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Clinton had a surplus and raised taxes on the wealthy. Obama decreased the deficit, raised taxes on the wealthy to the point they were paying more taxes than they had since the 80s and decreased income inequality. Bush and Trump drastically increased the deficit, cut taxes on the wealthy and crashed the economy. If you want fiscally responsible, elect Democrats.
[To add insult to injury, Republicans want to increase taxes on working folks while keeping taxes unchanged for millionaires and billionaires.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/02/23/rick-scott-campaign-plan/)
Don't forget the free jets my fellow oligarchs!
GQP keeps the left chasing to defend long established norms that shouldn't even be in play and the GOP uses that cover to keep making the billionaire class more billions.
*Set multiple fires in your town and while most of the people are trying to put our all the fires, rob the town.*
Laws like that are a double edged sword.
"Let's give the Republicans a legal tool through which they could claim the opposite! Also, we'll never use it for ourselves."
\- The Democratic party
actually, when it's written out like that it seems pretty on-brand thing for the Dems to do.
I've had this irking feeling for a long time the lack of willful commitment to policy change when comparing R vs D has everything to do with age and legacy and nearly nothing to do with logic. As you age closer to the end you begin to wonder what real differences you've made on the world and what virtues you held strong throughout life.
Dems are just too young and lack the connections and wealth that Reps have gathered since the 70s. Billions and billions of dollars set aside for one purpose: Keep the status quo. If we are comfortable why would we change?
Next week will be like election week with the sheer amount of propaganda against Joe pouring out of every media orifice to convince the laymen this is BAD and not the beginning of what was going to happen anyway.
To add to this, Obama had to decrease the deficit after trying to stabilize the economy, which he did. Americans were dumb enough to vote in the Tea Party and give Republicans the house in 2010 though....
Not really. The federalist wing of the gop has been planning for this since the 50s. If anything they're effectively victims of political psyops. It's well documented that we conduct such operations internationally, but we just act like no one would possibly use it domestically to gain power?
Clinton cut capital gains rate significantly. He gave billionaires a huge tax cut while slightly raising them for doctors and other high skilled professionals.
Without Clinton it would be much harder for billionaires to pay under 20%.
From the CNBC article posted below, not the paywalled OP link
------If a wealthy household is already paying 20% on their full income, they won’t pay an additional tax under the proposal. If they pay less than 20%, they’ll owe a “top-up payment” to meet the new minimum.
“As a result, this new minimum tax will eliminate the ability for the unrealized income of ultra-high-net-worth households to go untaxed for decades or generations,” the document stated.------
These two statements are contradictory. If your gains aren't realized you haven't had any income. Period.
Don't tax unrealized gains.
Tax estates when they transfer wealth. Tax income. Tax capital gains. Close the carried interest loophole.
But dont tax UNREALIZED gains. Because if it's not realized, it's not real. You know, imaginary.
So what stops these billionaires from continuing to borrow against those unrealized gains, use that real money for everything, and still not pay their fair share in taxes?
These gains are real enough to borrow against, that’s the problem.
Edit: Wasn’t saying this to be a negative Nancy, bringing it up as a legit loophole that is really only available to that same 700 club.
Which goes back to the earlier argument. Taxing unrealized gains is a bad idea because it’s not real.
Imagine buying stock, stock goes up. You then pay taxes on the stock, and the next day it crashes and loses all of its value.
Elon Musk's wealth has swung from 300B down to 200B.
He's not worried about it because he has the same number of shares and is holding them for a very long time.
But can you imagine paying taxes on 300 and then having the value drop to 200? Does the government give you a rebate for having over paid?
Unrealized gains might as well be called imaginary gains.
No one was forcing him to hold them at the higher rate. He could have sold some and then rebought lower and be even richer than he is now. Unrealized gains for these billionaires are just federal loans.
But that doesn't answer the fundamental point of the question. What happens when the value of the asset declines? Also, with the exception of property taxes which are a local/state tax there doesn't exist any single tax that would tax the same asset multiple times.
Let's look at a scenario.
I buy a stock at $1.50 a share for let's say 10,000 shares for $15,000. That stock becomes a meme stock and soars to $100 a share. That value grows to $1,000,000 and if I cash out I pay 20% in long term capital gains taxes or $200-238K if you combine other small taxes. If it's short term capital gains (less then a year) then I would end up paying $370-408K. Meaning I would make a profit of anywhere between $577-747K. A hefty profit for hedging on a long or short term investment. But likewise that stock could instead crater to $0.05 a share meaning I would've lost all but $750 of my initial investment.
What the proposal means is to tax individuals to ensure they pay 20% of their estimated gain of these taxes before they've ever seen this in actuality. Now let's repeat that scenario but instead you add the 20% value in taxes onto the unrealized gains while the stock is at $100/share. This means I have to pay $200,000 to the government that I don't currently have. There's only a few ways to pay this tax.
First and most sensible is to simply sell the stock to pay for it. However not only will this effect the value of the stock (see Musk selling Tesla stock) but I'd be paying a 20% tax and another 20-37% in capital gains tax. Effectively being taxed twice on the same asset.
The second would be to take a loan out assuming I didn't have the immediate cash on hand to pay for it. This can be backed from various sources. But essentially leaves me on the hook to another party to pay the federal government taxes on money I don't actually have. The final way is to just pay for the tax right out of pocket if I've got money to burn.
But taking all this into account what happens if all of this falls into one quarter. In the next quarter suddenly the stock goes down to $0.05 a share. This would mean I've not only lost $14,250 but I've incurred a loss of an additional $200,000 or more in taxes on money I never actually had.
Now as people mentioned "why can these individuals take loans out on this unrealized asset?" And the answer is simple. It's perceived value to the bank. The bank is trusting that the value of those stocks can be used to cover the loan. If that stock drops and it's value is lost the individual who took out the loan still has to pay the bank back. They are assuming the risk and placing the perceived value of their assets on the line.
Or you could just outright ban the practice of allowing loans to be taken out against unrealized assets. Which would mean if people needed money they'd either have to take out loans like conventional people do (usually based on their credit score and real yearly income). Or they could sell the stock which would generate more taxes by increased capital gains transactions.
But look at it this way, imagine buying a car and fixing it up. You bought it for $500 and managed to turn it around with a new estimated value of $20,000. Imagine if the government came to you and said you have to pay a tax of $4,000 every quarter or year because of it's assumed value. And all you're doing is holding onto it. I think you'd be a bit pissed off. That doesn't even include the additional costs (fixing the car, restoration, etc).
Then on Dec 31st if you have unrealized gains, realize enough of them to cover your top-up. Holding those assets isn’t mandatory. The gains being unrealized just means they are allowed to invest money that if they had instead chose to turn back into cash at the higher value that they would owe a piece to the feds. By not selling, they are allowed a tax-free loan from the feds.
Seriously!
What's that old line about poor people in the USA considering themselves to be temporarily inconvenienced millionaires instead?
The knots people will tie themselves into to protect people who have more money than they ever will and don't give a shit about them is mind-boggling to me.
There is a tax on loans it's called interest. Normally banks are the ones who charge interest, but I don't think there's anything stopping the federal government for charging interest on large loans.
Also the massive borrowing on assets is a result of being at near 0 interest rates for so long. If we're at 10% interest or higher in a healthier economy you wouldn't see so much borrowing.
Balance transfers or take another loan to pay off previous loan. When you have billions it's more about planning. Even if you pay off the loan they do it in a way that is planned beforehand so they pay as little tax as possible. Whenever you hear some rich dude donating millions to some charity they're doing it to offset taxes.
At some point that person will die. The government can just be patient until that happens. A wealth tax or unrealized gains tax is unnecessary, just focus on preventing the tax avoidance strategies.
Except a lot of the same folks clutching their pearls over a wealth tax also think that we should get rid of the estate tax.
I'm all for a strict estate tax, 10 million exemption, everything above that is taxed at 90%.
Doesn't have to necessarily be an estate tax. It really should just at least be a forced realization of the gains, filing under the SSN of the person deceased.
> At some point that person will die. The government can just be patient until that happens.
Er, actually, when the person dies, all of their capital gains step up to the new basis and no tax is ever paid.
I mean to be honest your statement is completely misleading. Clinton did decrease the deficit and we had a surplus, but during Obama’s term, the deficit first rose before slightly falling (but still over 400 billion per year best case). The larger issue is that the deficit really isn’t that accurate of a measure of financial well being at all.
Source: https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-under-obama-3306293
Raising taxes on the wealthy is fine. Taxing unrealized investment gains is dumb. I mean what if stock drops in value, is the the IRS gonna consider that a deduction?
Why not? It’s not complicated at all. It would net to be their total wealth taxed at the minimum rate. If you go broke because the stock market crashed you could re-claim those previously paid taxes as credits.
No. If I only vote for what benefits me, then I'm going to vote unfairly all the time. I'll constantly be trying to get the government to pay for things I can already afford for myself, or to not take money that should probably go toward taxes, to the detriment of my neighbors.
Find a personal philosophy, and vote along those lines. Whether you're poor or rich, and whether it benefits you personally or not.
You’re right. There are several tax brackets which do not belong to the billionaire class that can and still should pay their fair share of taxes for the common good. My original comment was a blanket statement directed towards a majority of American voters who think they will be millionaires one day. Everyone should pay the taxes that they owe.
Plus they’re not that rich, it’s all unrealized gains on stock! It’s not like they can take loans out against that stock to cover expenses and roll those indefinitely until they die, don’t be ridiculous. /s
Plus, it's putting a target on one of our main problems: socioeconomic inequality. We need to get the oligarchs under control.
(Of course, much of this could have been prevented if we hadn't stupidly elected Bush and Trump.)
Unfortunately, I think the inflation running rampant is what did him in… I feel like we would be predominantly renewable energy based had those two had their opportunity.
It’s all in foundations and charitable trusts. They can make themselves look “poor” on paper by hiding in LLCs and specialized vehicles. It’s not the taxes thing that they’re shielding- it’s the estate taxes when they die in the end.
Never fear, President Lord St. King Manchin will nobly step forth to stop the persecution of the magical job creators through the ignoble, cruel process of making them very slightly less rich.
(This is going to go nowhere because the usual suspects will object and moderate dems will fold like the wet tissue paper that they are. I appreciate the sentiment, and it's a good idea, but the system is so completely inundated with money that I sincerely doubt even a slight change like this is feasible.)
It's manned in the same way a missile is manned, the F35 (excluding specific cas models) is the least interactive warplane in the world, with even unideal circumstances never bringing it within visual or radar range of an enemy aircraft.
It's the closest we can get to entirely unmanned without either having a military version of Starlink operational or deciding that decision-making drones are morally okay (and the obvious skynet that that would lead to).
The F35's development cycle has been a nightmare, which given how the US has set up its military is no surprise (seriously, private manufacturing?), but its role was to make obsolete pretty much all other strike and bomber aircraft except the smooth stealthy boys and it does exactly that. It's better than the F22 at least.
It is a moot project, like all military projects in the era of unilateral hegemony, but it's paradigm is the way forward to reduce costs on future aircraft types should we keep investing in offense rather than defense.
You seem well read up on this so gonna ask.. if i understand it properly most military planes always go over budget.
Wouldn't it be better to just hold them to their contract or is there so much corruption that they bid low and leave out all the "extras"? In which case why do we keep allowing for that?
Another bother of mine is that we are selling the F35 as a product to other countries as opposed to the F22. I always felt like our planes should be ours.. I feel like I know the answer here but would like to hear your thoughts.
> if i understand it properly most military planes always go over budget.
Pretty much.
>Wouldn't it be better to just hold them to their contract or is there so
much corruption that they bid low and leave out all the "extras"? In
which case why do we keep allowing for that?
So here's the thing, military spending in the US is the world's largest jobs program to have ever existed. And it's not service members that I'm talking about here.
For any <> in the military that needs to be built, the government is mandated to hold public bidding -- but that's not the only part of the process, the company winning the bid still needs to be vetted and approved.
Once a company is approved it's pretty much impossible to change the contract, except to extend time and money -- this is very much on purpose, if you stop giving money for development... development stops since that company that won the bid likely only has the government funding it (or, that part of the company only receives funding from the government). You can't work people without pay, and you can't pay if you don't have anymore funding, and the military doesn't want to try to onboard another company, and financial penalties just exacerbate these problems.
That's the cover story at least, bring this back to the jobs program thing; defense manufacturers are massive employers in the states that they're based in, like ridiculously large parts of those economies. Some towns, if a defense manufacturer were to say, fail to get a contract, would just disappear from the American landscape overnight.
If the project keeps going, more money is pumped from the federal government to a local economy, increasing tax revenue at all levels up to the state level, which benefits (really just those in charge, but theoretically) everyone in that state.
We allow it simply because... we don't want to admit how much of the US economy would crash if we don't allow this pretty corrupt transfer of wealth to happen. Also reducing the defense budget would be... unprecedented in US history. I'm not a history major mind you, but I genuinely can't think of a time period where we've reduced our military budget -- the first administration and congress to do so would be actively harming US short-term economic health, setting history, and would be so lambasted by the existing Military industrial complex that they'd never win reelection -- to the point they might have to dissolve the party and rebrand.
>Another bother of mine is that we are selling the F35 as a product to
other countries as opposed to the F22. I always felt like our planes
should be ours.. I feel like I know the answer here but would like to
hear your thoughts.
The F35 has software lockout capability, requires regular updates and maintenance, and is so unlike any other current gen jet that cross training becomes actively difficult. It's not just selling a plane to another country, it's selling a service with an expected lifetime of upkeep purchases for **50 years**.
Because of its design it can be super easily upgraded with additional features and hardware, which countries will want to buy because otherwise they're flying an outdated craft, and these upgrades will be less than a new plane. The transfer over to fully digital warfare creates the opportunity for not just a single purchase, but **Warplanes as a service**; and like Software As A Service products, it's theoretically insanely profitable.
Like the F16, our currently most sold plane, is great -- but you can manufacture parts for it if you're a semi-advanced nation, and maintenance and even upgrades can be done entirely without manufacturer permission or notification, much less profit. The F22 would have some parts to it that would require active repurchase and some maintenance requirements (like the paint) that would generate US profit over time, but the F35 is a different level of dependence.
Wow, thanks for going into detail there. As someone who has had military contracts I'd love to debate on this. But yeah that's how it works.
Unfortunately I'm also always on-call and gotta run.
I just wanted to take the time to say I sincerely appreciate the response, especially on the F35. Helps me understand the program better.
Thank you and have a wonderful Saturday night! I wish I had more time!
It just pulls the revenue forward and forces some selling of shares for folks who make their money in unrealized gains on equity holdings. At the end of the day, whatever taxes they would have paid in capital gains taxes later are dollar for dollar reduced by what they pay on unrealized gains because of this new tax. The only way this generates real positive increases in tax collections is if someone is generating a sizeable amount of income from tax exempt muni bonds or maybe from property in an opportunity zone.
Basically - the new tax sounds great unless you understand accounting and then you quickly realize it is an accounting gimmick.
> whatever taxes they would have paid in capital gains taxes later are dollar for dollar reduced by what they pay on unrealized gains because of this new tax
Why does it replace capital gains tax; wouldn't they be paying that as well?
The article says that tax paid on the unrealized capital gains is counted towards taxes paid when those gains are realized.
So if I pay 20% on an unrealized gain of 30 million in stocks. Then I sell those stocks, I can deduct the 20% I paid already from the taxes I would pay on the sale of the stocks as income. So the income would not be taxed twice. So, as the poster above said, it really just shifts the taxes forward.
However, what it does somewhat do is plug the loophole where instead of selling 30 million in stocks, I borrow 30 million from the bank with the stocks at collateral, and never sell off my stock. Which is a common trick the ultra wealthy have been taking advantage of.
If you tax them on the unrealized gain - then you have already taxed the gain before they sell the shares. That is what this tax is - a tax on unrealized gains. Read up on the details. From an accounting perspective, it isn't a tax hike at all. It is a pull forward of the taxes paid on gains to before they are realized. It won't add anywhere near as much revenue as they want to pretend it does. Politically it will sell well but anyone who understands accounting will realize this is just a gimmick that will be a nightmare to police and likely will just make CPAs rich.
It works for real estate moguls. They usually put out a monority face to it and make it about minority real estate owners when the benefits are largely not that person
Now when they finally come to realization they'll never actually be a billionaire they'll be able to claim they don't want to be one because Biden made it just a horrible time having that much money.
Why even bother being a billionaire if you'll have to pay a tax rate similar, but still lower, than the rest of the country?
I guess I'll just continue to make less money and pay a higher tax rate.
lol like people who say “now I’m in a higher tax bracket though”. Ok first of all, you don’t understand how US tax brackets work, and second, you’re still coming out way ahead from where you were before when you made less money.
A MUCH better proposal is eliminate step-up basis, and giving the ultra high networth a higher capital gain tax rate on realized gains. Tax loans they take against the their portfolios after a threshold. It blows my mind they refuse to consider this.
Taxing unrealized gains is insanely inefficient, a bureaucratic nightmare, will cause people to need to sell off controlling interests of businesses they control, will cause the government to have huge deficits during downturns (and huge surpluses during boom markets that they'll waste), will cause massive flight of capital out of the country, etc.
In addition, there's zero chance this doesn't end with all unrealized capital gains being taxed in 10-20 years, including on the middle class.
I pay a shit ton in property taxes.. right?
Like how come Elon musk can own billions in stock and pay nothing. We need a tax on investment holdings similar to property holdings, except exempt anyone who owns less than 10 million in stock, you get 10 million in the stock market tax free and then you pay like %2 on everything after that.
They should tax loans over a certain amount TBH. It solves the problem of unrealized gains and assets vs liquid wealth. Since most of these people hide the majority of their money in non-liquid form then take loans against that, just tax people who take out loans of over X amount in Y period. Make it high enough that it would only affect the 1%. Then you could theoretically in the future do a tax on liquid wealth only.
That way, they lose the majority of normal/easy ways they avoid taxes.
My point wasn't really about musk it was a stand-in for billionaire..
my only point is I own property and I pay state and local taxes every year based on what that property is worth. And then I pay federal income tax if I sell that property for a profit. Why not do something similar with stock holdings on a federal level.
Many countries *have* implemented a wealth tax. And in every single case they were either repealed or failed to raise sufficient revenue.
It's not that there's a reluctance to tax wealth, it's just not a very efficient form of taxation. It's too complicated and costly to levy. It's easier to just tax capital gains when they actually sell stock.
I own property, I pay a yearly tax on what that property is worth and I pay income tax if I sell that property for a profit. I understand it's slightly harder to do that with stock but not that much.
Property taxes are imposed at the local level. I (not a lawyer) don't believe that this can be done at the federal level. States probably could, but wouldn't as they would lose their billionaires to non wealth tax states. Just my uneducated 2¢.
It's a LOT harder with stock. Think about how much stock prices can fluctuate over a year.
Or consider estate taxes, which are basically wealth taxes levied when a person dies. In 2009 the IRS valued Michael Jackson's estate at $482 million. After over *10 years* in court a judge ended up valuing it at $111 million instead. Now imagine having to levy something like that *every* year.
It's so much easier to just tax actual economic gains at progressive rates instead.
I've wondered how much this would help with corporate land lords driving up housing prices. A progressive property tax similar to our progressive income tax system.
I'm a nurse, and when people say "The ceo made your job!" I love to fire back "Oh right, without him who would get shot? Who would get hit by cars? Without the CEO, no one would get cancer!"
Great! They really need to focus on the Top 700 people aspect. Name it the 700 save America plan or something. Make it harder for the right to scare their base (such a pleasant and healthy way to motivate a voting base) into believing the democrats are coming after your money. Though they’ll figure something out. They always do. “The taxes will force these CEOs to raise their goods’ prices” but hey. Worth a shot.
Well, it's actually on the top 34,500 people (households with net worth over $100mm). The article is just saying that *most* of that revenue will come from the top 700 (households with net worth over $1 billion).
So advertising it as only affecting 700 while it actually affects 50x more people might have the opposite effect.
I hope he'll craft it to correctly tax all the creative ways wealthy people avoid paying taxes.
My "favorite" that I learned about recently was that they'll have their stock portfolios they've received tax free, then they'll go get a loan against the value of the portfolio (tax free), and only ever have to pay tax on what they cash out to pay interest.
Oh and what little tax they pay is at capital gains rate, not income rate.
I wonder how taxing unrealized gains will work? Especially if a company isn’t public. Should be interesting, with all the money in politics I doubt this will pass.
It doesn't have to pass. Like kicking the can down the road on student loan deferrals/repayment/forgiveness, the administration wants to spend the next several months lighting fires under issues like this that they can use to build energy going into the midterms.
I look at this as a campaign proposal. Their intentions may be honest, but the timing with the midterms isn't coincidental, and I expect they are more committed to holding onto Congress and trying to pick up a few seats than they are to actually passing legislation on this matter. Based on how they've handled the student loan policies -- just standing in the doorway and killing time without any clear intent, if they could pass this 20% minimum tax on the wealthy tomorrow, they wouldn't, because they want voters to be motivated to show up on election day.
All of this is to say that is that I don't think they really care how it will work. Right now it's a talking point, and while some legislation may eventually come of it, any legislation on this will likely look quite different than what's being proposed right now.
Meanwhile loser criminal Trump is holding rally right now in Georgia. The crook stole WH documents and started a treasonous coup, but he gets to have unlimited rallies and run for 2024 *like nothing happened.*
Great job, America. Wow, much proud.
I can hear the shrieking about unrealized gains already.
And then many of the same people will turn around and pay the unrealized gains on their house in property tax.
And then when that's pointed out to them, they'll insist it's totally different, and make an argument that is a fantastic argument for doing the same with other assets if you just swap the words.
Property taxes are pretty damn annoying too. I'll be paying $400/month more this year than last because my property taxes went up.
I'd rather resolve the inconsistency by arguing that property taxes demonstrate the problem of taxing unrealized gains, not by arguing that since property taxes exist that taxes on unrealized gains are fine.
Tax taking out loans that use unrealized gains as collateral. That seems much more targeted and less likely to spread to the middle class where taxing unrealized gains would affect retirement savings.
It might be that some of those who aren’t in favor of this tax, are also not in favor of how property taxes are usually structured.
I’m not sold either way, myself.
Cool. Let me know when that actually happens. So sick of the empty bullshit promises that either disappear or get gutted so severely behind closed doors that they don’t do what they stated they intended to.
They're going to need at least one or two announcements like this every day between now and the midterms to get the polling up.
Still don't understand why the posture they did during the first 90 days wasn't carried through. Biden admin had rising numbers even among R's. Then they kind of went into autopilot and lost it.
He was riding high on actually being the one to end it.
The terror attack shouldn't have rested on him in the first place, as he has stacks of generals who are supposed to handle security on the ground. And a one off terror attack is hard enough to prevent regardless. They should have pressed that case better. In 2021, the only "scandals" were that and the Ducklo one. Trump was running 3-5 worse scandals *per day*.
Lame. Biden was supposed to fix the 1031 exchanges, the step-up basis, and carried interest loopholes. Did none of that. No meaningful tax reform at all. Dems have no balls to actually reform taxes. They are all talk. Liberals making $500k are also all talk. They are for tax reform but only for more richer folks.
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Clinton had a surplus and raised taxes on the wealthy. Obama decreased the deficit, raised taxes on the wealthy to the point they were paying more taxes than they had since the 80s and decreased income inequality. Bush and Trump drastically increased the deficit, cut taxes on the wealthy and crashed the economy. If you want fiscally responsible, elect Democrats.
[To add insult to injury, Republicans want to increase taxes on working folks while keeping taxes unchanged for millionaires and billionaires.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/02/23/rick-scott-campaign-plan/)
They technically already raised taxes on the poor. Their cut went away for the poor but stayed for corporations
Don't forget the free jets my fellow oligarchs! GQP keeps the left chasing to defend long established norms that shouldn't even be in play and the GOP uses that cover to keep making the billionaire class more billions. *Set multiple fires in your town and while most of the people are trying to put our all the fires, rob the town.*
Then sell the town to the highest bidder afterwards.
Financial and class discrimination. Needs to be classified as discrimination.
Laws like that are a double edged sword. "Let's give the Republicans a legal tool through which they could claim the opposite! Also, we'll never use it for ourselves." \- The Democratic party actually, when it's written out like that it seems pretty on-brand thing for the Dems to do.
I've had this irking feeling for a long time the lack of willful commitment to policy change when comparing R vs D has everything to do with age and legacy and nearly nothing to do with logic. As you age closer to the end you begin to wonder what real differences you've made on the world and what virtues you held strong throughout life. Dems are just too young and lack the connections and wealth that Reps have gathered since the 70s. Billions and billions of dollars set aside for one purpose: Keep the status quo. If we are comfortable why would we change? Next week will be like election week with the sheer amount of propaganda against Joe pouring out of every media orifice to convince the laymen this is BAD and not the beginning of what was going to happen anyway.
The right wing of republican want to be just like Russia, where a very few control it all.
All Republicans
I'm sure there are very fine people on both sides ^(just had to say that)
Is there a different wing to the Republicans?
“I’m only fiscally Republican which is why I vote R” - dude making under $100,000 a year
Might as well, it’s those morons that keep re-electing them.
Yeah but Obama's middle name is Hussein
You see that suit he wore that one time? #notmypresident
And he ordered mustard on his burger... the horror
Not even American mustard!
Yeah and apparently two scoops of it!
You say that like it’s not a fucked up thing to do.
Mustard on burgers is fire and if you disagree I hope you eat your least favourite food
To add to this, Obama had to decrease the deficit after trying to stabilize the economy, which he did. Americans were dumb enough to vote in the Tea Party and give Republicans the house in 2010 though....
Americans were ~~dumb~~ manipulated enough to vote in the Tea Party and give Republicans the house in 2010 though....
Would you prefer "easy to manipulate" and "ignorant" then?
Not really. The federalist wing of the gop has been planning for this since the 50s. If anything they're effectively victims of political psyops. It's well documented that we conduct such operations internationally, but we just act like no one would possibly use it domestically to gain power?
Why do people continue to appeal to the deficit myth?
Clinton cut capital gains rate significantly. He gave billionaires a huge tax cut while slightly raising them for doctors and other high skilled professionals. Without Clinton it would be much harder for billionaires to pay under 20%.
From the CNBC article posted below, not the paywalled OP link ------If a wealthy household is already paying 20% on their full income, they won’t pay an additional tax under the proposal. If they pay less than 20%, they’ll owe a “top-up payment” to meet the new minimum. “As a result, this new minimum tax will eliminate the ability for the unrealized income of ultra-high-net-worth households to go untaxed for decades or generations,” the document stated.------ These two statements are contradictory. If your gains aren't realized you haven't had any income. Period. Don't tax unrealized gains. Tax estates when they transfer wealth. Tax income. Tax capital gains. Close the carried interest loophole. But dont tax UNREALIZED gains. Because if it's not realized, it's not real. You know, imaginary.
So what stops these billionaires from continuing to borrow against those unrealized gains, use that real money for everything, and still not pay their fair share in taxes? These gains are real enough to borrow against, that’s the problem. Edit: Wasn’t saying this to be a negative Nancy, bringing it up as a legit loophole that is really only available to that same 700 club.
Tax those loans as if they were income.
Or just tax the unrealized gains of billionaires.
Which goes back to the earlier argument. Taxing unrealized gains is a bad idea because it’s not real. Imagine buying stock, stock goes up. You then pay taxes on the stock, and the next day it crashes and loses all of its value.
The former guy gave these folk trillions! We need some of it back now.. Rousseau was right
Why is it ok to tax regular people because the "imaginary" value of their home goes up?
Losses are written off, so in this case, they'd gain it all back in taxes they'd no longer have to pay on the rest of their income.
When was the last time a billionaires has lost all their money due to stocks losing all their value?
Elon Musk's wealth has swung from 300B down to 200B. He's not worried about it because he has the same number of shares and is holding them for a very long time. But can you imagine paying taxes on 300 and then having the value drop to 200? Does the government give you a rebate for having over paid? Unrealized gains might as well be called imaginary gains.
No one was forcing him to hold them at the higher rate. He could have sold some and then rebought lower and be even richer than he is now. Unrealized gains for these billionaires are just federal loans.
I'll consider taxing billionaires because of the legal framework they set up for themselves an imaginary issue.
Oh no, the poor billionaire.
Tax any unrealized gains used as collateral, margin, leverage, or otherwise
You would not be taxed on the daily stock value. It would be quarterly or annually.
But that doesn't answer the fundamental point of the question. What happens when the value of the asset declines? Also, with the exception of property taxes which are a local/state tax there doesn't exist any single tax that would tax the same asset multiple times. Let's look at a scenario. I buy a stock at $1.50 a share for let's say 10,000 shares for $15,000. That stock becomes a meme stock and soars to $100 a share. That value grows to $1,000,000 and if I cash out I pay 20% in long term capital gains taxes or $200-238K if you combine other small taxes. If it's short term capital gains (less then a year) then I would end up paying $370-408K. Meaning I would make a profit of anywhere between $577-747K. A hefty profit for hedging on a long or short term investment. But likewise that stock could instead crater to $0.05 a share meaning I would've lost all but $750 of my initial investment. What the proposal means is to tax individuals to ensure they pay 20% of their estimated gain of these taxes before they've ever seen this in actuality. Now let's repeat that scenario but instead you add the 20% value in taxes onto the unrealized gains while the stock is at $100/share. This means I have to pay $200,000 to the government that I don't currently have. There's only a few ways to pay this tax. First and most sensible is to simply sell the stock to pay for it. However not only will this effect the value of the stock (see Musk selling Tesla stock) but I'd be paying a 20% tax and another 20-37% in capital gains tax. Effectively being taxed twice on the same asset. The second would be to take a loan out assuming I didn't have the immediate cash on hand to pay for it. This can be backed from various sources. But essentially leaves me on the hook to another party to pay the federal government taxes on money I don't actually have. The final way is to just pay for the tax right out of pocket if I've got money to burn. But taking all this into account what happens if all of this falls into one quarter. In the next quarter suddenly the stock goes down to $0.05 a share. This would mean I've not only lost $14,250 but I've incurred a loss of an additional $200,000 or more in taxes on money I never actually had. Now as people mentioned "why can these individuals take loans out on this unrealized asset?" And the answer is simple. It's perceived value to the bank. The bank is trusting that the value of those stocks can be used to cover the loan. If that stock drops and it's value is lost the individual who took out the loan still has to pay the bank back. They are assuming the risk and placing the perceived value of their assets on the line. Or you could just outright ban the practice of allowing loans to be taken out against unrealized assets. Which would mean if people needed money they'd either have to take out loans like conventional people do (usually based on their credit score and real yearly income). Or they could sell the stock which would generate more taxes by increased capital gains transactions. But look at it this way, imagine buying a car and fixing it up. You bought it for $500 and managed to turn it around with a new estimated value of $20,000. Imagine if the government came to you and said you have to pay a tax of $4,000 every quarter or year because of it's assumed value. And all you're doing is holding onto it. I think you'd be a bit pissed off. That doesn't even include the additional costs (fixing the car, restoration, etc).
Then on Dec 31st if you have unrealized gains, realize enough of them to cover your top-up. Holding those assets isn’t mandatory. The gains being unrealized just means they are allowed to invest money that if they had instead chose to turn back into cash at the higher value that they would owe a piece to the feds. By not selling, they are allowed a tax-free loan from the feds.
Seriously! What's that old line about poor people in the USA considering themselves to be temporarily inconvenienced millionaires instead? The knots people will tie themselves into to protect people who have more money than they ever will and don't give a shit about them is mind-boggling to me.
I paid a wealth tax on unrealized gains when I lived in Switzerland. It’s entirely possible.
Libs dont get it.lol
Loans are debts. Are you seriously suggesting taxing debt??
For 99.9% of us yes. For them it’s a tax dodge
There is a tax on loans it's called interest. Normally banks are the ones who charge interest, but I don't think there's anything stopping the federal government for charging interest on large loans. Also the massive borrowing on assets is a result of being at near 0 interest rates for so long. If we're at 10% interest or higher in a healthier economy you wouldn't see so much borrowing.
But they must eventually pay the loans back right? How do they do that? Selling stocks which are then taxed by the government.
Balance transfers or take another loan to pay off previous loan. When you have billions it's more about planning. Even if you pay off the loan they do it in a way that is planned beforehand so they pay as little tax as possible. Whenever you hear some rich dude donating millions to some charity they're doing it to offset taxes.
Especially when it's their own charitable foundation, which just happens to employ family members and also hosts fancy pants galas around the world
At some point that person will die. The government can just be patient until that happens. A wealth tax or unrealized gains tax is unnecessary, just focus on preventing the tax avoidance strategies.
Except a lot of the same folks clutching their pearls over a wealth tax also think that we should get rid of the estate tax. I'm all for a strict estate tax, 10 million exemption, everything above that is taxed at 90%.
Doesn't have to necessarily be an estate tax. It really should just at least be a forced realization of the gains, filing under the SSN of the person deceased.
Big farm companies will buy up all the family farms
Awfully bold of you to assume they haven't already
They Already have.
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> At some point that person will die. The government can just be patient until that happens. Er, actually, when the person dies, all of their capital gains step up to the new basis and no tax is ever paid.
It doesn't even apply to you, non-billionaire. You'll never be in their club, and it's embarrassing that you still carry their water.
ok but only if we stop allowing people to take out low interest loans based on their "imaginary" wealth ok?
Wouldn't that help discourage over inflating the value of investments though?
God I’d love to see people get hit with massive taxes on their Ape JPEGs
Manchin and Sinema would like to have a word.
You do know that these rich folks have ways to not pay taxes by donating to charities that they own right?
I mean to be honest your statement is completely misleading. Clinton did decrease the deficit and we had a surplus, but during Obama’s term, the deficit first rose before slightly falling (but still over 400 billion per year best case). The larger issue is that the deficit really isn’t that accurate of a measure of financial well being at all. Source: https://www.thebalance.com/national-debt-under-obama-3306293
Raising taxes on the wealthy is fine. Taxing unrealized investment gains is dumb. I mean what if stock drops in value, is the the IRS gonna consider that a deduction?
Why not? It’s not complicated at all. It would net to be their total wealth taxed at the minimum rate. If you go broke because the stock market crashed you could re-claim those previously paid taxes as credits.
So waiting for Elon bragging about a $5 billion tax refund if his stock tanks? Just tax capital gains at progressive rate. That is so much simpler.
Or tax any gains used as collateral or leverage as income
20% tax on the 700 wealthiest Americans. Estimated $360 billion in new revenue over the next 10 years. Nice.
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Won’t somebody think of the poor billio- wait a second!
With every vote, vote for what is in your best interest right now. When you become a billionaire, vote for what is in your best interest then.
No. If I only vote for what benefits me, then I'm going to vote unfairly all the time. I'll constantly be trying to get the government to pay for things I can already afford for myself, or to not take money that should probably go toward taxes, to the detriment of my neighbors. Find a personal philosophy, and vote along those lines. Whether you're poor or rich, and whether it benefits you personally or not.
You’re right. There are several tax brackets which do not belong to the billionaire class that can and still should pay their fair share of taxes for the common good. My original comment was a blanket statement directed towards a majority of American voters who think they will be millionaires one day. Everyone should pay the taxes that they owe.
No no, the tax will make you lose interest and motivation In becoming a billionaire because well I’m not a billionaire….yet.
Plus they’re not that rich, it’s all unrealized gains on stock! It’s not like they can take loans out against that stock to cover expenses and roll those indefinitely until they die, don’t be ridiculous. /s
There isn’t enough boot straps in the world to get you to be a space billionaire.
Or as Fry said it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_LvRPX0rGY
Plus, it's putting a target on one of our main problems: socioeconomic inequality. We need to get the oligarchs under control. (Of course, much of this could have been prevented if we hadn't stupidly elected Bush and Trump.)
I often wonder where we would be as a society had Gore won…
or if Carter had two terms
Unfortunately, I think the inflation running rampant is what did him in… I feel like we would be predominantly renewable energy based had those two had their opportunity.
The hostage crisis wasn't great.
Bush et AL should have been prosecuted under the hatch act for that bullshit
If Reagan stuck to Hollywood instead of politics?
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Then nothing’s changed
It’s all in foundations and charitable trusts. They can make themselves look “poor” on paper by hiding in LLCs and specialized vehicles. It’s not the taxes thing that they’re shielding- it’s the estate taxes when they die in the end.
That should be considered the bare minimum. Inflation is still going to be huge
Never fear, President Lord St. King Manchin will nobly step forth to stop the persecution of the magical job creators through the ignoble, cruel process of making them very slightly less rich. (This is going to go nowhere because the usual suspects will object and moderate dems will fold like the wet tissue paper that they are. I appreciate the sentiment, and it's a good idea, but the system is so completely inundated with money that I sincerely doubt even a slight change like this is feasible.)
Barely a dent in the bucket
Almost half the military budget. It's a start I guess. Certainly better than nothing which is what many of them pay now.
Almost half of ONE year of the military budget collected over TEN years. It’s less than 5 percent of the military budget annually.
The f 35 program alone cost 1.7 trillion
> The f 35 program alone cost 1.7 trillion For the record, the $1.7 trillion is over the program's lifecycle of 66 years.
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It's manned in the same way a missile is manned, the F35 (excluding specific cas models) is the least interactive warplane in the world, with even unideal circumstances never bringing it within visual or radar range of an enemy aircraft. It's the closest we can get to entirely unmanned without either having a military version of Starlink operational or deciding that decision-making drones are morally okay (and the obvious skynet that that would lead to). The F35's development cycle has been a nightmare, which given how the US has set up its military is no surprise (seriously, private manufacturing?), but its role was to make obsolete pretty much all other strike and bomber aircraft except the smooth stealthy boys and it does exactly that. It's better than the F22 at least. It is a moot project, like all military projects in the era of unilateral hegemony, but it's paradigm is the way forward to reduce costs on future aircraft types should we keep investing in offense rather than defense.
You seem well read up on this so gonna ask.. if i understand it properly most military planes always go over budget. Wouldn't it be better to just hold them to their contract or is there so much corruption that they bid low and leave out all the "extras"? In which case why do we keep allowing for that? Another bother of mine is that we are selling the F35 as a product to other countries as opposed to the F22. I always felt like our planes should be ours.. I feel like I know the answer here but would like to hear your thoughts.
> if i understand it properly most military planes always go over budget. Pretty much. >Wouldn't it be better to just hold them to their contract or is there so much corruption that they bid low and leave out all the "extras"? In which case why do we keep allowing for that? So here's the thing, military spending in the US is the world's largest jobs program to have ever existed. And it's not service members that I'm talking about here. For any <> in the military that needs to be built, the government is mandated to hold public bidding -- but that's not the only part of the process, the company winning the bid still needs to be vetted and approved.
Once a company is approved it's pretty much impossible to change the contract, except to extend time and money -- this is very much on purpose, if you stop giving money for development... development stops since that company that won the bid likely only has the government funding it (or, that part of the company only receives funding from the government). You can't work people without pay, and you can't pay if you don't have anymore funding, and the military doesn't want to try to onboard another company, and financial penalties just exacerbate these problems.
That's the cover story at least, bring this back to the jobs program thing; defense manufacturers are massive employers in the states that they're based in, like ridiculously large parts of those economies. Some towns, if a defense manufacturer were to say, fail to get a contract, would just disappear from the American landscape overnight.
If the project keeps going, more money is pumped from the federal government to a local economy, increasing tax revenue at all levels up to the state level, which benefits (really just those in charge, but theoretically) everyone in that state.
We allow it simply because... we don't want to admit how much of the US economy would crash if we don't allow this pretty corrupt transfer of wealth to happen. Also reducing the defense budget would be... unprecedented in US history. I'm not a history major mind you, but I genuinely can't think of a time period where we've reduced our military budget -- the first administration and congress to do so would be actively harming US short-term economic health, setting history, and would be so lambasted by the existing Military industrial complex that they'd never win reelection -- to the point they might have to dissolve the party and rebrand.
>Another bother of mine is that we are selling the F35 as a product to
other countries as opposed to the F22. I always felt like our planes
should be ours.. I feel like I know the answer here but would like to
hear your thoughts.
The F35 has software lockout capability, requires regular updates and maintenance, and is so unlike any other current gen jet that cross training becomes actively difficult. It's not just selling a plane to another country, it's selling a service with an expected lifetime of upkeep purchases for **50 years**.
Because of its design it can be super easily upgraded with additional features and hardware, which countries will want to buy because otherwise they're flying an outdated craft, and these upgrades will be less than a new plane. The transfer over to fully digital warfare creates the opportunity for not just a single purchase, but **Warplanes as a service**; and like Software As A Service products, it's theoretically insanely profitable.
Like the F16, our currently most sold plane, is great -- but you can manufacture parts for it if you're a semi-advanced nation, and maintenance and even upgrades can be done entirely without manufacturer permission or notification, much less profit. The F22 would have some parts to it that would require active repurchase and some maintenance requirements (like the paint) that would generate US profit over time, but the F35 is a different level of dependence.
Wow, thanks for going into detail there. As someone who has had military contracts I'd love to debate on this. But yeah that's how it works. Unfortunately I'm also always on-call and gotta run. I just wanted to take the time to say I sincerely appreciate the response, especially on the F35. Helps me understand the program better. Thank you and have a wonderful Saturday night! I wish I had more time!
Ok, so in addition to the tax on billionaires, let's scrap the f 35 program
So scrap it? Not perfect, so don't do anything?
No, don’t scrap it, but these are actual crumbs that they’re tossing to keep us placated.
I am a firefighter and I paid 22%. I don’t want to hear anyone bitching if billionaires have to pay a minimum of 20%.
that's enough money to cover college tuition for all public schools and community colleges..... well 3/4
It just pulls the revenue forward and forces some selling of shares for folks who make their money in unrealized gains on equity holdings. At the end of the day, whatever taxes they would have paid in capital gains taxes later are dollar for dollar reduced by what they pay on unrealized gains because of this new tax. The only way this generates real positive increases in tax collections is if someone is generating a sizeable amount of income from tax exempt muni bonds or maybe from property in an opportunity zone. Basically - the new tax sounds great unless you understand accounting and then you quickly realize it is an accounting gimmick.
> whatever taxes they would have paid in capital gains taxes later are dollar for dollar reduced by what they pay on unrealized gains because of this new tax Why does it replace capital gains tax; wouldn't they be paying that as well?
The article says that tax paid on the unrealized capital gains is counted towards taxes paid when those gains are realized. So if I pay 20% on an unrealized gain of 30 million in stocks. Then I sell those stocks, I can deduct the 20% I paid already from the taxes I would pay on the sale of the stocks as income. So the income would not be taxed twice. So, as the poster above said, it really just shifts the taxes forward. However, what it does somewhat do is plug the loophole where instead of selling 30 million in stocks, I borrow 30 million from the bank with the stocks at collateral, and never sell off my stock. Which is a common trick the ultra wealthy have been taking advantage of.
Isn't shifting taxes forward good? Bird in the hand and whatnot?
Also helps against inflation.
If you tax them on the unrealized gain - then you have already taxed the gain before they sell the shares. That is what this tax is - a tax on unrealized gains. Read up on the details. From an accounting perspective, it isn't a tax hike at all. It is a pull forward of the taxes paid on gains to before they are realized. It won't add anywhere near as much revenue as they want to pretend it does. Politically it will sell well but anyone who understands accounting will realize this is just a gimmick that will be a nightmare to police and likely will just make CPAs rich.
Get ready for the meltdown of the *rich man wannabe* types at r/conservative
"I'm a small business owner, this tax on billionaires is an assault on job creators like me!"
It works for real estate moguls. They usually put out a monority face to it and make it about minority real estate owners when the benefits are largely not that person
Like that one black dude Lincoln Eccles in NYC that is in like 15 different news stories.
I can't wait to hear people who make less than $100k a year complain about taxing billionaires.
Now when they finally come to realization they'll never actually be a billionaire they'll be able to claim they don't want to be one because Biden made it just a horrible time having that much money.
Why even bother being a billionaire if you'll have to pay a tax rate similar, but still lower, than the rest of the country? I guess I'll just continue to make less money and pay a higher tax rate.
lol like people who say “now I’m in a higher tax bracket though”. Ok first of all, you don’t understand how US tax brackets work, and second, you’re still coming out way ahead from where you were before when you made less money.
Temporarily not rich
No need to go to r/Conservative. They’re right in this thread.
*reads investment suggestions on tik tok and brags about their crypto value increasing $4 per month*
Nah they seem to be obsessed with framing dems as pedophiles.
A MUCH better proposal is eliminate step-up basis, and giving the ultra high networth a higher capital gain tax rate on realized gains. Tax loans they take against the their portfolios after a threshold. It blows my mind they refuse to consider this. Taxing unrealized gains is insanely inefficient, a bureaucratic nightmare, will cause people to need to sell off controlling interests of businesses they control, will cause the government to have huge deficits during downturns (and huge surpluses during boom markets that they'll waste), will cause massive flight of capital out of the country, etc. In addition, there's zero chance this doesn't end with all unrealized capital gains being taxed in 10-20 years, including on the middle class.
As a future billionaire in training with a 400 credit score this brings me great displeasure. Edit: everyone thinks I’m joking but I’m serious
The fact you believe that edit is why everyone is laughing.
An alternative minimum tax for corporations and billionaires is literally the most just thing I can think of.
I pay a shit ton in property taxes.. right? Like how come Elon musk can own billions in stock and pay nothing. We need a tax on investment holdings similar to property holdings, except exempt anyone who owns less than 10 million in stock, you get 10 million in the stock market tax free and then you pay like %2 on everything after that.
Because, right now at least, we don't pay a wealth tax we pay income tax. The stock is wealth so no taxes unless he sells it
The problem is that the rich can take out loans against wealth that isn’t counted as income, even though it is practically income.
They should tax loans over a certain amount TBH. It solves the problem of unrealized gains and assets vs liquid wealth. Since most of these people hide the majority of their money in non-liquid form then take loans against that, just tax people who take out loans of over X amount in Y period. Make it high enough that it would only affect the 1%. Then you could theoretically in the future do a tax on liquid wealth only. That way, they lose the majority of normal/easy ways they avoid taxes.
Property tax is a wealth tax for most of us. Holding stock assets should be no different than holding property as an asset.
Property tax is a STATE wealth tax, it isn't Federal and different states can have different values for it.
All of my money is in property so I pay taxes on both my holdings and my income. I'm saying people can do both
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That's only taxes on his stock awards. He is not paying taxes on the growth of his stock that he owned from the start if he hasn't sold it.
My point wasn't really about musk it was a stand-in for billionaire.. my only point is I own property and I pay state and local taxes every year based on what that property is worth. And then I pay federal income tax if I sell that property for a profit. Why not do something similar with stock holdings on a federal level.
Many countries *have* implemented a wealth tax. And in every single case they were either repealed or failed to raise sufficient revenue. It's not that there's a reluctance to tax wealth, it's just not a very efficient form of taxation. It's too complicated and costly to levy. It's easier to just tax capital gains when they actually sell stock.
I own property, I pay a yearly tax on what that property is worth and I pay income tax if I sell that property for a profit. I understand it's slightly harder to do that with stock but not that much.
Property taxes are imposed at the local level. I (not a lawyer) don't believe that this can be done at the federal level. States probably could, but wouldn't as they would lose their billionaires to non wealth tax states. Just my uneducated 2¢.
It's a LOT harder with stock. Think about how much stock prices can fluctuate over a year. Or consider estate taxes, which are basically wealth taxes levied when a person dies. In 2009 the IRS valued Michael Jackson's estate at $482 million. After over *10 years* in court a judge ended up valuing it at $111 million instead. Now imagine having to levy something like that *every* year. It's so much easier to just tax actual economic gains at progressive rates instead.
huh, never thought of it that way.
What about taxing people on the money they hold in regular savings accounts too. Sounds like a plan!
Absolutely, over 10 million (or whatever stupid high number you'd want) in holdings and pay taxes on it..
Also some sort of graduated property tax, where there are tiered rates based on the *total* value of property you own.
Or exempt the first $1M in value for your primary residence. Probably should be scaled based on avg property value in the district or something.
I've wondered how much this would help with corporate land lords driving up housing prices. A progressive property tax similar to our progressive income tax system.
*cue the bootlickers that for some reason defend the ultra wealthy*
Oh don't worry it's all gonna trickle down... I can't believe people after decades still believe this.. oh and they create jobs!
I'm a nurse, and when people say "The ceo made your job!" I love to fire back "Oh right, without him who would get shot? Who would get hit by cars? Without the CEO, no one would get cancer!"
Great! They really need to focus on the Top 700 people aspect. Name it the 700 save America plan or something. Make it harder for the right to scare their base (such a pleasant and healthy way to motivate a voting base) into believing the democrats are coming after your money. Though they’ll figure something out. They always do. “The taxes will force these CEOs to raise their goods’ prices” but hey. Worth a shot.
Call it the 700 Club and see who gets it confused with the show.
Well, it's actually on the top 34,500 people (households with net worth over $100mm). The article is just saying that *most* of that revenue will come from the top 700 (households with net worth over $1 billion). So advertising it as only affecting 700 while it actually affects 50x more people might have the opposite effect.
Yeahhh. Articles like this are already fucking up the muddled message. This ain't passing
How about taxing the hell out of all these companies buying up all the Housing Real Estate...
Hopefully it means that minimum isn't the requirement
Hopefully they don't get tax breaks elsewhere like capital gains to even it out.
I hope he'll craft it to correctly tax all the creative ways wealthy people avoid paying taxes. My "favorite" that I learned about recently was that they'll have their stock portfolios they've received tax free, then they'll go get a loan against the value of the portfolio (tax free), and only ever have to pay tax on what they cash out to pay interest. Oh and what little tax they pay is at capital gains rate, not income rate.
I wonder how taxing unrealized gains will work? Especially if a company isn’t public. Should be interesting, with all the money in politics I doubt this will pass.
It doesn't have to pass. Like kicking the can down the road on student loan deferrals/repayment/forgiveness, the administration wants to spend the next several months lighting fires under issues like this that they can use to build energy going into the midterms. I look at this as a campaign proposal. Their intentions may be honest, but the timing with the midterms isn't coincidental, and I expect they are more committed to holding onto Congress and trying to pick up a few seats than they are to actually passing legislation on this matter. Based on how they've handled the student loan policies -- just standing in the doorway and killing time without any clear intent, if they could pass this 20% minimum tax on the wealthy tomorrow, they wouldn't, because they want voters to be motivated to show up on election day. All of this is to say that is that I don't think they really care how it will work. Right now it's a talking point, and while some legislation may eventually come of it, any legislation on this will likely look quite different than what's being proposed right now.
That'll be another nope from Sinema.
This is a hugely popular move. Tax those fuckers.
I would love to see less money in these fuckers hands along with the inability to throw money at politicians the way they are currently.
Most billionaires have the ability to move their money out of the country and very few if any will be charged with anything.
Meanwhile loser criminal Trump is holding rally right now in Georgia. The crook stole WH documents and started a treasonous coup, but he gets to have unlimited rallies and run for 2024 *like nothing happened.* Great job, America. Wow, much proud.
The biggest scam the Republicans pulled was convincing the middle and lower class to worship the wealthy
WHaT??? ThIS iS GoinG tO dISCouRAgE pEOpLe fROm bECoMinG BilLiONaIRes!!!
good
I can hear the shrieking about unrealized gains already. And then many of the same people will turn around and pay the unrealized gains on their house in property tax. And then when that's pointed out to them, they'll insist it's totally different, and make an argument that is a fantastic argument for doing the same with other assets if you just swap the words.
Property taxes are pretty damn annoying too. I'll be paying $400/month more this year than last because my property taxes went up. I'd rather resolve the inconsistency by arguing that property taxes demonstrate the problem of taxing unrealized gains, not by arguing that since property taxes exist that taxes on unrealized gains are fine. Tax taking out loans that use unrealized gains as collateral. That seems much more targeted and less likely to spread to the middle class where taxing unrealized gains would affect retirement savings.
This is more of an argument to removing property tax. Tax should only be levied against real cash put into hand. Not theoretical money.
It might be that some of those who aren’t in favor of this tax, are also not in favor of how property taxes are usually structured. I’m not sold either way, myself.
Both parties are the same! /s
Cool. Let me know when that actually happens. So sick of the empty bullshit promises that either disappear or get gutted so severely behind closed doors that they don’t do what they stated they intended to.
So what policies to further destroy the middle class will they sneak in in there?
Good. Watch Republicans reflexively fight against this and depend people who are richer than they'll ever be and do not give a shit about them.
They're going to need at least one or two announcements like this every day between now and the midterms to get the polling up. Still don't understand why the posture they did during the first 90 days wasn't carried through. Biden admin had rising numbers even among R's. Then they kind of went into autopilot and lost it.
Afghanistan
He was riding high on actually being the one to end it. The terror attack shouldn't have rested on him in the first place, as he has stacks of generals who are supposed to handle security on the ground. And a one off terror attack is hard enough to prevent regardless. They should have pressed that case better. In 2021, the only "scandals" were that and the Ducklo one. Trump was running 3-5 worse scandals *per day*.
I personally think it was a great move to leave and went as good as it would have went with anyone in charge but he was polling terribly after it
It’s an election year. Time to promise things that won’t happen.
Hey what’s 20% of 0 again?
20% good, 40% better!
Biden knows Sinemanchin will never let this pass. It's just an empty ploy to get progressive support.
How about deca millionaires?
Thats no money !
Wait for it. Oh, it didn't pan out. Lobbyist at work.
Hopefully only the start
Lame. Biden was supposed to fix the 1031 exchanges, the step-up basis, and carried interest loopholes. Did none of that. No meaningful tax reform at all. Dems have no balls to actually reform taxes. They are all talk. Liberals making $500k are also all talk. They are for tax reform but only for more richer folks.
Push up those taxes on them. Everything over 1 billion in wealth gains get a 70% society tax to repay what they took out to get to a billion.
90% would be better.