"The federal government struggles to administer the already complicated tax code; thousands of new bureaucrats would need to be hired to fight with tax lawyers over asset valuations for collections of wines, art, jewelry, and yachts."
This argument against a wealth tax by the WaPo editorial page on behalf of Jeff Bezos is not a likely winning vibe among us mere peasants, serfs, and proles that they think it is.
When I was a kid in the 60's, my grandfather was a park policeman in Youngstown, Ohio. Every year at Christmas, we'd go in to stay with them overnight, and they'd take us out to see all the Christmas lights, which were fairly new, really expensive, and owned only by the wealthy. His job took him around to all the parks in the city, so he knew where they all were.
The homes of the owners of the steel mills in the city were all lit up. They were paying a top tax rate of 70%, and none of them looked like they were hurting.
My next door neighbor died in 2024. Her family sold the house to someone who misrepresented themself as wanting to reside in the house, but in reality they're a small private equity firm. They converted the detached garage into an ADU, so two more rentals in the portfolio. These people are not good for the housing industry. The people who are renting the main house earn about $300K per year, they should be able to buy a house easily. Rent seekers are fucking vampires sucking us dry.
My friend owns a nothing-special townhouse here in northern IL. 1000 sq., 2BR, 2BA, 1-car, builder-grade interior, about the size of a 2BR apartment. The unit above him listed for 245 and sold, stairs and all. JFC.
I'm A Old. Prices of things don't make any sense to me. My retirement is based on the pay I got when they put me out to pasture way back in 2007, and I'm still below what I made then even with 18 years of COLAs. Since I lost my ass in shrub's depression when I was recently retired, I took what I had left in my 401k and made the down payment on this shack in 2013. It was $140K then for an 1100 sqft 2 bd 1 ba no garage and homemade plywood cabinetry. Now similar homes are going for $375K and up. That's what the house next door went for, and the renters in it, with their incomes, could easily buy one like it if the vultures didn't outbid them. Housing shouldn't be an investment.
I have 2 questions for any billionaire who opposes this is:
1) How long ago was it that you had 95% of what you have now?
2) How was your life materially worse at that time?
And while I am not a billionaire, I am not a hypocrite, so
1) 7 months ago.
2) It wasn't.
The one thing that I would do, is not require that it be paid in cash. The government should accept shares of stock which have been publicly traded on NYSE or NASDQ with no reverse splits for at least 5 years and with a current share price over $30 and an average daily closing price over $20 for the previous 2 years. The avoids the dumping of stock and corresponding market instability at tax time and prevents the creation of worthless shell companies to create bogus stock to pay the tax. I would also make payment with stock a non-taxable event so there would be no capital gains or loss on the shares.
Also too it needs to be pointed out that they by and large make their fortunes on the backs of all of us including taking advantage of the infrastructure, legal system, and other governmental functions that we all fund. Returning a really small portion of that to enhance our well-being is completely appropriate.
I'm looking at Bezos wealth vs time: 2005 4.8B, 2007 8.7B, 2013 27.2B, 2014 30.5B, 2016 45.2B, 2017 81.5B, ok I've seen enough. There is no way that losing 5% of that year over year would halve his fortune. Certainly the same is true for the vast majority of these people. In fact, if he made zero dollars year over year it would take a little less than 14 years to actually halve his fortune, and as we can see his fortune actually grew about 1700 percent over that period. Math isn't that hard...
“The federal government struggles to administer the already complicated tax code; thousands of new bureaucrats would need to be hired to fight with tax lawyers over asset valuations for collections of wines, art, jewelry, and yachts.”
Figuring out the value of assets is a real technical problem, which can lead foreseeable consequences.
Businesses are jonesing to value appreciable assets, like land, at market value on their books rather than the price they paid. This will lead to businesses being able to overstate their assets versus current accounting standards.
If billionaires’ appreciable assets like art, land, yachts, etc. gets taxed on their value, it should be on the amount the billionaire paid. This is clean and doesn’t involve any attempt to gauge market value.
Figuring out the current value of assets happens all the time when someone dies. It is needed for the capital gains step up. I suspect the larger problem is them hiding the the money in physical assets in foreign countries who are not going to share their records with the federal government.
Also, only an accountant would classify yachts as an appreciable asset. There is no boat in the history of the world whose value has actually appreciated. ;)
Anybody like how casually they mention that the AI techbros are all billionaires on paper only because their products hadn't actually made any money yet?
The reason a week's vacation is so unaffordable is that 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 and in my world that means giving up the week's income I need to pay for food, heating bills, and the mortgage, and pay off the debt I ran up during Covid. Plus the cost of the vacation. Millions of microbusinesses across the country are in the same boat.
Ta, Robyn. We need universal healthcare and a basic income, especially if AI is going to take all the jobs. Of course, AI can't do my job; it's people-facing and AI's no good at that.
https://brutusmac.substack.com/p/a-wealth-tax-on-billionaires-is-not?r=6aexdu&utm_medium=ios
Wonderful summary, analysis and commentary Robyn. Just reading this gave me hope. Thank you!
Tax the money hoarders!
"The federal government struggles to administer the already complicated tax code; thousands of new bureaucrats would need to be hired to fight with tax lawyers over asset valuations for collections of wines, art, jewelry, and yachts."
This argument against a wealth tax by the WaPo editorial page on behalf of Jeff Bezos is not a likely winning vibe among us mere peasants, serfs, and proles that they think it is.
"Billionaire", such an old fashioned word.
https://substack.com/profile/157420297-kirsty-gnome-poledance-himmler/note/c-223823843
When I was a kid in the 60's, my grandfather was a park policeman in Youngstown, Ohio. Every year at Christmas, we'd go in to stay with them overnight, and they'd take us out to see all the Christmas lights, which were fairly new, really expensive, and owned only by the wealthy. His job took him around to all the parks in the city, so he knew where they all were.
The homes of the owners of the steel mills in the city were all lit up. They were paying a top tax rate of 70%, and none of them looked like they were hurting.
My next door neighbor died in 2024. Her family sold the house to someone who misrepresented themself as wanting to reside in the house, but in reality they're a small private equity firm. They converted the detached garage into an ADU, so two more rentals in the portfolio. These people are not good for the housing industry. The people who are renting the main house earn about $300K per year, they should be able to buy a house easily. Rent seekers are fucking vampires sucking us dry.
My friend owns a nothing-special townhouse here in northern IL. 1000 sq., 2BR, 2BA, 1-car, builder-grade interior, about the size of a 2BR apartment. The unit above him listed for 245 and sold, stairs and all. JFC.
I'm A Old. Prices of things don't make any sense to me. My retirement is based on the pay I got when they put me out to pasture way back in 2007, and I'm still below what I made then even with 18 years of COLAs. Since I lost my ass in shrub's depression when I was recently retired, I took what I had left in my 401k and made the down payment on this shack in 2013. It was $140K then for an 1100 sqft 2 bd 1 ba no garage and homemade plywood cabinetry. Now similar homes are going for $375K and up. That's what the house next door went for, and the renters in it, with their incomes, could easily buy one like it if the vultures didn't outbid them. Housing shouldn't be an investment.
This is outback rural CA, btw.
I have 2 questions for any billionaire who opposes this is:
1) How long ago was it that you had 95% of what you have now?
2) How was your life materially worse at that time?
And while I am not a billionaire, I am not a hypocrite, so
1) 7 months ago.
2) It wasn't.
The one thing that I would do, is not require that it be paid in cash. The government should accept shares of stock which have been publicly traded on NYSE or NASDQ with no reverse splits for at least 5 years and with a current share price over $30 and an average daily closing price over $20 for the previous 2 years. The avoids the dumping of stock and corresponding market instability at tax time and prevents the creation of worthless shell companies to create bogus stock to pay the tax. I would also make payment with stock a non-taxable event so there would be no capital gains or loss on the shares.
What do we do with the stock? If we don't sell it, causing market instability, we can't use it for the purposes of the tax.
Sell over time so it doesn't destabilize markets. The money isn't needed all at once. It is needed over the course of a year or multiple years.
Also too it needs to be pointed out that they by and large make their fortunes on the backs of all of us including taking advantage of the infrastructure, legal system, and other governmental functions that we all fund. Returning a really small portion of that to enhance our well-being is completely appropriate.
I'm looking at Bezos wealth vs time: 2005 4.8B, 2007 8.7B, 2013 27.2B, 2014 30.5B, 2016 45.2B, 2017 81.5B, ok I've seen enough. There is no way that losing 5% of that year over year would halve his fortune. Certainly the same is true for the vast majority of these people. In fact, if he made zero dollars year over year it would take a little less than 14 years to actually halve his fortune, and as we can see his fortune actually grew about 1700 percent over that period. Math isn't that hard...
“The federal government struggles to administer the already complicated tax code; thousands of new bureaucrats would need to be hired to fight with tax lawyers over asset valuations for collections of wines, art, jewelry, and yachts.”
Figuring out the value of assets is a real technical problem, which can lead foreseeable consequences.
Businesses are jonesing to value appreciable assets, like land, at market value on their books rather than the price they paid. This will lead to businesses being able to overstate their assets versus current accounting standards.
If billionaires’ appreciable assets like art, land, yachts, etc. gets taxed on their value, it should be on the amount the billionaire paid. This is clean and doesn’t involve any attempt to gauge market value.
Figuring out the current value of assets happens all the time when someone dies. It is needed for the capital gains step up. I suspect the larger problem is them hiding the the money in physical assets in foreign countries who are not going to share their records with the federal government.
Also, only an accountant would classify yachts as an appreciable asset. There is no boat in the history of the world whose value has actually appreciated. ;)
Anybody like how casually they mention that the AI techbros are all billionaires on paper only because their products hadn't actually made any money yet?
The reason a week's vacation is so unaffordable is that 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 and in my world that means giving up the week's income I need to pay for food, heating bills, and the mortgage, and pay off the debt I ran up during Covid. Plus the cost of the vacation. Millions of microbusinesses across the country are in the same boat.
A 5% tax is nothing.
Personally I'd go at least 50%.
Ta, Robyn. We need universal healthcare and a basic income, especially if AI is going to take all the jobs. Of course, AI can't do my job; it's people-facing and AI's no good at that.
AI can't fix a toilet either, so Markwayne Mullin has something to fall back on.
On ... or into? Enquiring Minds Want To Know.
It's a marketing issue ...
"Sorry, you're one of the poors, so no 5% tax for you."
...
"Did you invite the Bentley-Royces to Cannes this year?"
"EEWWWW No ... they're not on the top 9000 list"
Etc
Maybe we should start calling them The 900.
Bernie Madoff said it, and these clowns believe it:
"Money is a way of keeping score."
In every dick-measuring contest, there is only one criteria.