According to a summary of the bill released by the Patriotic Millionaires—an advocacy group that helped craft the measure—the wealth tax would have four brackets:

  • 2% for all wealth between 1,000 and 10,000 times median household wealth;
  • 4% for all wealth between 10,000 and 100,000 times median household wealth;
  • 6% for all wealth between 100,000 and 1,000,000 times median household wealth; and
  • 8% for all wealth over 1,000,000 times median household wealth;

"In the unlikely event median household wealth fell below $50,000 from its current level of about $120,000, the thresholds would be fixed at $50 million, $500 million, $5 billion, and $50 billion respectively.”

The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax.

  • Lexi Sneptaur
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    1 year ago

    This plan is so very soft on the billionaires and yet we are going to see it being resisted violently and with extreme prejudice.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Pretty sure thats the point.

      Showing that the billionaires will react to practically nothing like it will destroy them. And hopefully maybe a few more people will realize they’re full of shit

    • twelvefloatinghands@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Keep in mind it’s a wealth tax, not an income tax, so these numbers hit way harder than the income tax ones you’re used to.

      • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        It hits the same as property tax hits, because property tax is also a form of wealth tax.

        • Holomew@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Income taxes only effect money earned that year, and have plenty of loopholes to lower that amount significantly. A wealth tax is based on total wealth owned, so it hits every year at the full amount, assuming wealth never goes down. Think property taxes; you pay the same amount for your house tax every year, because you still own it. And if the value increases, so do the taxes.

  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    For everyone saying this is not harsh enough, it is a WEALTH tax. Not income, wealth. All owned assets. Meaning any of these people who don’t increase their net worth by at least the amount of the tax each year will lose more and more of their total wealth year over year.

    It isn’t intended to strip all mega rich people of all their stuff immediately - that obviously could never pass - but still is intended to open the door to wealth taxes and redistributive policies more broadly.

    It’s a great move. If we can get anything like this passed, it is a significant victory.

    • NovaPrime@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Just getting something like this out of committee and on the floor for debate would be huge. Unfortunately it stands no chance with the current congress

        • Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think it is more the state of American media. Similarly to before 08 housing crash, many home builders got stuck with over valued houses no one would buy. So they rented them out so that it would generate income and not have to take a write down. If you watch CNBC it tells you how the housing market is somehow doing amazing if you look at perfectly curated numbers that do not add up. One of the common media pieces at the moment is how popular this new rental home trend is and how its so helpful and gracious to those who can’t afford homes. Example: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/14/homes/build-for-rent-homes/index.html

    • drphungky@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I really love the floating design of the tax pegged to household income, but I’d probably oppose it due to exactly what you say: it opens the door to wealth taxes, which are by and large a bad idea.

      We’ve proven time and time again that congress can’t properly tax the wealthy, and will always eventually default to squeezing revenue out of the middle class. 50 million as a minimum sounds nice and high until they add a bracket at 25 million, then 10, then before you know it there’s a non-inflation adjusted tax at 1 million or 500k. All that serves to do is hurt savers and the elderly (who will naturally have higher nest eggs being closer to retirement). This will 100% eventually come to pass, because taxing wealth is a further nudge towards a consumption (and therefore growth) based economy that publicly traded companies need to continue extracting wealth from consumers, so it will be lobbied for by all monied interests, both the rich and industry.

      There are tons of other issues with a wealth tax like creating a new bureaucracy to measure wealth (not impossible, as some people say, just expensive), the fact that people are taxed for gains they may not have realized or just for leaving money in the bank or stock market, something that is actually good for the economy, and other complaints. It’s also just inferior to a better income tax, and expanding income taxes to eliminate the loopholes the megarich use, chief among them borrowing against collateralized debt. If someone gets a loan but puts up stock or properties as collateral, that loan should count as income. There are tons of other loopholes, and the fact that we’re ignoring low-hanging fruit and talking about wealth taxes shows me this is about scoring political points, not actually trying to reform how our government gets money.

  • Alto@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    It’s got a snowballs chance in hell of going anywhere, but it’s nigh time a wealth tax entered the realm of possibility

    • varoth@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, we have a better chance of pigs flying, getting struck by lightning, and winning the lottery all at the same time on the same day simultaneously than this has of actually passing both chambers and getting signed into an actual law. This type of thing will never pass when the very oligarchs it seeks to tax own the very government responsible for making it a law.

  • RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Eight whole percent. I can hear their boots shaking now /s

    Go with the Bernie plan. Anything over $1B is taxed at 100%. Shit, I think even that is too soft. Nobody needs even a fraction of that to for themselves and their children’s children’s children’s … to live like kings their entire lives.

    Also, it’s always hilarious how American politicians are so obsessed with overly on-the-nose acronyms for legislation.

    • Zaktor@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re almost certainly confusing wealth taxes with income taxes. Bernie Sanders had a wealth tax plan, it ranged from 1%-8% depending on wealth. From $1B to $2.5B the rate was 5%.

  • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    What a travesty. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of the brows of everyone he’s screwed over to amass his fortune? Sure, I might not have two cents to rub together between paychecks but I’d better oppose this just in case I get rich some day.

  • extant@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Isn’t the issue that they are currently hiding and obfuscating their income? Increasing the percentage is a great idea and all but 1% or 8% of zero is still zero.

    • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It literally says “all wealth” and doesn’t talk about income at all.

      This is exactly the kind of tax we need. I think its a very interesting idea to tie it to median wealth, though using household as opposed to individual wealth I’m not sold on.

      • extant@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The same point still stands regardless of it’s income tax or any other arbitrary constraint, if they hide their assets how do you apply this policy to that?

    • neeeeDanke@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      The legislation would also require at least a 30% IRS audit rate on households affected by the new wealth tax, according to the summary.

      • extant@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t understand what this statement says. The it’s has to pick 30% of all households that make more than a thousand times the medium income? Is that lower than standard or higher? Why 30% and not 100%?

        • neeeeDanke@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          since they took the effort to include it in the proposal, I would assume it is significantly higher. Where I live the standard often varies from state so state, because some states use a low enforcement rate to attract buissnesses (“as in yeah, our federal taxes aren’t cheaper here, but we if you cheat it’s not like we are gonna catch you…”).

          I assume not a 100% because that would be a herculean effort and at a certain point if your chances of getting caught are high enough -and there are significant fines- you won’t need 100% because the risk is high enough to make most people not cheat out of fear of getting caught.

  • donut4ever@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    That’s it? The highest one is 8%? Wtf is this, a joke? No one needs billions of dollars. No one should hoard billions while others sleep in the streets. Hell, billionaires shouldn’t exist at all.

    Edit: also where is the “assets” and stocks tax?

    • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      8% seems fine considering it’s a wealth tax, not an income tax. In 7 years that takes away 56% of their wealth.

      Granted, I’m not at all clear on what sort of assets constitute “wealth” here. How much of Musk’s $242.4 billion net worth that google currently spits out would be affected by this?

      • donut4ever@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It’s not like their wealth is not increasing. Fuck them, I wish I could tax them 90% after their first billion. No one needs one thousand million dollars. Holy shit! It’s a lot of money they’ll never ever spend. Also, I’d tax everything they own, even their stocks and other “assets” they use to avade taxes.

        • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          8% is a good figure. 8% gets real change and it gets it fast. This rhetoric helps nothing. Wealth taxes are very different from income taxes.

      • donut4ever@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Yup. I’ve literally given up hope on this government. At this point, I’m just waiting for a total collapse of this country. It will happen, but I don’t know when.

          • donut4ever@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            It’s common sense. You can’t have infinite growth from a finite source. It just doesn’t work that way. Billionaires know this, that’s why some of them are actually building bunkers and “post apocalypse” places for themselves. They know it burns, yet, they keep playing with fire. Education and health of societies are very important, like the article says, but capitalism doesn’t care. Those short term profits are more important until they don’t mean shit anymore, or don’t even come by. I’m waiting patiently. I’ll be in my 50s. I grew up very poor in a 3rd world country and I know I will survive it easily.

    • _cerpin_taxt_@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Why the fuck do I pay like 30% percent on my income? Fuck the IRS. Go after every single last billionaire tax dodger or stop taxing in general.

      • Alto@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Wealth taxes are much different than income taxes, and as such have a lower percentage.

      • donut4ever@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I actually agree with you. There should not be tax on labor. I’m already helping society with my labor, why would you double down on me?

    • drphungky@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      8% on wealth is actually insane. Stock market growth is only 10% on average, and average inflation of 3%. If they had average growth they’d be losing significant money (like 1-2%) each year. So in practice 8% is just a really slow seizing of all wealth, and prevents them from making any more money unless they’re taking huge gambles and getting huge paydays that beat the market (which they would be incentivized to do). I’m all for taxing the hell out of the rich, but that’s not a well designed system and creates really perverse incentives.

      • Alto@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Considering that 8% only starts at one million times average household wealth, I’ve gotta say who the fuck cares. There is no justifiable reason for any singular person to have that much wealth. Not one.

  • SCB@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Wealth taxes are super easy to avoid, so I’d much rather see something like cap gains+“luxury” sales/income taxes and such, but it’s a step in the right direction

    Now raise taxes on everyone making over 100k and we’re really cooking with gas

    • MisterCreamyShits@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      $100k aint that much and those people already have a heafty tax burden. Plus luxury taxes are easily avoided when yachts and planes are purchased in the Bahamas. What we need are 50% taxes on the money they borrow against their assets. Want to buy another mansion? Cool 50% tax on the money Goldman Sachs lends you against your Amazon stock. If I have to pay a tax to borrow against my 401k so should these assholes.

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        $100k is 150% of median household income, and I’m talking about individual income. It is the boundary between 3rd and 4th quintiles of household income.

        People are not overtaxed. They are dramatically undertaxed. I say this as a person earning over $100k - it’s not some weird snub. It’s just correct

        https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-household-income-percentiles/

        Rich people do pay taxes on money removed early from 401(k)s, which is why they don’t do that.

        I do strongly support raising taxes on money borrowed against assets over $150k or so

        • Not_Alec_Baldwin@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Warren Buffett doesn’t pay income tax because he doesn’t earn income.

          The billionaires don’t have a billion in cash, they don’t earn a billion dollars a year. They hold assets worth that much.

          Taxing wealth is the only way to combat the wealth gap.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            First off you’ll need to define “combat the wealth gap.” Difference between high and low isn’t really a relevant thing.

        • MisterCreamyShits@lemm.ee
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          $100k is a bad metric because somebody making $100k in the Bay Are or New York is basically in poverty. I make over $100k and I’m not well off at all. Not even close. And I’m not bad with money, have zero debt, save 15% in the 401k no kids and still things are tight.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            Yeah federal taxation doesn’t work based on “I should be able to put 15% into my 401(k) and live where I want.”

            $100k is not basically poverty in LA/NY or everyone making under $100k would be below poverty and that’s considerably more than half the population (median household income - that is, generally 2 working adults - of 68k in NYC, and NYC is more expensive than LA).

    • CoderKat@lemm.ee
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      But income tax on paper is already higher for the $100k tax bracket than what the ultra rich pay. The ultra rich do everything in their power to not have an “income”. Hence why there’s this effort of taxing wealth instead.

  • theneverfox
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    1 year ago

    My understanding is that this would be x% of your total wealth, which is much more reasonable.

    So you would pay an extra 2% of your total worth every year. So at a billion that’s 20 million, at 980 million 19 million and change, etc.

    The numbers could be much higher, but this is a lot of funds. It also would take several generations for the inheritance to drop below “you’ll never spend this” to just “you can live on the interest”. Even with zero interest on their investments (which is absurd - so really this would more be a source of funds than anything). At least it would be a starting point

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Based on wealth. Like the tax we pay on houses but on total wealth. Stocks etc too.

      But only for very wealthy people. It starts at 1000 times median wealth. So people 1,000 times richer than the median household.

    • quindraco@lemm.ee
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      It’s based on wealth, and hence illegal - it would take an amendment to tax wealth, but this isn’t an amendment. So even if it could pass, it would be an entirely empty gesture.

    • GojuRyu@lemmy.world
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      The 10k isn’t what they make. It is how many times the median wealth they have. So the poorest affected will have a thousand times more wealth than the median household.