Your parenthetical statement is why I mentioned capital gains. Billionaires don’t make their wealth from income, no. It comes from capital gains.
Capital gains tax brackets currently max out around the same rates as $40K income tax brackets. And they still write off so much bullshit and play loopholes that most of their gains go untaxed.
A one-time wealth tax makes sense. 100% on anything over $1B. After that, a progressive tax rate that includes capital gains as well as income, and maxes out at 100%, which could honestly apply to anything over $100M since it’s annual anyway. If you make $100M in one year you’re already set for life. No one needs more than that. If you make $100M ten years in a row, congratulations, you made a billion dollars.
Even a hundred years in a row still ultimately returns $10B total, which is honestly fine given all the rest is implemented. Making $100B would require maxing out income/gains rates every year for a thousand years, so it’s not like we would have to worry about Bezoses and Musks, and there would be enough tax revenue to fund everything necessary, and no billionaires could complain that “one billion isn’t enough!” Because if they’re so “hard working” then all they need to do is max out their income/gains for ten years and they make another billion!
Your parenthetical statement is why I mentioned capital gains. Billionaires don’t make their wealth from income, no. It comes from capital gains.
Capital gains tax brackets currently max out around the same rates as $40K income tax brackets. And they still write off so much bullshit and play loopholes that most of their gains go untaxed.
A one-time wealth tax makes sense. 100% on anything over $1B. After that, a progressive tax rate that includes capital gains as well as income, and maxes out at 100%, which could honestly apply to anything over $100M since it’s annual anyway. If you make $100M in one year you’re already set for life. No one needs more than that. If you make $100M ten years in a row, congratulations, you made a billion dollars.
Even a hundred years in a row still ultimately returns $10B total, which is honestly fine given all the rest is implemented. Making $100B would require maxing out income/gains rates every year for a thousand years, so it’s not like we would have to worry about Bezoses and Musks, and there would be enough tax revenue to fund everything necessary, and no billionaires could complain that “one billion isn’t enough!” Because if they’re so “hard working” then all they need to do is max out their income/gains for ten years and they make another billion!
I think this scenario seems manageable.