Bill Gates told the World Economic Forum that countries, companies and individuals who have the most "should be pushed to be more generous."
Bill Gates wants ultra-wealthy individuals to pay more tax — and now a growing chorus of billionaires agree.
In his annual "Ask Me Anything" forum on Reddit last year, the Microsoft cofounder said he was "surprised" that taxes for the rich haven't been increased more.
Gates doubled down on his calls to tax the rich in a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. He said the wealthiest nations should donate more money to developing countries to help redress inequality.
"Those who have the most — whether it's countries, companies, or individuals — should be pushed to be more generous," he said.
It seems others agree, as more than 250 ultra-wealthy people signed an open letter calling for global leaders to impose a wealth tax.
"I'm surprised the thing me and my ilk have been actively working against hasn't magically happened despite our massive efforts to the opposite effect."
Bet you Bill thinks these kinds of publicity stunts will exclude him from being eaten, when we go to eat the rich.
People are right to point out that he should not simply cut a check to the government, instead he should lobby for higher wealth taxes like he lobbies for patents or voucher schools. Anything less is just free PR.
"i know you guys are upset at us fucking over all of you, but i assure you if you let us continue being petty tyrants with vast fortunes, we might give a marginally bigger sum of it back to the government, which will still spend it on whatever we tell it to anyway. win win!"
i don't want you to be more generous, i want you to be gone. if anyone proposed a plan that would actually affect them i doubt they would still support a wealth tax.
Imagine if a wealthy individual, who believes that the wealthy should be taxed more, actually used their wealth to take out TV commercials in all states/provinces advocating for the increase in taxes for the wealthy, actually trying to sway the political mindset in a big way with the power they have via their wealth.
the german government has a banking account where you can send them money, no questions asked. Feel free to send over your fair share of taxes you are avoiding by routing the Microsoft profits from Germany via Luxembourg and other tax havens.
Literally nothing is stopping any of them from cutting a massive check to the government. This is lip service to stop people from hating on the billionaire class.
But not him, he doesn’t have a lot of money. He donated all of it to charity which he is the founding member of and has an exclusive rights on using resources they have. Thus some money gets used yearly for charity, but significantly less than if it was taxed, the rest is kept for when he needs it. The most common way for rich to avoid taxation. So now every time you see some rich dude donating almost all of their wealth to charity… they are creating a banking institution without tax.
My nine year old: “My nails are sharp and they get stuck to my clothes”
Me: “You should cut them. Do you need any help?”
9 y.o.: “Please cut them even if I start crying”
Sometimes people need their nails cut for them and you should be happy to oblige even if they start crying. Though I think Bill’s waning moment bribes are more convincing than offering to do chores.
Okay then like do it, if you want to pay more money to the government then just fucking give it to them instead of fucking around with this dumb letter saying, "oh we promise we care about the peasan.... I mean poors.... I mean the financially disadvantaged"
Bill Gates should either shut his stupid fucking mouth or put his insanely exorbitant amount of money where that stupid fucking mouth is. Oh, he is a philanthropist and supports many causes and charities? No, he is an ultra wealthy individual who hordes his insane amount of wealth and has so much of it that he can casually drop seven plus figures in to any cause he wants, collect accolades from the public for it, and make that money back by the end of the fucking hour. Fuck bill gates
Each multi billionaire espousing a higher tax on the wealthy is free to part with any portion of their riches as they desire. Haven't seen even one actually following through. No one is hindering them. And certainly not our Government.
They always say shit like this then put all their money in charities or shell corporations overseas… this is just marketing. He could easily pay more taxes right now if he wanted to.
"if only someone would close the loop holes, but alack, they remain and the accountants force me to use them, what ever is to become of poor rich Bill"
I feel like these billionaires are afraid of the shitshow we call capitalism collapsing and they're willing to throw money at the problem so they can keep it going and stay in power.
Bill Gates asking us to tax his "wealth" while he hides most of it. This guy is the worst of the billionaires cause he pretends to be good. Also one of Epstein's buddies
Performative, these people could write checks directly to their countries tax collection agency any time they wanted. Old Bill there could send $500,000 a day for a hundred years and not miss it.
Yes I did the math, that would work out to only 18 Billion of his 121 Billion fortune!
Just so long as it doesn't reduce their personal wealth, they're all for 'paying more taxes' as long as they can use the loophole of 'I created a charity in order to avoid paying my fair share of taxes'.
Ive been hearing Mark to Market get tossed around as a viable means to tax non liquid wealth, what I think is gonna be the big fight is how to tax items of subjective valuations like art pieces, or how even to establish a standard procedure of assessment that can't be fudged for tax purposes
Bill Gates should something about inequality in his own country. He only helped enable the tech dystopia we live in today. Him and his family practically live on another planet insulated from their evil. Security guards, elaborate compounds, multiple properties, and they want to go around in sweaters pretending they know how hard people have it while only focusing on other countries' plights. In order to help developing countries they steal wealth from their own countrymen in order to have pet projects so we the people don't see there's nothing behind their eyes only malice and hatred for their fellow man.
Bull fucking shit they do. They might say they want it, but not a single one of them is hiring lobbyists or donating to campaigns of politicians who would actually raise taxes.