After the first $1MM. Ten million dollars in a single year would set me, and likely just about anyone else, up comfortably for life twice over.
Don’t tie it to a number.
Imagine if they did this back in the 60s, but using numbers.
“1 million??? Thats way too high! If I made 1 million in a year my grandkids could retire from that year. Better make it $100,000. 90% tax after $100,000.”
Today because of inflation I would say someone making $100,000 a year is comfortable in luxery, but still earning their pay.
Tie it to a percentage of the curve of what average americans make, and I think you deflate most of inflation. Because if their price for a good is $3.00, and it costs $1.25 worth of wages to make, they could raise that $3 to $5, and only give the workers $0.25 raise, which means now that item costs $1.50 to make, but sells for $5 instead of $3. This rewards ceo’s to raise prices disproportionally. Tie it to the curve, and if he raises the price to $5, now he has to pay workers $3.25. Suddenly it’s not the ceos getting rewarded for doing that. Suddenly random price hikes to please shareholders are GONE. Which means if you can’t stay profitable in a fair market, you cease to exist. You can’t just pull a short term band-aid fix to pop a stock price, and ignore consequences. Because now those consequences actually kill your company.
What we would be left with are CEOs who actually RUN their company, rather than just load the numbers. We’d have better products, better wages, and a better life.
But if we tie it to a number, our grandkids will be right back to where we are.
Take your current yearly salary, multiply it by however many years you expect to live after retirement + let’s say… 10% on top for inflation, + another 10 for medical expenses. Is that number above, or below, $10M? Retirement is fucking expensive and only going up in cost.
Progressive tax brackets. This hypothetical tax is only on money earned over 10M/1M.
