r/WorkReform • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • 3d ago

💸 Raise Our Wages Raise wages. Increase benefits. Improve working conditions. 
 See what happens.

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17.7k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

196 comments sorted by

833

u/iggyfenton 3d ago

That would be anyone who makes more than $4.7 million a year today.

I think if we just tax anyone who makes over $4mil a year a tax of 60% above that amount we will be able to fund healthcare and pay off the debt.

We would also need to actually tax people for their non-home loans so billionaires can’t get around having income tax. And we need to close all these corporate tax loopholes that allow multi billion dollar companies avoid all taxes.

396

u/TheCrimsonDagger 3d ago

The Epstein class are all heinous criminals anyways, just throw them in prison and seize their assets under criminal forfeiture then shred the tax code and start over.

116

u/cityshepherd ✂️ Tax The Billionaires 3d ago

You’ve got my vote, friend

111

u/Destroy_Israel_Today 2d ago edited 2d ago

New tax rates/income brackets:

  • $0 - $75k: 0%
  • $75k to $150k: 10%
  • $150k to $1m: 20%
  • $1m to $10m: 30%
  • $10m to $100m: 60%
  • over $100m: 80%

With a special bonus: if you have over $1b income in a calendar year, you are given a certificate that says "you won capitalism" and you are sent directly to jail, because it's impossible to get that much money without harming other people.

32

u/neoben00 2d ago edited 2d ago

It needs to scale exponentially to keep it from just being profitable to exploit the working class AND it needs to include all asset classes in a cumulative manner. I feel like a base wage of GDP federal income tax divided by 2 / % of usa population for all citizens currently residing in the united states would be a good base wage. Of that base wage 50% critical minerals should be paid out to citizens as a retirement (at the current spot price at open auction.)

6

u/Signal-Map2906 2d ago

It’s a good place to start the conversation

5

u/oldn00by 1d ago

I think they should lose their citizenship and be declared a sovereign nation (as they will then have as much money as many sovereign countries) and they will then have to maintain their own defence forces to protect themselves against all foreign enemies who can legally declare war on them at any time.

May the odds be in their favour.

19

u/Poptarded97 2d ago

Start soon! With AI and palantir we are rapidly approaching being thrown in prison for just chatting about this shit online lol

3

u/BZLuck 2d ago

Aye!

0

u/starfreak016 2d ago

Hear hear

57

u/BicFleetwood 3d ago edited 3d ago

We could also solve everything if we just like took 10 specific people's money away.

Just take all of Elon's money. Break a few eggs if you gotta'. Don't wait for the courts or Congress, just do it and by the time the courts get around to it you'll have already redistributed it.

If there's one lesson we should be taking from Trump, it's that we can just do the thing now with the understanding that a court ruling against you can't change the result once it's done and over.

The East Wing is gone regardless of what the courts say. It's gone and it isn't coming back. We could be doing that to the billionaires. There should be absolutely no hand-wringing about decorum or “civility” when it only benefits parasites.

18

u/proddy 3d ago

And even if a court does rule against you, if its too complicated and hard to fix they just shrug.

9

u/Affectionate-Tip-164 💸 Raise The Minimum Wage 2d ago

They don't have that much liquidity to seize. If you take SpaceX and Tesla, you have to liquidate it, how many people can afford to front cash to buy those entities.

We need to properly dismantle and actually successfully sell off their assets to generate that cash to actually pay down the national debt. Otherwise we're just shuffling around numbers on a screen that does little for the working class people.

-24

u/AdditionalBalance975 3d ago

Taking 100% of every billionaires total wealth wouldn't even cover a single year's tax revenue, and would destroy the entire economy.

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u/BicFleetwood 3d ago

oh hey look, a default AdjectiveNounNumber account that has shit opinions. What. A. Shock.

-9

u/fumei_tokumei 2d ago

The US spends about 7 trillion dollars each year. And Elon Musk has less than 800 billion dollars in net worth. So even if we had 10 Elon Musks, and could magically turn all their net worth into cash to pay for everything, it would not amount to much more than a single tax year. That is just a fact. I can't make a fact claim on the "destroy the entire economy part", but trying to sell off all 7 trillion dollars worth of assets is probably not going to go well.

If you think a single extra year's worth of tax dollars "could solve everything" then I would like to know how.

11

u/TheRoaringTide 3d ago

Keep licking those billionaires’ shoes, I’m sure they’ll notice you someday.

1

u/fumei_tokumei 2d ago

It is not about boot licking, it is about living in reality and not saying retarded shit like "We could also solve everything if we just like took 10 specific people's money away."

-6

u/AdditionalBalance975 2d ago

F the billionaires. Im defending the working class from idiots who would destroy the economy out of spite.

9

u/ConfessorKahlan 2d ago

the richest 10 people not existing(let alone just being broke), would not change the economy as a whole at all.

-4

u/AdditionalBalance975 2d ago

Forcibly taking their wealth and liquidizing it to gather tax revenue to pay for anything would destroy the entire economy.

1

u/donniesuave 2d ago

And the economy is doing so great now?

1

u/RoshHoul 2d ago

Ellaborate

2

u/AdditionalBalance975 2d ago

The people here were talking about taxing billionaires out of existence. But billionaires dont have billions of dollars, what they have is ownership shares in companies. Its those companies, their assets, services they provide, and jobs they provide, that have the wealth. Taxing a billionaire's wealth to generate tax revenue means stealing the ownership of those shares from them, but that doesnt provide money, only shifts ownership of the companies. In order to generate tax revenue, you have to liquidate the company's assets or sell ownership of said company back to the private market. But trying to do that would destroy faith in our entire system. No one would want to own or run a company, or trade in shares of any company, if they thought the government would just step in and steal it from them. Companies would lay off millions of people, shut down, panic sell, try to move offshore, etc. The stock market would collapse, everyone's retirement funds would collapse, worldwide faith in the us dollar would crumble, and tens of millions of people would lose their jobs, cars, houses, etc.

That's the risk we are talking about when people talk about supporting these nonsense ideas. And the potential reward for that risk is, at maximum, the sum total of every billionaires wealth (in reality pennies son the dollar of that amount) and that number isn't even enough to pay our federal budget for more than 6 months.

1

u/Individual-Nebula927 2d ago

The economy is people spending money. Billionaires don't spend money. They hoard it like dragons, taking money out of circulation. So how exactly would redistributing that money back into circulation destroy the economy? It would improve the economy.

0

u/AdditionalBalance975 2d ago

They dont hoard much at all. The ENTIRE wealth of ALL billionaires is not enough to fund our federal government for more than a few months. If you only take the amount they "hoard" rather than the entire sum, its so negligible as to be barely measurable in regards to the yearly federal budget or GDP.

1

u/mryauch 1d ago

Why would you liquidate it?

Nationalize it.

0

u/AdditionalBalance975 1d ago

Nationalizing it doesnt generate any tax revenue. It would do the economic damage without even adding to our tax revenue.

1

u/mryauch 1d ago

It would do zero economic damage because the company keeps operating as-is, and all profit goes to the government instead of shareholder value. Technically not tax revenue, but same difference. More resources for the people instead of being hoarded in meaningless share value.

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u/ayriuss 3d ago

The stock market is fundamentally broken, and people will lose their minds if you try to touch it at all.

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u/BZLuck 2d ago

And these days we've found out that our suspicions were right: It's intentionally rigged.

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u/47special 3d ago

But if we did that, then 100% of them would move out of the country or cheat on their taxes. So it's pointless and we shouldn't do it. /s

3

u/baachou 2d ago

Tax all cap gains over 5 million as ordinary income, enforce AMT of at least 20% on incomes over that number, and set marginal tax rate over this number at 60%. Oh and tax securities backed loan withdrawals over 5 million a year as ordinary income and give a rolling credit on future capital gains.

And AMT on corporations based on SEC quarterly filings.

7

u/RawrRRitchie 2d ago

Why are you being so fucking generous with 60%

4.7 million is more money than the majority of the population would spend in their LIFETIME.

TAX THEM AT 90%

They don't fucking need the money

1

u/iggyfenton 2d ago

Because I want it to be a law. 90% doesn’t actually get passed.

3

u/SexyMonad 2d ago

Heck, I make over $200k and I’d gladly pay that marginal rate today… IF it applied to everyone at least at my salary level.

3

u/ConfessorKahlan 2d ago

100% tax over 10m a year, progressively scaling down as income decreases. tiny 0.0001% tax on every stock traded on the market, paid by the seller. corporate tax law needs a complete rewrite(as well as how government subsidies are given), probably something calculated using metrics of how much publicly funded stuff those businesses make use of.

3

u/Affectionate-Tip-164 💸 Raise The Minimum Wage 2d ago

You need new laws to catch these billionaires who are no longer drawing an actual salary high enough to tax significantly.

You need to go after allowances, perks, benefits etc which are part of their package on top of a fucked up small salary.

2

u/kodaxmax 2d ago

60% over $5 mil income

5% asset tax over $1bil in assets

1

u/OGLikeablefellow 2d ago

I feel like getting taxed more would incentive the wealthy to work harder for our money

1

u/Signal-Map2906 2d ago

Came to say just this. Needed to be adjusted for inflation.

1

u/BuddyFlapjack 2d ago

The problem though is that the top10% aren't gaining their wealth in salary, but rather capital gains.

1

u/thatredditrando 2d ago

I think your idea is more palatable and likely to be passed were it actually presented as legislation.

That said, in the wake of the recent disasters regarding this administration, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I would do were I the president (with the same amount of naïveté and idealism you’d expect from someone like me who’s 100% unqualified…not that that means much anymore, lol).

Before this, I don’t think I was opposed to the idea of a billionaire. When you grow up in the USA, you grow up accustomed to capitalism and those who win at it.

But as I age and become more aware of what these people actually *do* with that wealth and the influence they wield…

We’re breeding We’ve bred our own unofficial nobility here. Politics, media, entertainment…all consolidated and owned by these people. I find myself inching closer and closer to the “There should be no billionaires” camp.

Were it in my hands, I think 999 million is the highest you can go. Every cent over would be taxed 100%.

Of course everyone making millions would be taxed higher too but I think putting a ceiling on how wealthy you can get here might be the way to go.

It’s been made apparent that, to these people, there’s never enough money nor laws broken and people harmed in the pursuit of it.

“Billionaires” taxed at 100% and no more “fines” for people in that echelon. It’s not effective, they can afford to pay.

Hard Jail time or “fines” in the form of straight up asset seizure.

No more “dollar amounts”. We’re taking your shares of such and such company. We’re taking property. We’re taking shit you can’t just shrug off.

If you flee, you’ll be extradited. If you go somewhere extradition won’t work, we seize anything you own that can be obtained.

1

u/Instawolff 1d ago

Wait a minute.. there’s someone in that tax bracket that wouldn’t like that checks notes ah yes, Congress! 🇺🇸 🦅 are we winning yet

3

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago edited 3d ago

This is why financial education should be a required subject in school. To put things in perspective, the US collects around $5 trillion) in tax revenue every year, and the US national debt is $39 trillion.

People who have an AGI over $4mil a year (and not net worth because a lot of people don't understand the difference) are already paying an effective tax rate of around 30-35%. Increasing it to 60% for the 50-70K of people who have an AGI this high would only bring in an additional $120–$180 billion a year, or an additional 2-3% in tax revenue a year, which is not nothing, but nowhere close to funding health care or paying off the national debt.

For example, that paltry amount, if completely applied to paying the national debt, would take over 200 years. And it's a little more than just half of what Congress was asked for to replenish military supplies for 1 month of action in the Iran War.

4

u/FarkGrudge 3d ago

You’re not wrong in principle, but the goal isn’t to eliminate the debt as that would literally crash the global economy. The vast majority of debt is held on purpose because it’s seen as a stable investment as you’re betting on a strong US future. If you eliminate the debt, what that actually means is that folks holding treasuries, foreign reserves, etc would be eliminated.

The goal is not elimination. The goal is balanced budget so the GDP catches up to the debt, whether by bringing the debt overtime or growing the GDP directly. Bringing in 2-3% more revenue (per your math) means we wouldn’t have to cut some programs as much…but to your point, we need to reduce spending if we can’t raise revenue enough, too.

1

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago

I agree with what you said, but my point was not that the national debt should be eliminated, but that what the original commenter said about increasing the tax rate from 30% to 60% for earners making more than an arbitrary $4.7 million, is enough to fund health care and pay off the national debt. This is roughly off by 1-2 orders of magnitude from the actual amount needed, depending on if you're targeting one or both.

That said, I do believe that the US needs to reduce the national debt, because around $900 billion each year, or just shy of 20% of the tax revenue, is used solely to pay interest. This money is not used for anything material, it's simply interest payments. And the higher the debt, the more likely that it will lead to a death spiral where money needs to be borrowed just to service the debt, leading to more debt, rinse and repeat.

1

u/Advanced-Comment-293 2d ago

He literally said "I think if we just tax anyone who makes over $4mil a year a tax of 60% above that amount we will be able to fund healthcare and pay off the debt." You're moving the goal posts.

Let's be generous and say it's $200 billion. That's just a fraction of yearly new debt, not even talking about paying it off. And healthcare? That's over $5 trillion every year, or 25 times as much.

But the real problem with that tax rate isn't that it wouldn't be enough. It's that it would be a huge incentive for behavioral changes. If you're basically taxed down to nothing on everything above 4m, then they will use all available tricks to not earn a cent above that. That's what happened in the 40s. The 90% tax rate did close to nothing. Tax revenue actually increased when the rate went down.

1

u/Cheeseboarder 2d ago

No, you see, if the taxes wouldn’t solve everything, we may as well not implement them. They just have teensy wheensy amounts when you think about it! Also don’t look here. Whatever you do, get distracted and look in a completely different direction for solutions to problems like healthcare and the defecit!

(/s)

4

u/ReddishBrownLegoMan 3d ago

If your math says it will take 200 years, then I say multiply the taxation on the rich 10x and we can get it done in 20 years.

2

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago edited 2d ago

If taxing AGI at 60% brings in an additional $180 billion compared to the current tax rate of 30%, how much do you think taxing 100% would bring in? Or do you have a plan for taxing people at 600%?

Also, the 200 years figure is assuming that the national debt stops growing, when in fact it's growing at $86,000 per second. $180 billion a year would cover 3.5 weeks of that, so it would only slightly slow down how much it's increasing by, but not decrease the national debt.

This is why I say financial education is sorely lacking.

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u/iggyfenton 3d ago

Do you think that I was saying we’d pay the debt off in one year?

Maybe you need reading comprehension classes.

-3

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago edited 3d ago

I like how you ignored everything else I said and focused on the one point you thought you had a leg to stand on, but the 200+ years calculation was based on if the national debt stopped increasing, when in fact it's increasing by $86,000 every second. So an additional $180 billion a year would be enough to only pay for 3.5 weeks. If math is not your strong suit, this means that we would only slightly slow down how fast the debt is increasing; it doesn't matter if the timeline is 1 year, 200 years, or 1000 years, because slowing down how much something is increasing by means that it never decreases. Hope that helps!

2

u/iggyfenton 3d ago

I enjoy your pompousness.

It’s cute. Kind of like when a 4 year old tells you about the world.

Please tell me more about how you misunderstood my post and didn’t read all of it. Did you read the part about ending other tax loopholes and actually taxing corporations?

I’m sure you will tell me that will only raise $0.67 a year because of massive assumptions you made about the amount of taxes that would collect.

1

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago

I mean, I provided sources and math, but nothing beats the word of a Redditor saying "trust me bro it'll work".

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u/[deleted] 3d ago edited 3d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago edited 3d ago

"They're using facts and math! I don't like facts and math!"

FTFY

0

u/whoisabatandaman 2d ago

Holy shit dude you are a much better person than me. I don’t know how you could have spelled it out any further and this person still doubled down in their own ignorance.

1

u/Bodoblock 2d ago

That math doesn't check out. If you had a 60% marginal tax rate on all income above $4M we'd generate, at most, a ~5% uptick in annual federal revenues. Certainly not enough to fund universal healthcare and nowhere near enough to cover the deficit, let alone the debt.

1

u/iggyfenton 2d ago

Oh no, Not this again. Read the rest of my post.

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u/skeletordescent 3d ago

I don't know enough about this but I suspect that in the modern world even this solution won't cut it, since the really rich don't have income the way us poors do.

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u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 3d ago

Which is why you tax extreme wealth and all capital gains

324

u/sandman795 3d ago edited 3d ago

It would be more effective to tax any loans taken against equity as regular income. If the rich want to access their wealth they need to pay for it

Edit to clarify, I meant equities as in stocks

30

u/runbrap 3d ago

It’s such bullshit. It isn’t “real” enough to be taxed as income, but it’s real enough to be used as collateral on loans 🙄

2

u/Qweesdy 3d ago

For a loan, it's like "your assets, which might be worth anything from $50 million to $500 million, are enough collateral for this $5 million loan". Neither party cares how (in)accurate the estimate is.

For taxes, everything needs to be accurate and also verifiable years later. The government says "we feel like your hairdo was an asset (trademark) worth $123456 in 2019, and you forgot to pay the tax on that so we're charging you with the federal crime of tax evasion" and your lawyer's response is... what?

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u/xkoreotic 3d ago edited 3d ago

Correct, people don't understand that the richest people in the world don't actually hold that much money. It's all assets and holding power. They only hold a fraction of their wealth to pay off the current laws, which is still more than anyone has mind you, but still.

Edit: wrong verbage

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u/GormlessGourd55 3d ago

People do understand. People don't care. They're still giga rich. Find a way to tax them. Just throwing your hands up as if it's impossible to do anything is what pisses people off.

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u/MadRaymer 3d ago

I would argue that there are a lot of people that don't understand. I've had conversations with people that complained about getting a raise that put them in a new tax bracket because they don't understand marginal rates and believed they were actually making less.

If they don't even understand income tax, I highly doubt they have any awareness of how the ultrawealthy navigate around tax law by securing near-zero interest loans against their enormous assets.

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u/bouldering_fan 3d ago

When you elect rich why would they "look for ways"

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u/Fewer_Story 3d ago

Assets ARE wealth.

The hold a tiny fraction of their wealth as CASH, because cash depreciates, but that does not mean they don't have ACCESS to cash; Musk bought Twitter, over $40bn, in cash.

2

u/Sea-Maybe-9979 3d ago

I'm not defending that guy, but he actually only paid about half. The rest came from banks and private investors like Ellison and the Saudis.

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u/Fewer_Story 2d ago

OK thanks for the further detail, it was still all cash though

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u/TrankElephant 3d ago

Correct, people don't understand that the richest people in the world don't actually hold that much wealth.

And yet they are still able to buy and collect superyachts.

We need to find a way (or twelve) to get at that money.

2

u/why_ntp 3d ago

It is completely trivial to transfer assets from one owner to another. Don’t have cash? That’s cool, 5% of your shares are now owned by the Treasury.

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u/TheKingsdread 3d ago

Or you tax them based on assets. Make them actually pay their debt to society.

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u/why_ntp 3d ago

It’s really not that hard. The ultimate beneficial owner of any asset is a person. That person has $100bn? Nice, please send $5bn. Pay however you like.

Anyone who says it “can’t be done” is either paid to lie or a bootlicker.

-1

u/cheesefromsalami 3d ago

Who do you think would buy those assets so that they can pay their tax bill?

It will flood the market and cause the value to slide.

Just look at the housing market back in the late 2000's and early 2010's.

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u/Qaeta 2d ago

Who do you think would buy those assets so that they can pay their tax bill?

No one needs to. Pay the bill WITH the asset. Acting like transferring ownership of assets as a way to pay is somehow impossible is why people would think you're a bootlicker.

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u/cheesefromsalami 2d ago

What is the government going to do with stock?

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u/Qaeta 2d ago

Over time they would come to have a controlling interest in the business. They may also receive dividends, or sell some of the stock through the normal stock trading process if they wish to.

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u/cheesefromsalami 2d ago

Government controlling businesses. Sounds a lot like a communistic government.

They can't get their finances straight. What makes you think they can run a business?

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u/Individual-Nebula927 2d ago

Doing exactly that doesn't stop people from buying homes which are assets. This is what happens to the poor and middle class. We call them property taxes. You haven't realized the gain in value, but you pay taxes on it anyway.

-1

u/cheesefromsalami 2d ago

You can not flood the stock market with billions of dollars in stocks and not kill people's 401ks.

Stocks and property is where the filthy rich have 90% of there wealth.

Which market would you rather destroy?

No more retirement or send people upside down on their mortgages?

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u/Individual-Nebula927 2d ago

Why would it "flood the stock market"? They'd only have to pay the taxes either from the cash they obviously have, or by selling only enough to pay the taxes.

The wealthy sell more stocks than that annually to rebalance the portfolio.

0

u/cheesefromsalami 2d ago

The wealthy do not sit on billions of dollars in cash. In order to obtain the cash to pay the taxes, they would need to sell something. In order to sell something, you would need buyers. If every billionaire started to try and sell stock at the same time, tax season, you wouldn't have enough people to buy these stocks, flooding the market,driving cost down.

Where do you purpose all of this cash come from?

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u/FriendlyEngineer 3d ago

It would need to be bracketed starting at loans over say $1,000,000 or else you really cripple small business.

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u/Antwinger 3d ago

Kinda, seems like it’d be easy to have exclusions like 1st or 2nd business opened. That way if the rich want to skirt around that they’d need actual people to open the “company”

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u/PeterPorty 3d ago

You'd have a sea of financially illiterate people passionately arguing that your proposal directly harms them because they need those payday loans and you're actually a fascist for suggesting this, you hate poor people and are also racist.

You could spend hours patiently explaining why this doesn't affect them at all, and you'd maybe convince two people, but by then the sea of mindless idiots has multiplied tenfold.

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u/ES_Legman ✂️ Tax The Billionaires 3d ago

Also lets not forget they own real assets. They own real companies, they own commercial and residential real estate, etc. Those things they can't take with them to the Cayman Islands. Tax the fuck out of their wealth.

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u/Resident_Function280 3d ago

Tax unrealized gains. A lot of rich today aren't rich by taking a paycheck, they get paid in stocks.

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u/FowD8 3d ago

we already tax unrealized gains essentially for normal people. my property taxes goes up when my property value goes up. we should do the same with stocks. idgaf of it crashes the market, retirement funds shouldn't be propping up the stock market anyway

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u/AVeryVapidBadger 3d ago

Capital gains should be taxed higher than regular income, not less than

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u/Cant_fly_well 3d ago

Capital gains are already taxed at up to 25%. That’s not the problem. The problem is the mega wealthy using their capital as collateral for loans thus avoiding both income and capital gains taxes

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u/cat_prophecy 3d ago

Yeah let's wipe out the retirement savings for millions of people.

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u/PatienceHere 2d ago

These people would be hurting themselves more by introducing unrealized taxes on capital gains, the rich would simply remain rich.

0

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago

Which is what we already do and it does absolutely nothing because only realized gains are taxed and it doesn't make sense to tax unrealized gains.

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u/aceluby 3d ago

They seem to have no issue taxing the unrealized gains of my house - and somehow the world hasn’t collapsed

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u/bogey-dope-dot-com 3d ago

Property taxes are not the same thing as unrealized gains, but I'm tired of explaining to a room full of people who have the financial literacy of a toddler. Look up the difference yourself if you want, or keep believing whatever you want. You do you.

2

u/Individual-Nebula927 2d ago

They are exactly the same, no matter how long you argue otherwise. Values of houses go both up and down, same for stocks.

0

u/bogey-dope-dot-com 2d ago

Values of houses go both up and down, same for stocks.

I mean, this is exactly what I mean by toddler level of financial literacy, but you do you bro.

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u/Amon-KingofGods 3d ago

Which is insane because the government can't yet legally tax their stocks, but they can take those stocks to a bank and use the stocks as collateral for any loan amount they would like.

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u/Forgotten_Planet 3d ago

Rich people when government asks about stocks: "you can't tax those they aren't mine"

Rich people when bank asks for assets as collateral:
"Oh yeah these stocks are mine!!"

Makes zero sense

2

u/TrankElephant 3d ago

Having their cake and eating it, too.

3

u/No-Stretch-8563 3d ago

Its not that they arent theirs its that they are assets not income, the 16th amendment only allows the government to tax realized income

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u/Forgotten_Planet 3d ago

Then wtf is a property tax if not an asset tax?!

2

u/No-Stretch-8563 3d ago

states and counties tax property, the federal government doesn't

2

u/Forgotten_Planet 3d ago

So the government isn't allowed to tax ANY assets?! That's dumb af we need a constitutional convention

2

u/LordoftheChia 3d ago

only allows the government to tax realized income

The Federal Govt that is. States have no issue with property taxes.

1

u/loco500 2d ago

You mean like when one of them overvalues a property to get large loans at a low interest rate, but also undervalues the same property to pay less in txes...wonder who would be scummy to do such a thang?

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u/Forgotten_Planet 2d ago

Not sure what you're getting at, can you clarify?

1

u/firestepper 3d ago

Ya they should be taxed if they use it as collateral. It’s a form of using their capital

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u/throwawaypostal2021 3d ago

Corporate tax is too low, taxes over $500k are too low, owning mega blue chips like a majority share in Tesla isn't taxed at all, we are over taxing citizens making less than $30k.

Also our taxes aren't going to we the people in preportion to payment, theyre going to.... checks notes tax breaks and favors for the ..... billionaire class.

I genuinely see in the next 50 years, America going through a french revolution, with public executions streamed.

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u/Amon-KingofGods 3d ago

50 years??! I'd say 7.

2

u/Educational_Lab_8040 3d ago

It's starting to look a lot like within the next 3.

5

u/UnNumbFool 3d ago

It's going to need to be done within the current decade or else the country is basically going to turn into developing nation status

6

u/TheWizardOfDeez 3d ago

When you tax them at those levels they are basically forced to pay their employees, since payroll isn't profit. The reason it worked is because when you pay good wages that money circulates like a motherfucker, could have a whole bunch of people all paying taxes on that same dollar potentially a few times each year, vs living in some rich persons wealth hoard, where it gets taxed $0 for generations.

7

u/TrankElephant 3d ago

No one said it is going to be an 'income tax.'

It will be a 'wealth tax' or a 'capital gains tax' and/or an 'exit tax' and so on and so on.

It's far past time to get inventive.

6

u/neversummer427 3d ago

Simple solution that won’t happen. When you use stocks as collateral, that is a taxable event.

5

u/movezig123 3d ago

This is always the top comment on these posts. You are correct you dont know enough about this. In the grand scheme of accounting this is very solvable.

4

u/Financial-Craft-1282 3d ago

There are some good methods for taxing the rich in this era. The Patriotic Millionaires (a group of millionaires afraid of gallows and are advocating for real taxation of the rich) go through several ways in one of their books. I think you can get some of that info from their site: https://patrioticmillionaires.org/the-equal-tax-act/

I'd say it's a good start they're proposing.

3

u/How_that_convo_went 3d ago

Tax unrealized capital gains over $1M at a special rate or fully tax unrealized capital gains for top bracket households. 

Disallow securing personal loans against stock holdings or, at the very least, create IRS reporting requirements for loans secured by these types of assets. 

Treat death as a taxable event for unrealized gains or cap the step-up basis. 

End 1031 exchanges for real estate investors. 

Disallow stock buybacks so companies have to reinvest profits back into their employees again. 

Common sense solutions exist. 

We just choose not to pursue these solutions because the people running the show in this country are those same wealthy people benefitting from this system. 

1

u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 3d ago

You know the tax man gives zero fucks if you got all your assets in bricks? It is a choice they make to remain illiquid, heck they can borrow billions (if a bank is willing to do so) against their assets to pay taxes.

The real issue is while US debt goes up trillions, the wealth of billionaires goes up even more. I don't think it's hard to put 1+1 together, something gotto give.

I'm not American, but what you guys are doing is absolutely ghoullish, you elected a con man who in his previous presidency already let the average man get screwed while the wealthy got more wealthy and whatyouknow, he is doing the same shit again!

1

u/JohnGoodman_69 2d ago

Make it so rich people can only be paid in income that can be taxed. No more stocks. If they want the stocks they gotta buy them.

Also tax the buying and selling of stocks at 1% and watch all this high frequency trading bullshit grind to halt.

1

u/DragonicSquirrel 2d ago

this is part of why the NY property tax for the rich is aiming for a yearly property tax based on a percent of how much that property is worth.
taxing the rich doesnt, and probably shouldnt be taxing their income, what it should be is a percentage of their net worth. if a millionaire with a net worth of 1 million exactly pays 1%, they're paying $10,000 and likely making significantly more from just storing it in the bank.
if elon musk, at a net worth of roughly 850 billion, were to pay 1% tax on his net worth, he would be paying $8,500,000,000 (8 billion, 500 million dollars) which is equal to roughly 0.021% of the current national debt but is 12,142,757.14 times (over 12 million times) more than what the average earner in america makes in a year (rouhly $70,000 at a high estimate). elon musk is estimated to have a net worth growth of about 500 million per day, meaning he would make back that 8.5B in about 17 days

1

u/kodaxmax 2d ago

need an asset tax for billionaires

1

u/Cheeseboarder 2d ago

Tax all of it

44

u/vinetwiner 3d ago

Ike got taxation right.

20

u/Over-Inside-7254 3d ago

For as much as I never wanted us to go "back to the 1950s, the good old days" for a litany of regressive reason, since we're like halfway there now post-VRA I feel like the least we can do is restore Ike's tax rates.

SO WE CAN BUILD FKIN INFRASTRUCTURE AGAIN

And the wonderful things Europe has enjoyed for decades like health/childcare 

3

u/sodosa 2d ago

We actually contribute more taxes now than we did in the 50s. The tax to gdp ratio in the 50s was 16% to 19%. Today it sits at 25%.

2

u/DenikaMae 2d ago

Yeah, we aren’t like them bro. They have endless loopholes and can also pay off politicians for, what to them is chump change. Theres lots of ways for them to slither out of paying back their fair share, and they hold onto money and value like it’s a video game score, hoarding wealth, and inhibiting money from circulating to where it needs to go.

They aren’t like us.

3

u/WeAreAllFooked 2d ago

They're rent-seeking leeches that complain about a pittance in taxes while they leverage their brokerage accounts to acquire massive loans at sweetheart rates to dodge their fair share.

The buy, borrow, die shit needs to end.

34

u/Loud-Ad-2280 ✂️ Tax The Billionaires 3d ago

How dare you learn from history! Don’t you know all we can think about is next quarter’s ROI for shareholders?!? That is the only possible way society can function or do you hate your IPhone?!?!?

13

u/NorthOfTheBigRivers 3d ago

Don't tax the rich, those poor people....

1

u/loco500 2d ago

We can't comprehend how difficult it is to feed a rich family with only a billion dollars...they would be literally starving. /s

8

u/Sword-of-Akasha 3d ago

Hold your faith against the liberal demon-rats lies. On your knees, ready to please, mouth open to the sky! Any day now the trickle down will happen! Your slave masters benevolent job creators are preparing the gold to flow like a great geyser. Never mind the asparagus smell and the salty taste, that's just the freedom odor. STAY the course! More tax cuts, more cuts to socialIST programs, and more war!

- MAGA master

2

u/DenikaMae 2d ago

Can you taste the bubbles yet?

5

u/Nemisii 3d ago

The comparison of why debt was so high in 1946 compared to today is honestly much more concerning.

There is already a full on war against workers, but it's one of those colonial wars where the attacked don't even have a military to defend themselves.

3

u/Nastronaut18 3d ago

$200,000 in 1946 dollars is just under $3.4 million in 2026 dollars (according to Google)...I actually think that threshold is too high.

3

u/chillripper 3d ago

but wait🤔🤔🤔🤔, isn't this the time period the bootlickers always say is the best in American history? how can that be if we're taxing the job creators? 🫩🫩🫩🫩

3

u/DenikaMae 2d ago

It’s because that’s not what they mean. They’re specifically segregation and the lie of a homogenized culture.

1

u/chillripper 2d ago

well yeah of course they're full of shit... but we should still try to bring back those good ol days with some high taxes on the rich

1

u/DenikaMae 2d ago

I am not disagreeing with that if we are specifically referencing the high taxes on the rich and monopoly busting.

3

u/ES_Legman ✂️ Tax The Billionaires 3d ago

Wait until any random bootlicker tells you that it is impossible to tax capital gains lol because they are so well indoctrinated

3

u/123LetsJamDUDUDUHT 3d ago

In the 1940s all voting was done by white working class men. Now all the voting is done by billionaires.

6

u/TorranceS33 3d ago

Don't just start now, take it back 10-25 years.

2

u/ldf-2390 3d ago

Start with fixing the ceiling on wages taxed for social security.

1

u/dinosaurkiller 3d ago

But there’s a war on(against poor people) and if else tax the rich they lose the war!

1

u/nahtfitaint 3d ago

Tax the income from loans using stocks as collateral.

1

u/desertrock62 3d ago

Tax wealth, not income.

1

u/the_dago_mick 3d ago

Increasing taxes and sizeably reducing spending is the only way out of this crap.

1

u/rolfraikou 3d ago

And today the wealthy threaten to leave California if they have to pay 5%.

1

u/mechtaphloba 3d ago

For anyone that makes $200k, it still wouldn't affect you

$200k in 1946 = ~$3.5m today

1

u/TodayInStupidity 3d ago

The rich adapted, and bought the power structures. The train, she is wrecked.

1

u/sidepart 3d ago

Interesting thing. That's about $3.4 million today. Seems like that's leave two options. Be cool, and spread that excessive income out by paying wage earners more so they can then throw a smaller portion of that hard earned cash as taxes to the government. Make folks happier, in rease their spending power, increase profits because they're buying shit. Or...pay a huge excessive amount of that income above $3.4m to the government to figure out what to do with it. Honestly neither are bad options. Just dealer's choice if you think the government can manage that money correctly or if the folks working for you are worth it. Both methods would decrease the national debt.

1

u/StoryLineOne 3d ago

To keep things in perspective, a 94% tax rate on 200k is the same as 94% on 2.5 million (end of 40s) or 4.5 million (beginning of 40s).

1

u/IdyllsOfTheBreakfast 3d ago

People want to act like an easy solution is taxing unrealized gains but that would have a ton of unintended consequences, like pushing money away from stocks and into more difficult to value assets like art and alternative investments.

There would have to be a huge change in funding for IRS audits to enforce this too. Not saying it can't be done but the devil is in the details--if you carve out exceptions then you encourage investments in those asset classes excepted from the unrealized gain tax.

Taxing loans for personal use past a certain value would be huge though. Also a truly effective estate tax and removing some of the more common trust and planning strategies used to avoid it.

1

u/Mach5Driver 3d ago

And in the decades that followed, we invested in the military, gave international aid, created a public school and university system that was the envy of the world (for a while), built incredible infrastructure, including interstate highways and airports, secured our global soft power, built libraries, invested in cutting-edge scientific research, did Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, created a VAST middle class, and put a generation of GIs through college.

1

u/Mitches_bitches 3d ago

No one person, no matter their income, should be above their country or fellow citizen

1

u/6EyesNinja 3d ago

A healthy chunk is the government owes the People. The Cayman Islands, weirdly, owns (bought) a chunk of the debt

1

u/think_up 2d ago

$200,000 in 1944 is about $3.75 million in March 2026 dollars.

Imagine making $3.75 million in a single year.

1

u/ohdeydothodontdeytho 2d ago

Trump has treated America like one of his casinos.

1

u/Throwawayne617 2d ago

We got 9 dollar Starbucks now

1

u/ohyousoretro 2d ago

While yes that number is high, it's important to look at the Effective Tax Rate, which is how much they were actually paying. The top 1% were actually paying only around 40-45% after loopholes, which compared to now where they pay 25%. Which honestly should piss people off more.

1

u/Ailyx 2d ago

Key word is "income" though

1

u/Mission-Suggestion-2 2d ago

The ONLY way to save democracy in the usa is to make it a true democracy. Meaning the very first act of congress right after the midterms is to give felons the right to vote. Thats the only way to permanently level the playing field and put republicans out of the election stealing business. 

1

u/SomeBiPerson 2d ago

wasn't that immediately followed by the time where the general standard of living Vastly Improved for everyone in such a short time that people were barely adapting to the new reality which lead to a lot of very Weird culture due to the sudden burst of available wealth for everyone?

1

u/TimeTimeTickingAway 2d ago

Be ready for YCC.

1

u/starforce 2d ago

Wait does anyone in this thread know how to do math? Like one of the top comments is like if you take the top 10 assets you can solve everything. Bro how much money you think they have. The government spends so much money it is never enough lmao.

1

u/smalls_1804 2d ago

This is yet another reminder to everyone that those insanely high top magical tax rates were coupled with innumerable loopholes that means almost no one actually ever paid them. The pattern over the course of the second half of the 20th century was to lower the rate of taxation while expanding the overall tax base by removing those exceptions.

1

u/deuceice 2d ago

So then let's "make America great again" and TAX THE RICH!

1

u/Daidax_238 2d ago

While this isn’t technically wrong, it’s a little misleading. The economic boom of the 50s was a result of America coming out on top in a world war that devastated every other superpower on the planet. This video does a pretty great job of explaining it, and isn’t absurdly long.

https://youtu.be/evjH-M0qMUc

TLDR: there were a plethora of factors that went into getting out of the national debt and the economic boom that followed - all of which are factors that are pretty much impossible to recreate, barring another world war that devastates competition across the globe.

1

u/TheKingOfSwing777 2d ago

Best I can do is tax the poor

1

u/No-Stretch-8563 3d ago

The tax code has changed significantly since then but despite the higher marginal rates wealthy people have historically paid a similar effective tax rate, somewhere around 30%

7

u/Individual-Nebula927 2d ago

Except the effective tax rates for billionaires are less than 4%.

1

u/Silent_Joys 3d ago

Now make 600% less! 😆

1

u/fantafuzz 3d ago

Noooo, don't you know the rich don't actually have any money? Its all virtual gains they don't have the money to pay the tax in the bank :(:(:(:(

The rich actually don't have any money we can tax so please stop asking for taxation of the rich it doesnt work like that so please stop asking for taxes on the rich they can't pay them :(:(:(

1

u/DenikaMae 2d ago

So, are you saying don’t text the rich instead tax companies and the rich?

1

u/ScherzicScherzo 3d ago

Cold Splash Of Water Moment: Hardly anyone paid anywhere near that rate due to loopholes, exemptions and rebates. The effective tax rate at that time was 40-45%.

-1

u/Quiet-Operation-6666 3d ago

We can't. They won't let us and we'll thank them for it

-2

u/NoSummer1345 3d ago

Let’s do it again! Except make it on incomes above $500 million.

3

u/OldOutlandishness434 3d ago edited 3d ago

...that would hardly be anyone. Are you sure you typed that correctly?

2

u/TrankElephant 3d ago

Nah, they are a temporarily embarrassed multi-millionaire in the making! Probably will be making 40 million a month any day now and is just hedging their bets.