Bill Gates: Taxing the rich is fine, but '........' politicians like AOC are missing the point by

[applegrove]

Bill Gates: Taxing the rich is fine, but '......' politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are missing the point by focusing on income

Lauren Feiner at CNBC

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/12/bill-gates-supports-wealth-tax-like-aoc-but-income-is-a-misfocus.html

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Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has pushed raising the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent on income over $10 million. The top marginal rate is currently 37 percent. In an interview in The Verge, Gates said such an approach is "a misfocus."

If you focus on that, you're missing the picture," he said without mentioning the Democratic socialist congresswoman by name.

"In terms of revenue collection, you wouldn't want to just focus on the ordinary income rate, because people who are wealthy have a rounding error of ordinary income," Gates, one of the richest people in the world, told The Verge. "They have income that just is the value of their stock, which if they don't sell it, it doesn't show up as income at all, or if it shows up, it shows over in the capital gains side. So the ability of hedge fund people, various people — they aren't paying that ordinary income rate."

Instead, he said, lawmakers should focus on things like the estate tax, taxes on capital and Social Security. His view may be more closely aligned with Sen. Elizabeth Warren's proposed tax policy that focuses on taxing net worth on households worth more than $50 million.


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