> They could change their minds, donate or pay enough taxes that their billions would be distributed far and wide. Then they'd no longer be trapped.
They pay giant amounts of tax. The people not paying tax, or costing negative tax, are who you mean.
> They could change their minds, donate or pay enough taxes that their billions would be distributed far and wide. Then they'd no longer be trapped.
They pay giant amounts of tax. The people not paying tax, or costing negative tax, are who you mean.
Do they?
The 2021 ProPublica tax leak showed the 25 richest Americans paid a "true tax rate" of roughly 3.4% on their $401 billion in wealth growth between 2014 and 2018, because their wealth grew without triggering realization events.
I didn't even see the actual problem with this originally: wealth is not what is or should be taxed. If shares I own go up and I don't sell them, I don't have anything to tax. It's only when I sell them that I should be taxed.
Try seeing how much net tax a government employee pays. It's in the negatives. Or a benefits recipient.
The government employee at least earns their salary by actual labor.
Whereas anyone on the "top N richest" list is a parasite on all the people who produce wealth.
> The government employee at least earns their salary by actual labor.
They may or may not do much useful - government tends to grow regardless of output, because it doesn't need to earn its money. All you know for sure is a government employee pays no taxes, and so contributes nothing to anything like roads, public services, etc etc, and takes taxes away from the people who are net contributors.
Sure, undoubtedly. But, also... you don't have to make a ton of money to pay more than 3% of your income.
To be clear, I don't pretend to have preferences. I'm idealistically libertarian, but I think that nukes have ruined the right to bear arms, propaganda has ruined free speech, and central banks have ruined currency. I'm a demoralist, I guess, to coin a term.
“Net” is not relevant, nominal tax rate matters, and billionaires are the biggest tax dodgers by far, stop trying to blame poor people and civil servants for your weird hangups.
> “Net” is not relevant
If it's not relevant then just give every government employee a million dollars a year raise, but on the condition that it's taxed at 100%. Then you've raised all the taxes you need and the private sector doesn't need taxing.
> billionaires are the biggest tax dodgers by far
Even if this is true (no evidence cited, of course) they still pay the most tax in terms of dollars, and their businesses generate far, far more tax downstream as well.
> stop trying to blame poor people and civil servants for your weird hangups
I'm not blaming them. I'm just judging them by your standard. Get a better standard, and don't call it my "weird hangup".
A parent of your comment cited a ProPublica study that references real tax return data that showed billionaires paying an effective tax rate in the single digits. If their accumulated wealth were regarded as regular income, they should be paying 37% on most of the gains. Look it up yourself.
If you look at “net” like you want to, sure, they pay far more in tax dollars than pretty much anybody, but they are able to legally dodge paying tax on most of their wealth accumulation because if the way the IRS treats unrealized capital gains.
Imagine doing away with income tax and replace it with a wealth tax payable in whatever wealth you have. % of your house, % of your investments etc