic Millionaires—an advocacy group that helped craft the measure—the wealth tax would have four brackets:
- 2% for all wealth between 1,000 and 10,000 times median household wealth;
- 4% for all wealth between 10,000 and 100,000 times median household wealth;
- 6% for all wealth between 100,000 and 1,000,000 times median household wealth; and
- 8% for all wealth over 1,000,000 times median household wealth;
"In the unlikely event median household wealth fell below $50,000 from its current level of about $120,000, the thresholds would be fixed at $50 million, $500 million, $5 billion, and $50 billion respectively.”
The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax.
This plan is so very soft on the billionaires and yet we are going to see it being resisted violently and with extreme prejudice.
Pretty sure thats the point.
Showing that the billionaires will react to practically nothing like it will destroy them. And hopefully maybe a few more people will realize they're full of shit
Yes, percent should be about 10x what has been recommended.
For everyone saying this is not harsh enough, it is a WEALTH tax. Not income, wealth. All owned assets. Meaning any of these people who don't increase their net worth by at least the amount of the tax each year will lose more and more of their total wealth year over year.
It isn't intended to strip all mega rich people of all their stuff immediately - that obviously could never pass - but still is intended to open the door to wealth taxes and redistributive policies more broadly.
It's a great move. If we can get anything like this passed, it is a significant victory.
Just getting something like this out of committee and on the floor for debate would be huge. Unfortunately it stands no chance with the current congress
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I really love the floating design of the tax pegged to household income, but I'd probably oppose it due to exactly what you say: it opens the door to wealth taxes, which are by and large a bad idea.
We've proven time and time again that congress can't properly tax the wealthy, and will always eventually default to squeezing revenue out of the middle class. 50 million as a minimum sounds nice and high until they add a bracket at 25 million, then 10, then before you know it there's a non-inflation adjusted tax at 1 million or 500k. All that serves to do is hurt savers and the elderly (who will naturally have higher nest eggs being closer to retirement). This will 100% eventually come to pass, because taxing wealth is a further nudge towards a consumption (and therefore growth) based economy that publicly traded companies need to continue extracting wealth from consumers, so it will be lobbied for by all monied interests, both the rich and industry.
There are tons of other issues with a wealth tax like creating a new bureaucracy to measure wealth (not impossible, as some people say, just expensive), the fact that people are taxed for gains they may not have realized or just for leaving money in the bank or stock market, something that is actually good for the economy, and other complaints. It's also just inferior to a better income tax, and expanding income taxes to eliminate the loopholes the megarich use, chief among them borrowing against collateralized debt. If someone gets a loan but puts up stock or properties as collateral, that loan should count as income. There are tons of other loopholes, and the fact that we're ignoring low-hanging fruit and talking about wealth taxes shows me this is about scoring political points, not actually trying to reform how our government gets money.
It's got a snowballs chance in hell of going anywhere, but it's nigh time a wealth tax entered the realm of possibility
Yeah, we have a better chance of pigs flying, getting struck by lightning, and winning the lottery all at the same time on the same day simultaneously than this has of actually passing both chambers and getting signed into an actual law. This type of thing will never pass when the very oligarchs it seeks to tax own the very government responsible for making it a law.
Eight whole percent. I can hear their boots shaking now /s
Go with the Bernie plan. Anything over $1B is taxed at 100%. Shit, I think even that is too soft. Nobody needs even a fraction of that to for themselves and their children's children's children's ... to live like kings their entire lives.
Also, it's always hilarious how American politicians are so obsessed with overly on-the-nose acronyms for legislation.
You're almost certainly confusing wealth taxes with income taxes. Bernie Sanders had a wealth tax plan, it ranged from 1%-8% depending on wealth. From $1B to $2.5B the rate was 5%.
What a travesty. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of the brows of everyone he's screwed over to amass his fortune? Sure, I might not have two cents to rub together between paychecks but I'd better oppose this just in case I get rich some day.
Isn't the issue that they are currently hiding and obfuscating their income? Increasing the percentage is a great idea and all but 1% or 8% of zero is still zero.
It literally says "all wealth" and doesn't talk about income at all.
This is exactly the kind of tax we need. I think its a very interesting idea to tie it to median wealth, though using household as opposed to individual wealth I'm not sold on.
The same point still stands regardless of it's income tax or any other arbitrary constraint, if they hide their assets how do you apply this policy to that?
The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax, according to the summary.
That's it? The highest one is 8%? Wtf is this, a joke? No one needs billions of dollars. No one should hoard billions while others sleep in the streets. Hell, billionaires shouldn't exist at all.
Edit: also where is the "assets" and stocks tax?
8% seems fine considering it's a wealth tax, not an income tax. In 7 years that takes away 56% of their wealth.
Granted, I'm not at all clear on what sort of assets constitute "wealth" here. How much of Musk's $242.4 billion net worth that google currently spits out would be affected by this?
It's not like their wealth is not increasing. Fuck them, I wish I could tax them 90% after their first billion. No one needs one thousand million dollars. Holy shit! It's a lot of money they'll never ever spend. Also, I'd tax everything they own, even their stocks and other "assets" they use to avade taxes.
Why the fuck do I pay like 30% percent on my income? Fuck the IRS. Go after every single last billionaire tax dodger or stop taxing in general.
Wealth taxes are much different than income taxes, and as such have a lower percentage.
I actually agree with you. There should not be tax on labor. I'm already helping society with my labor, why would you double down on me?
8% on wealth is actually insane. Stock market growth is only 10% on average, and average inflation of 3%. If they had average growth they'd be losing significant money (like 1-2%) each year. So in practice 8% is just a really slow seizing of all wealth, and prevents them from making any more money unless they're taking huge gambles and getting huge paydays that beat the market (which they would be incentivized to do). I'm all for taxing the hell out of the rich, but that's not a well designed system and creates really perverse incentives.
Considering that 8% only starts at one million times average household wealth, I've gotta say who the fuck cares. There is no justifiable reason for any singular person to have that much wealth. Not one.
Wealth taxes are super easy to avoid, so I'd much rather see something like cap gains+"luxury" sales/income taxes and such, but it's a step in the right direction
Now raise taxes on everyone making over 100k and we're really cooking with gas
$100k aint that much and those people already have a heafty tax burden. Plus luxury taxes are easily avoided when yachts and planes are purchased in the Bahamas. What we need are 50% taxes on the money they borrow against their assets. Want to buy another mansion? Cool 50% tax on the money Goldman Sachs lends you against your Amazon stock. If I have to pay a tax to borrow against my 401k so should these assholes.
$100k is 150% of median household income, and I'm talking about individual income. It is the boundary between 3rd and 4th quintiles of household income.
People are not overtaxed. They are dramatically undertaxed. I say this as a person earning over $100k - it's not some weird snub. It's just correct
https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percentiles/
Rich people do pay taxes on money removed early from 401(k)s, which is why they don't do that.
I do strongly support raising taxes on money borrowed against assets over $150k or so
The Supreme Court would veto it as unconstitutional even if passed. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/12/17/787476334/is-a-wealth-tax-constitutional
"Veto" isn't the correct term, but you are otherwise entirely correct.
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Good thing the people who have to vote on it aren't impacted by these brackets at all!
My understanding is that this would be x% of your total wealth, which is much more reasonable.
So you would pay an extra 2% of your total worth every year. So at a billion that's 20 million, at 980 million 19 million and change, etc.
The numbers could be much higher, but this is a lot of funds. It also would take several generations for the inheritance to drop below "you'll never spend this" to just "you can live on the interest". Even with zero interest on their investments (which is absurd - so really this would more be a source of funds than anything). At least it would be a starting point
Can someone ELI5 with examples? Is this based on income?
Based on wealth. Like the tax we pay on houses but on total wealth. Stocks etc too.
But only for very wealthy people. It starts at 1000 times median wealth. So people 1,000 times richer than the median household.
It's based on wealth, and hence illegal - it would take an amendment to tax wealth, but this isn't an amendment. So even if it could pass, it would be an entirely empty gesture.
Whats the point of taxing the lower end of the tax bracket? Its just another handicap they are incurring on the already marginalized class... i dont care about people saying not taxing the rich enough, stop taxing the fucking poor!
Whats 600k for a person making 10M? Probably no waterfall pool renovation this year.
Whats 200 for a person making 10k? Probably going homeless.
The 10k isn't what they make. It is how many times the median wealth they have. So the poorest affected will have a thousand times more wealth than the median household.
Next year, late summer.