Should there be a wealth tax?
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Tax is not paid according to net worth but annual income. Right?
I loathe Elon Musk, but net worth and income aren’t the same thing.
Elon didn’t ‘make’ $36 billion in that day unless he sold stock for that value. And what happens if people have massive losses in their portfolios? Do they then get exempt from taxes?
I think what people are getting at is somehow disallowing or penalizing using your stocks as collateral for loans and living off of those loans like income, which is a somewhat valid point imo, but a wealth tax doesn’t address that.
Oh, this post… *again*.
No, stop this nonsense.
Artificially comparing earned income to total net worth is wildly disingenuous.
You don’t pay taxes on net worth. You people are fucking morons. You are fluent in being financially illiterate
“Far Share” is a loaded term. Who gets to determine that? The top 1% pay almost 40% of all taxes. The top 25% pay almost 98% of all taxes. That is indeed a progressive tax system and I would say the rich pay their fair share. The lower half 50% of all taxpayers pay 2.5% of taxes. Does that seem fair? How about a flat tax, no deductions? Everyone pays 10% of income no matter how much they make. Yeah, I didn’t think so.
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Actually holding them to current tax rates would be great.
Elon: “I will be paying 11 billion in taxes this year”
Some loser on Twitter: “But, but, that’s not enough! That’s only 4% of your net worth! Pay your fair share!!!!!” -meanwhile Musk is paying more in tax than this bum will ever make or give to anybody in her whole life.
If this is true and Elon is paying 11 billion, how the fuck is that not a “fair share?”
It would be nice if people understood what net worth is
Anya’s comments are either disingenuous or dumb. Why would you contrast his networth with the ordinary people’s marginal tax rate? That’s comparing apples to bananas.
The bottom 50% of taxpayers paid only 2.3% of income taxes.
The typical earner paid only $14,279 in income tax.
Definitely isn’t happening in the next 4 years so pointless conversation
These convos are always fun to watch as a bunch of peasants come out and defend their overlords completely for free.
Lefties believe billionaires have all their wealth in a vault full of gold. Not in assets
One person is paying enough taxes to employe 110,000 Federal employees, and we’re more upset with him than people participating in open air drug markets?
Can posts like this just be removed? This is like the 20th time I’ve seen it. Or make it a sticky lol
He is literally the richest man on earth and still complaining. God I hate him
BTW guys that make the billions like Bezos use more infrastructure to make that money. make them pay for the roads and bridges they can afford it
Not this shit again
Seriously? Tax on net wealth will lead to no wealth left soon enough. I can’t believe yall are mad. Do the same things they’ve done. Make the money, use the loop holes.
Man, go get yours, and stop trying to drag folks down.
Can it be my turn to post this next week?
He should pay more. Billionaires are a plague ob society
Don’t be ridiculous . A wealth tax will be imposed on the wealthy, trickle down to the middle class, then somehow disappear for the wealthy. Once it’s trickled down to the middle class, it will start taxing the value of the home that you scrounged every penny to pay the down payment on.
Every person who has ever worked a significant job in taxation knows the middle class is where the biggest target is. And that’s where any “innovative “ tax will end up.
What you should be asking is, “Should the government be a lot smaller and less intrusive in our lives?”
This is stupid. Can we stop posting this? Come up with something that isn’t easily explained away by a four year old with basic financial acumen.
Taxes are paid on income else you’d be paying income tax levels on your car every year as well as your income and all other assets.
Umm… yeah.. im glad Im not taxed on my wealth otherwise I would be majorly screwed over if you include the value of my home, 401K, and mutual funds.
This is miss leading. You dont pay taxes based on your net worth. It’s based on income, capital gains, and much, much more.
Rich people just take advantage of what’s written in the law. You all would take whatever tax cuts if you were in the same position.
How many times must this be re-posted here? Is there a magic number…I bet it’s 69.
You don’t want me racing the wealthy to sell our stocks first
What a mess that would create
This guy could say he cured cancer and people would still have a problem with it.
Ohhh so now you cure cancer, why didn’t you do that before? Oh, and how much are you charging for it? Free? You’re just trying to find a way to not pay taxes. I hate you!
Money bad cause I don’t have it 🙁
Don’t conflate wealth with income. Wealth is what you have saved, whereas income is what you have earned, unless it was inherited.
And his companies will pay billions in corporate tax and all the people he employees will pay tax as well. Not an Elon glazer at all but come on, he does far more for this economy and taxes than anyone in here ever will
There should be a tax on people who keep posting their dumb ass picture and asking the same shit every other day.
And no, the avg American doesn’t pay 10-37% federal income tax, let alone 13% for state. Like 40-45% of Americans don’t pay a dime of income tax.
eating the talking points fed to the public by billionaire-owned media about why taxing unrealized gains is supposedly impossible need a reality check.
Let’s be clear: *unrealized gains are profit.* Wealthy individuals routinely take out loans against these gains as—wait for it—**profit.** Why would they do this? Because the issue of unrealized gains goes far deeper than someone simply not wanting to pay a little extra tax. Unrealized gains represent one of the **most powerful legal tax evasion strategies** currently available in the United States.
Here’s how it works: loans are not taxed, but receiving liquid cash **is** taxed. Wealthy individuals exploit this by using unrealized gains as collateral to secure loans. If these loans are passed on to heirs or beneficiaries via a trust, the tax burden all but vanishes.
When the trust’s beneficiaries sell the assets—shares of stock, for instance—they benefit from the **step-up in basis** rule. This resets the “basis” of the capital assets to their current market value at the time of inheritance, dramatically reducing the taxable gains. The result? The beneficiaries can sell the shares, repay the loans, and pocket the difference with minimal tax liability.
It doesn’t stop there. Life insurance policies, often structured like long-term certificates of deposit (CDs) with a management fee, further shield this wealth. Payouts from these policies are not subject to income tax, offering yet another avenue for avoiding taxes.
In summary: wealthy individuals extract money from their capital via untaxed loans, pass these assets on through trusts, and use a combination of loopholes like the step-up in basis and tax-free life insurance payouts to erase the founder’s tax obligations. This isn’t just a clever accounting trick; it’s a system designed to let the wealthiest avoid paying their fair share while everyone else shoulders the burden.
P.S. Before the “Acktuawally” crowd chimes in, yes tax insurance can be protected from estate tax by naming a irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) as beneficiary. Moreover, individuals literally take out loans against these life insurance policies. The. System. Is. Rigged.
The person commenting on Elon here is not very bright
Thoughts, OP is moron.
Fuck no, the whole point of capitalism is you get paid for delaying present consumption and investing, by penalizing it you are penalizing capitalism itself, this would lead to an instant liquidation of capital on a mass scale crashing the stock market.
Elon seems to be tastier by the day
And your home loan is borrowed against
Your future income
Yes. The proposal addressed by the CBO shows a promising, short-term revenue stream that can help us reach a balanced budget.
Another scenario where he says he will do something but it’s never been proven if he has
nope 👎 only sales tax, that’s it… and tariffs 🧐
Elon flexing like $11 billion isn’t couch change for him.
To be fair, average Americans have the majority of their wealth tied up in their homes which they do pay unrealized capital gains on every year.
The top percentage had to pay 90% in taxes in the 50’s. This inspired companies to invest in their factories and employees to avoid paying that high in taxes. Companies used to brag about their low profits to show they cared for their companies.
If you want to see what is happening to America, you should learn the GE company story.
Yes, but the devil is in the details.
I believe there should be a minimum threshold that should be exceeded before a dime of someone’s wealth is taxed. If I have a million dollars tucked away in stocks and bonds… that’s probably not enough to live off of in retirement since Social Security can’t support me in my retirement years. But if my wealth exceeded, say, five million dollars, I can totally see it being fair to start taxing away at that excess.
And since most jurisdictions already tax people’s real estate holdings in the form of property taxes, I don’t believe someone’s primary residence (if they own it) should count toward that threshold.
If you borrow against it, yes.
Nobody pays taxes on their net worth.
If two public schools teachers own a modest house, and have a pension plan taxing them on net worth would be most of their paychecks
This lady is an idiot
Yes. There must be a wealth tax above a certain threshold or you will ALWAYS get dynastic wealth. If you have dynastic wealth you have the Koch bros, citizens united, the heritage foundation and decades of funding the corrosion of democracy and competent governance. It is impossible to have democracy AND people with 1000 lifetimes of fantastic wealth, much less 50-100k lifetimes.