this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
633 points (97.9% liked)

politics

19244 readers
3163 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 141 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This plan is so very soft on the billionaires and yet we are going to see it being resisted violently and with extreme prejudice.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 year ago (1 children)

By temporarily embarrassed millionaires, no less.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even most of the extremely rich aren't effected by this, if you calculate it out you need over 31,000,000 dollars before the lowest bracket kicks in.

[–] joekar1990 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Uh my house will totally be worth that much so I hate this!

/S

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] givesomefucks 19 points 1 year ago

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

[–] twelvefloatinghands 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Keep in mind it's a wealth tax, not an income tax, so these numbers hit way harder than the income tax ones you're used to.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It hits the same as property tax hits, because property tax is also a form of wealth tax.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] ZoopZeZoop 10 points 1 year ago

Yes, percent should be about 10x what has been recommended.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In other news, renting a house has never been more popular! On secondary news, rent has raised across america by 8% unilaterally

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you describing right now or making a prediction I can't tell

[–] Spiralvortexisalie 3 points 1 year ago

I think it is more the state of American media. Similarly to before 08 housing crash, many home builders got stuck with over valued houses no one would buy. So they rented them out so that it would generate income and not have to take a write down. If you watch CNBC it tells you how the housing market is somehow doing amazing if you look at perfectly curated numbers that do not add up. One of the common media pieces at the moment is how popular this new rental home trend is and how its so helpful and gracious to those who can’t afford homes. Example: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/homes/build-for-rent-homes/index.html

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's got a snowballs chance in hell of going anywhere, but it's nigh time a wealth tax entered the realm of possibility

[–] zerkrazus 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] betterdeadthanreddit 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] extant 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax, according to the summary.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] SCB 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago (5 children)

$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.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (5 children)

But income tax on paper is already higher for the $100k tax bracket than what the ultra rich pay. The ultra rich do everything in their power to not have an "income". Hence why there's this effort of taxing wealth instead.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

"Veto" isn't the correct term, but you are otherwise entirely correct.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Saneless 10 points 1 year ago

Good thing the people who have to vote on it aren't impacted by these brackets at all!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] renrenPDX 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Can someone ELI5 with examples? Is this based on income?

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›