Biden claimed in his State of the Union address that the 25 percent minimum tax on the ultra-rich will raise $500 billion over 10 years. “Imagine what that could do for America,” he said.
Maybe I’m not good at comprehending numbers at this scale but does this seem kind of low to anyone else? I mean, that’s a lot of money in absolute terms but the government spent $6.3 trillion in FY 2023 alone.
We should still do it obviously. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good and all that.
No, it sounds correct. Taxing billionaires’ income is fine, but the real money would come from actually taxing corporations more.
See, they only have income in certain circumstances, so the amount raised from an income tax would not be very high. You can raise corporate taxes by a little bit and get much more.
That way the income is taxed before it gets to anyone. It doesn’t matter if they have a billion dollars. Plus it encourages investment in the company (wages, new products, better quality, etc.) because business costs are tax write-offs.
I’m surprised it’s that high. The reason their effective rate goes down, is getting money by ways that are either special cases in the tax code or aren’t “income”. Until you fix those, wealthy people will still have the lowest tax rate.
…although apparently the tax rate for long term capital gains is already 20% for the wealthy. I didn’t know that
$500 billion is a sizable chunk of that $6.3 trillion, and it’s still only a 25% tax rate, and then only the “ultra-rich.”
If one considers something more reasonable, like a 70% tax of income over $100,000, then you’re talking about more substantial amounts to really start catching up to top economies.
