Taxing a Billionaire's Net Wealth Is No Different than Taxing an Ordinary Person's Net Wealth
Our American Oligarchs steal our collective wealth through the tax code by treating their sources of income different than your wage income. We must tax all sources of income exactly the same.
Our 800 billionaire and 10,000 centi-millionaire Oligarchs do not have wage income; however, they all have an excessive amount of earned wealth from all sources of income. All sources of income include wages, income from rents and royalties, net profit from a business, estate (inheritance), gifts, capital gains, earnings from wagering, life insurance payouts, dividend payments and loans against the value of stock and other non-property collateral.
The Oligarchs use the tax code to steal the wealth of the nation created by the workers by taxing the wage income that you and I earn one way, and taxing all the non-wage income that they earn in another much less expensive way, if they tax it at all.
How do we stop the Oligarchs from stealing our wealth? Easy! Tax a billionaire's wealth earned from all income sources in the exact same way that your wages are taxed. This is exactly how a fair and just tax system would operate for all of the people of the US.
The government already requires individuals and corporations to report all these different types of income sources, except loans against value of stock as collateral, to the IRS. What happens next is how the Oligarchs then use their control of the government, through both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, to write the tax code to steal our wealth.
Wages are taxed for everybody. Adam Smith calls a wage tax the absolute worst tax a government can ever put on a worker to hinder their prosperity and wealth. Yet here we are.
Social Security tax has a hard cap at a high wage tax exemption threshold and then stops forever. It is an incredibly regressive wage tax as the people earning the least pay an incredibly high share of their total wealth in this tax compared to high wage earners who watch their burden shrink as their income grows. This is literally stealing from the workers who create the wealth. Yet here we are.
Medicare tax on wages, while not capped, are still an incredibly regressive tax when compared to overall wealth income for those who make all their money from wages versus those who make their money from mostly non-wage sources of wealth. More stealing of our wealth. Yet here we are.
Next, when the government taxes all those non-wage sources of income like capital gains, carried interest or inheritance, they start with ridiculously high exemptions and lower tax rates than wage income. Effectively, the wealthy pay a smaller share of their wealth from all income sources than you and I could ever imagine. This is the wealthy stealing our wealth. Yet here we are.
Only the wealthy and corporations qualify for a majority of the tax credits and tax exemptions in the tax code, as well as direct subsidies that are not available to the incredibly large majority of people like you and me. More evidence of how the wealthy steal the wealth you and I create. Yet here we are.
When the oil, gas and minerals on federal lands owned by all Americans are extracted, the companies doing the extraction are granted extremely cheap leases, low royalty payment rates on oil and gas, and no royalties to be paid at all on minerals. This is absolutely an egregious theft of our collective wealth by the Oligarchs. Yet here we are.
This is why it is time for a comprehensive wealth tax that taxes all sources of earned wealth income the same for individuals and corporations. End stock buybacks. End the carried interest loophole. End all tax deductions, subsidies, tax credits and all other tax expenditures for all individuals and corporations. End special tax vehicles like 401(k), IRA and non-profit corporations including churches. Tax every single dollar of comprehensive wealth exactly the same for individuals and corporations, no exceptions.
Tax wealth from all sources of income under $500,000 per year (averaged over 3 years) for individuals and corporations at 0%. Tax every marginal dollar starting at $500,001 and up (to billions)/yr (averaged over 3 years) of income from all sources of wealth at 30%-70%. This is a 100% pure progressive tax as every single dollar of wealth earned, regardless of, source is treated the same.
Institute a 5% flat Federal sales tax on luxuries that every single American pays when they purchase a luxury. Immediately increase the cost of leases and royalty rates on oil, gas, mineral and resource extraction on US-owned lands. For the sake of this argument, we will assume the government excise tax programs remain exactly the same. The actual tax rate then on every marginal dollar of wealth earned from all income sources starting at $500,001 will be the magic percent that balances the budget after factoring in the additional revenues from a tax on luxuries, revenues from resource extraction leases and royalties, and revenues from excise taxes.
By stopping the theft of our nation’s wealth by the greedy and undeserving Oligarchs, we can move to achieve liberty and freedom for all 336 million individual Americans. I am on a mission to make this happen and I am looking for a whole country’s worth of people to join me.
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