No, because shares are not generally treated the same as INCOME.
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I’ve always found it telling that when you talk to Libertarians about the parts of the government they would keep, it is always the parts that would be used to protect the rich from the rioting masses.
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Pretty much… they’ve fetishized private property to such an extent that they refuse to see the wants or needs of their fellow human beings and would rather watch the rest of us burn rather than have a system that works for all of us.
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Doesn’t this assume he for some reason don’t want to use part of his ~$40 billion yearly income to pay for it? Why go to such drastic measures when there’s a much easier solution? Sure $4 billion is a lot of money, but that just underlines how ridiculous the situation has become.
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Normally you have to explain why those objectively good things are bad in your opinion before calling them one of the worst ideas you have heard in days.
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Rich people might be mildly inconvenienced? /s
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Gotta love armchair economists claiming increasing cash flow into the market will cause bad things for the market.
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I don’t understand why people are obsessing on how this would work…
This is Elizabeth Warren, even if she were to get absolute power this would not happen, she has a different idea that is difficult to explain succinctly, but…
At the end of the day I hope this doesn’t ruin her presidential chances. I don’t know whether or not I will ultimately vote for Warren in the primary, but she is an interesting choice.
In my mind, the reasons for this announcement are clear. 1. There is literally no reason that Cortez’s ideas should be the most radical voice in the room, and Warren is one of the few people credible enough to give Cortez the room she ought to have to hold a conversation. 2. The people at davos took their opportunity to belittle and ridicule Cortez instead of actually engaging the idea. 3. Because of the timing, this was a shot across the bow for the people at davos. “income tax or wealth tax, your move.”.
This was a pretty boss moment for Warren.
Also, it leaves room for a conversation of paying for things with mildly higher inflation, which is a tax on wealth, but with none of the agitation inherent to threatening to say “wages have been stagnant for 30 years, but your productivity went up. Where’d the money go? It went there and we will take it.”
Warren would never do that, but this was a clear threat to davos, a clear attempt at moving the overton window, and a surprisingly impressive decision by an impressive woman who is usually mild.
Way to go Warren, keep it up
Guys, third way politics MUST END. This idea that politicians may only voice ideas that they are certain would be the final compromise MUST END.
That’s how Republicans got away with the Democrats proposing the Republican healthcare plan and then whining that the Democrats wouldn’t compromise
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the market is a social relation, if it’s bad for people, it’s bad for the market.
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Property taxes are constitutional for the states, but the states and the federal government have slightly different restrictions.
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Her name is Ocasio-Cortez. I really wish people would stop dropping half of it.
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Enough people omit the hyphen that I didn’t realize, thanks for the correction
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I’m still trying to understand the restriction. If it’s just the 10th Amendment, OK, but the US Federal Government bypasses the 10th several times per second. I don’t think it’s a major barrier to the proposal.
I didn’t say that shares are treated as income. I just surmised that in order to pay a $4B tax, they will most likely have to liquidate assets since they only have $2.5B in cash and cash equivalents currently. Since Amazon stock is their biggest holding by far (they own about 80 million shares) and since their basis is so low as founders, that liquidation event would also unlock long term capital gains, both federal and state. They’ll have to pay tax on those gains as well that could be approaching 30%.
His 2017 salary was $81K.
How much of his total wealth was gotten because he used tax loopholes or quasi-legal means not to pay into the system that benefits us all, given that he’s so clearly benefited far more than the rest of us.
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Tax “revenues” were not slashed. Rates were lowered.
In 2018, income tax collections increased to $1.7T (increase of $14B from the year prior) and an all-time high. Total tax revenues came in at $3.34T, which is also a record high. For comparison, it was $2.5T when Obama was elected, $2.0T when Bush was elected, about $1T when Clinton was elected, etc.
Despite record high tax receipts, the annual deficit increased due to a larger increase in spending.
No matter how much is taxed, the government is going to find a way to spend it and more. They are the condo board from Hell. There is never going to be a tax the rich scheme that solves the problem because of that dynamic.
In the last 50 years, total tax receipts have increased from $153B to $3.34T. That is 21.8 times what it was. Inflation has not caused that (inflation would be 7.2x over that same timeframe).
His compensation in 2017 was not $81K, because he uses services to compensate the salary he doesn’t need and has to pay taxes for. The $1.6M in travel and security he gets more bang for the buck out of.
Also, as a percent of GDP tax revenue has remained mostly constant with discretionary income steadily declining.
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I’m referencing salary as an insufficient source to draw from to pay the $4B tax. Not saying he is living hand to mouth. My point is that the wealth tax will trigger liquidations, mainly of publicly traded stocks by their founders.
As a percentage of GDP, tax revenue is mostly constant (Hauser’s Law), but spending isn’t. After WWI, it was about 2.5% of GDP. 50 years ago it was about 15% of GDP and now it is about 35% with future increases based in due to entitlement commitments. There is a structural mismatch between the two that obviously results in the annual deficit and the cumulative debt.
So, which do you try to change, the side of the equation that has been constant through numerous administrations (R and D) or the one that is on a constant march upward?
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Not sure how the math would work out, but how about the 1% richest mothers pay the same rates the average folks pay, on everything (including capital gains and inheritance) and the lowest 25% * get a free ride.
- or whatever percentage that would work to. The net would be zero gain to the gov and the lowest payers would have more to spend on necessities.
You’re all over the place really. You main point was that liquidation is bad and now you’ve shifted to talking about how the government needs to spend less and not tax more and you are pushing some very sketchy numbers to do so - i.e. you are claiming we are already increasing tax collection by using raw numbers.
Is spending out of control? Yes. It’s largely do to with a large generations age and the military budget. Is taxation out of control? No, it’s not even close. Without increasing taxation and decreasing spending you won’t be able to get past the Social Security hump with the Baby Boomers, and without increasing taxation fiscal conservatives won’t be able to afford everything they like to cut checks for. On top of that, the largest economic cost in the nation, and especially on younger generations, has been the untapped accumulation of non-liquid assets that has captured a dangerous amount of the GDP and is holding it permanently removed from marketplaces. Targeting wealth directly is a good thing.
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