[ad_1]
Some of the nation’s richest people converged in front of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to ask Congress to raise their taxes.
Joined by lawmakers who have introduced bills to tax the wealthiest Americans, the so-called Patriotic Millionaires issued a proposal to raise taxes on rich people, arguing it would help address growing inequality and avert an uprising.
Abigail Disney, a granddaughter of Walt Disney Co.
DIS,
co-founder Roy Disney, detailed the proposal’s three core principles: First, treat all income over $1 million the same, whether it’s ordinary income, capital gains or inheritance. Second, enact a progressive tax code, in which the tax burden increases according to income. Third, impose a wealth tax on the richest people in America. The plan also called for a 90% income tax on people making more than $100 million a year.
Other members of the Patriotic Millionaires, a group that has advocated for higher taxes on the rich for more than a decade, also spoke at the news conference.
“We have a request for the lawmakers in there,” said former BlackRock Inc.
BLK,
executive Morris Pearl, the group’s chair, pointing to the Capitol building. “Tax us. We want to pay more taxes.”
Pearl lambasted the current tax system and what he called the “ludicrous notion that [tax cuts for the wealthy] creates jobs and trickles down.” “They do not,” he said. “They rig the economy, and America pays the price.”
The group’s call complemented legislation introduced by lawmakers such as Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat who referred to Tuesday — Tax Day — as “the most segregated, most unequal, most unjust day in America.”
Gomez said he and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, worked together to introduce changes to estate-tax policy. Known as the “For the 99.5% Act,” the legislation proposes an exemption for the first $3.5 million of an individual’s estate from estate tax, but proposes a progressive tax on estates worth more than that. Those with estates worth $3.5 million to $10 million would be taxed 45%, estates of $10 million to $50 million would be taxed 50%, and so on, topping out at 65% for estates worth more than $1 billion.
“Those taxes should be used to create a more just society for everyone, not just the fortunate few,” Gomez said.
Last week, the global charity Oxfam released a report with new numbers showing how the rich have gotten richer during the coronavirus pandemic, and also called for a federal wealth tax.
Oxfam, which said revenue from new taxes could be used to help working families, narrow racial wealth gaps and more, said a proposed wealth tax on billionaires alone would raise $114 billion a year. That legislation, known as the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, was co-sponsored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington state.
Jayapal said during Tuesday’s press conference that the nation has seen especially over the past couple of years that “poverty is a bad policy choice, and we can make a different choice.”
“If any of you earn less than $50 million, you won’t pay a cent more,” the congresswoman said of the bill. “If you get to $100 million, you pay more. It would generate $3 trillion over 10 years. Just imagine what we could do with the money it would raise.” She mentioned investments in healthcare, child care, affordable housing and the environment.
While the Patriotic Millionaires group has dozens of members, some of the nation’s wealthiest people have argued against higher taxes on people like them.
For example, Tesla Inc.
TSLA,
Chief Executive Musk, represented at the news conference by a life-size cardboard cutout (the other cutouts were of Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos and Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
CEO Mark Zuckerberg), has said the problem isn’t that billionaires like him aren’t taxed enough; it’s that the government spends too much money. Conservative think tanks have also argued that wealth-tax proposals “punish success.”
Stephen Prince, the vice chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and founder of National Business Products, now known as Card Marketing Services, said at the news conference that “the poor are going to rise up, as they should. We wealthy people need to realize that we don’t need it all — we need to share.”
[ad_2]
Source link
