this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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politics

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[–] [email protected] 191 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Their tax rate isn’t the real issue. The fact that they extract that much wealth out of the labor and production of others is the real problem.

No human being should have a billion dollars. The workers who got you to your level of privilege and status should be paid based on their worth.

A boss that pays fairly would never become a billionaire, and their workers would live good lives being paid the actual value of their labor. Increased demand from increased household discretionary income would create a boom on the supply side.

But it will never happen, because billionaires own everything and will always manufacture consent. Democracy will die to thunderous applause.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 6 months ago

Us poors (the dumb ones, because education will be forever castrated) will clap for the billionaires and lay our thrift store hand-me-down jackets over the curb so they can cross a puddle in the street lest they get a drop of water on their 100k elephant skin boots. It's coming to a head

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Although this is true, I'd like this graph on a billboard outside every polling location in November:

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 6 months ago (4 children)

If we tax them they won’t be incentivized to make more money, thus depriving the market of needed jobs. /s

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

This is true in the way they may just move overseas, but the frees up the local market for new business and competition!

OR aggressively union-bust and lobby the hell out of congress until, well, we get what we have now: corporate plutocracy.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 6 months ago

That there are even billionaires, let alone multi-billionaires. It's an immoral, unethical system that fundamentally exploited labor that allowed for this.

That productivity has gone up but wages have remained stagnant should boil everyone's blood. All the wealth stolen and sent upwards into fewer and fewer hands. Legalized theft by way of capitalism.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 6 months ago (9 children)

Great article. Nice to see an economist doing such important work. I don't really understand finances. I snipped the parts of the article that helped me understand the finding/headling. There's a great chart in the article of taxation differences since the 1960s too - staggering! Plutocracy in action!

Published in The New York Times with the headline "It's Time to Tax the Billionaires," Zucman's analysis notes that billionaires pay so little in taxes relative to their vast fortunes because they "live off their wealth"—mostly in the form of stock holdings—rather than wages and salaries.

Stock gains aren't currently taxed in the U.S. until the underlying asset is sold, leaving billionaires like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk—a pair frequently competing to be the single richest man on the planet—with very little taxable income.

"But they can still make eye-popping purchases by borrowing against their assets," Zucman noted. "Mr. Musk, for example, used his shares in Tesla as collateral to rustle up around $13 billion in tax-free loans to put toward his acquisition of Twitter."

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 6 months ago

BREAKING NEWS: Republican voters still learning about the Trump Era Tax Reform 8 years later!

[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Exactly my first thought seeing the thumbnail

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Sometimes I think we shouldn’t have photoshop.

Then I drink more 🖖🏻

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I....I mean the original is amazing...one of the best moments in television history....

But you went and made it better somehow.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

One of the things I do love about Lemmy is that any post anywhere can suddenly turn into a Star Trek shitposting thread

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

NOONE EXPECTS THE STARFLEET INQUISITION

(one of you nerds make that into a gif)

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

What the MSM considers normal regular American I consider upperclass. What they consider poor I consider normal. What they consider homeless is actually the new poor.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, a whole lot of working folks are one missed paycheck from homelessness. I'm old enough to remember that it wasn't always like this, if you were working you didn't have nearly so much anxiety and exhaustion, you could afford to look after a kid or have the occasional holiday, maybe own a home. Not anymore. The rich are getting richer though.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I've watched some of my friends struggle with homelessness. They are amazing people with brilliant minds, but just got unlucky while working a dead end job. It's fucking terrible.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, it's really messed up. And getting worse. I'm just not sure how we change it without violence though. Voting doesn't fucking help. And, like me, most of the people who are hurting don't want violent change. Rightly, because like capitalism, revolution hurts a lot of people. But it feels like society is a balloon and the rich are squeezing it and wondering when it'll pop. It's hard to predict what's gonna happen but based on the way things have been I'd say worse.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think torches, and pitchforks. We should go old school.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 months ago (5 children)

I wish people would say this and mean it. I'm waiting. I think we should actually eat one billionaire to make a point. I'm vegetarian but I'll take a bite to prove my commitment.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago (24 children)

This is easy to solve. Count the loans as ordinary income. Problem solved.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (10 children)

I had to take an insane amount of loans out to get my nursing license. I'll be paying them off for over a decade. I don't like this idea

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Easy, put a 1 million dollar limit (as in tax kicks in after 1 mil)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

And exclude primary residence.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Imagine being being able to afford a residence

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

eexclude value of average (maybe median) cost of a dwelling off their dwelling.

fuck this "my primary dwelling is a $10m mansion"

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Tax the rich, the banks, and the churches. Then see if you still need anything from the normies.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 months ago (3 children)

for the first time

Nobody ask about the long-term capital gains rate going back to Ronald Reagan's '83 reform.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago (1 children)

But it isn't for the first time. This has been happening for years

https://youtu.be/kXCGbAv8YPw

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

That analysis you linked isn't about income taxes. The NYTimes analysis is just about income taxes. It is the first time, although the report is on data that’s a few years old

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They used to push for a flat tax where everyone, billionaires and minimum wage workers alike, would pay the same rate. They did one better and now billionaires pay a lower rate than everyone else. Steve Forbes was an idiot. They managed to do it far better than he could have ever imagined when he ran for President in the 90's. Fucking nepo babies...

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (19 children)

Flat tax is an awful idea.

Say they make it 10%

When you make $30k a year, $3,000 has a much higer impact on your finances than someone who makes $3,000,000 and pays $300,000 in taxes. You keep $27,000, they keep $2,700,000. You lose a mortgage payment and a car payment. They have to buy a slightly smaller yacht.

On top of that, as already mentioned, their wealth comes from stocks and other non-wages income. Bezos famously only took $81,000 (I think?) in actual pay for many years, yet he’s one of the richest people on the planet. You think $8,100 in taxes is good enough for one of the richest people while you pay $3k out of your $30k?

Flat tax is a bad idea, and the only ones who want it are the wealthy and those who don’t understand that the wealthy could take whatever salary they want to pay as little tax as possible and just live off stocks, loans, which is how they already avoid paying taxes.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Trump has said if he's elected he'll lower the tax rate for the rich even more.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Once again, the problem is that the banks aren't being taxed. The reason the billionaires don't pay taxes is that they buy everything with money they borrow from the banks.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (6 children)

Borrowing against assets should be income that cannot be offset by the debt.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (6 children)

For the FIRST time? Yeah, no. How about ALL the time?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fat orange and his repuglican crew got it done

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, Trump was standing on the shoulders of giants like Regan, Bush, and Bush to get us into mess. Thanks Republicans!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Biden didn't fix 40 years of Republican corruption in 3 years therefore he's just as guilty, and I'm voting Republican!!!!!! - Average American ~~moron~~ voter

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

The moneyed class wet dream come true. 🤬🤬🤬

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

but they graciously pay salaries of so many people, we shouldn't even tax them!

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