Comment on Here are the massive tax increases coming your way in a second Biden term
GrymEdm@lemmy.world 7 months agoHere’s another story about the 11-billion tax claim. What you story leaves out is: “The emphasis on Musk’s income comes amid speculation of his past tax filings. In June, a ProPublica investigation found that while Musk’s wealth had grown by nearly $14 billion from 2014 to 2018, he paid $68,000 in federal income tax in 2015, $65,000 in 2017 and none in 2018. Between 2014 and 2018, the investigation found, he had a true tax rate of 3.27%.”
Here’s the ProPublica investigation based on IRS documents. “We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period…According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.”
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Ignore the 11 billion part. That’s for a different time period. Your quote was from 2014-2018.
You don’t pay taxes on wealth. So your citation doesn’t understand tax law. Wealth can’t be taxed by the federal government because it’s unconstitutional. Basically they are idiots.
We pay taxes on income and the rate changes on the type of income. Wealth isn’t income.
GrymEdm@lemmy.world 7 months ago
You linked the 11-billion story though?
The attitude of hiding behind loopholes and technicalities is how the US has ended up with in the state shown by this chart and tables - with 2/3rds of wealth owned by the top 10%, and only 3% of wealth held by the bottom 50%. I’ll continue to listen to your arguments, but as fair warning you are unlikely to convince me that the bottom 170 million US citizens should hold only 3% of the wealth (2023 data btw).
wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 7 months ago
As it had the 2014-2018 numbers.
It’s neither. It’s how our tax code is written. Most of their wealth I would assume is stock. It isn’t cash.
Almost all of elons wealth is stock.
I’d be fine saying stock sales are ordinary income including SS and Medicare. That would end some of this.
I’d be fine counting personal loans as income and rebate if needed when paid off.
Since capital gains are taxed lower. Many people have converted their pay to stock.
GrymEdm@lemmy.world 7 months ago
In my defense, that’s precisely why I opened with the idea that we should tax the obscenely rich. As in, change the tax code. I haven’t said that Elon et al are criminally evading taxes (although I’ve heard rumblings of it happening), but rather I say the code needs to be revisited with levelling inequality in mind. I’ve even heard people like Mark Cuban explicitly say they believe their economic peer group should be taxed heavily. "Cuban urges people to get so “obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes, your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your 2nd thought will be ‘what a great problem to have,’ and your 3rd should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you.”
A fine example of using technicalities/loopholes/whatever you want to label it as a way to reduce taxes paid.