The 15 richest Americans, or, why the top marginal income tax rate doesn't really matter

[Recursion]

Here are, according to Forbes, the 15 richest Americans:

1. Jeff Bezos
2. Bill Gates
3. Warren Buffet
4. Mark Zuckerberg
5. Larry Ellison
6. Larry Page
7. Sergey Brin
8. Michael Bloomberg
9. Steve Ballmer
10. Jim Walton
11. Alice Walton
12. S. Robson Walton
13. Charles Koch
14. Julia Koch
15. Mackenzie Bezos

None of them, at any point, have had particularly high incomes.

A top marginal tax rate of 90% wouldn't have really bothered them (most of them would never have had enough income to have to pay it). It wouldn't have made them less rich, and it wouldn't have gotten much, if any, money from them.

[lark]

1. You nailed the exact reason we have to implement a wealth tax.

Thank you.

[Recursion]

2. Yep. Though that is its own can of worms.

Income is "easy", relatively: someone gives you money, and we take a cut of it.

"Wealth" is a lot harder. But we need to come up with some way to address this.

[lark]

3. My sister is a very smart CPA and she agrees with you.

She thinks the ultra rich would still be able to dodge this, but I think it's worth the effort especially now.

[Recursion]

6. I had an economics professor, a Marxist, who had a crazy idea I kind of liked

"Just stop calling them rich".

There's something to that. Only "count" actual money in terms of what we consider wealth. Inequality would shrink crazily overnight.

[The Magistrate]

16. Indeed, Sir

Sounds like an interesting class.

[The Magistrate]

4. Tax Must Be Levied On Capital, Sir

There is no reason gains in value of stocks and bonds should be taxed at lesser rates than income from salaries. The claim doing so promotes investment is nonesense. If people wish to increase their wealth, they will invest, and will do so whatever the tax rate is. Even if it were 99%, it is still an increase to their account once it is paid.

Mr. Smith in 'Wealth of Nations' argues against any attempt to tax wealth, but does so chiefly on the ground that it is nigh on impossible to accurately calculate a person's wealth at any given moment. This is why he calls for a tax on estates, because when wealth is transferred from one hand to another, it is static and so susceptible to precise calculation. His argument was true enough for his time, the latter eighteenth century. Today, it is quite possible to calculate to a penny, at any given second, what a person's capital holdings are worth, and so the chief ground of Mr. Smith for opposition to a direct tax on wealth not only falls, but doubtless would be conceded to have done so by this honest and clear-sighted fellow.

[Recursion]

5. We do, but only on realization of gains

Very glad to see you back on the board, btw!

I think there are a legion of problems with trying to tax capital gains that haven't been realized yet, though.

[The Magistrate]

7. I Agree There Would Be Problems, Sir

But expect they could be resolved equitably, and solutions once contrived adequately enforced, providing there is good will on both sides of the endeavor. That would be, I expect, the real sticking point. A favorite line from Mr. Chesterton seems especially apt in this connection: "The poor object to being misgoverned. The rich object to being governed at all." I would note that in Imperial China, scholars of the rise and fall of dynasties pointed to widespread evasion of taxes by the wealthy as an early sign of dynastic weakness, and that when this shaded over into downright refusal to pay, a dynasty was at the verge of surrendering the Mandate of Heaven.

Thank you for the welcome.

Be well, and stay safe!

[Fozzledick]

13. The ability of the rich to bribe their way out of paying taxes has marked the fall of many empires.

The Western Roman Empire and the French Monarchy in particular come to mind.

While there are certainly difficulties in assessing and collecting taxes on wealth, I believe the great inequalities created by 40 years of trickle-down voodoo economics will eventually make such measures inevitable to maintain a functioning economy. It is simply, as allegedly attributed to Willie Sutton, "where the money is".

[The Magistrate]

15. I Agree, Sir

A way will have to be found, and what has to be done sooner or later is.

[thesquanderer]

8. re:"it is quite possible to calculate to a penny, at any given second..."

"...what a person's capital holdings are worth"

Mostly, but not entirely. Real estate can be tricky. Shares of public businesses are easy, but ownership of private businesses is not.

(None of which means that some kind of wealth tax would not be achievable, though.)

[The Magistrate]

9. The Technology To Do So Exists, Sir

Reporting requirements might have to be tightened. It is true enough there is a lot of opinion involved in determining sale price for real estate. But the sort of problems balking the idea for Mr. Smith, when a man who had, say invested in indigo wood could not know for months whether the ship had returned with the stuff. One small scale wealth tax he mentioned was the procedure of a free city in north Germany, which simply required merchants to declare their value as the basis for the tax. It was a circumstance where men watched each other like hawks, and a man who rated himself well above or below what his fellows thought would lose much face. It has often seemed to me that reports to stockholders of a corporation should serve as its income tax statements....

[TheBlackAdder]

10. Everytime I see 'Sir" being used in a sentence, it reminds me of how Trump uses it. Not a good look.

.

Then again, perhaps the intent, as a literary device. Still

.

[The Magistrate]

11. Anything To Say On The Subject, Sir?

The question of taxation levied upon wealth itself, rather than income, is one that has excited increasing comment. It is a topic of some importance.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. Nope.

.



.

[The Magistrate]

14. Well, I Suppose Your Mama Loves You, Fella

Somebody must have cooed over your first few coherent sounds and smiled, and thought you were cute down there on the floor....