This is not as difficult as many make it out to be.

is all in investments/stock holdings and they live on loans, from one year to another, without ever having any official income.

So, they pay practically nothing and own....everything.

...on how prevalent that "borrowing against assets" thing really is.
A billionaire making 10.5% could still see a asset value increase of 8% while living off the other $25 million pretax.
Borrowing $25 million and paying 3.5% on that year over year is not an advantage over just living off $25 million in dividend money.
We see thus "borrow to live" thing regularly, but it seems it would only work if the entire portfolio is going up at a unusually high rate like the AI bros. And, there's just a handful of them.
I'm defending no uber rich people. I just doubt that many of the hyper wealthy actually rack up added debt for no good financial purpose.

Problem solved.

Go big. Tax them and create a sovereign wealth fund, for the benefit of all, like they do in some European companies. The masses have funded the wealthy by buying their products. Shouldn't there be some sharing of the largess?

I sold books online in 1999. I didn't make my own Amazon.

BTW, were tariffs designed to cuff Amazon's import competition? AliExpress, eBay, not importing much to the US these days I think.

treating the act of relinquishing US citizenship in an attempt to avoid US taxation the same way that we treat death, triggering payment of an estate tax?

The exact limits can always be negotiated, but if there is a wealth tax, I think $50million per household would be a sensible entry point at a modest level and accelerating sharply above the billion dollar mark. A 2% net worth tax above a billion dollars makes good sense. IOW, a person with $1bn in net worth would pay $20M every year and would never miss any of it. If they did decline below $1Bn in net worth, then their share would go down, so none of them would ever feel any pain.

As far as income tax, put it back where it was in 1960 when our middle class was healthy. A high top marginal rate ENCOURAGES investment because investments in your business and work force are deductible. The top bracket in 1960 was 91%. Nobody ever paid that because they did reinvest in their businesses and work force. But a few people did pay 50-60% and that's fine. Keep in mind they only pay that high rate on the topmost part of their income. Even a person reaching the 91% bracket is probably paying only a 50% effective rate.

And let's stop playing pillow fights about Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Remove all the caps on that. A billionaire should pay the full rate just like everybody else. And that will EASILY fund Medicare for all and keep Social Security solvent through the end of this century.

Every year you value all your assets and pay X% of that number.

Easy.

the problem is... wealthy folks own LOTS of politicians.

But is your home an asset? You could have a fairly standard income, buy a house, then have the value of that house increase drastically. Should you pay a wealth tax on that?

We could have an exception for primary homes, but having exceptions is what starts making things more complicated, possibly creating loopholes that can be exploited.

Last edited Sat Apr 18, 2026, 11:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Lots of doctors, other professionals, and successful business people have that and more. I don't envy them, and I congratulate them for their achievement.. These are not the ones corrupting our political system. They are not the ones rigging our elections and our markets. If a wealth tax kicked in at $10M, it should be a very low rate and only on the wealth above $10M

There are about 1000 Americans with net worth of $1B or more and that is a total wealth about $7 trillion.

We ABSOLUTELY should be taxing that wealth at least 2% per year. That would provide $140 billion, which could fix a lot of problems in our system. And these assholes would never miss any of that,

At a certain level of wealth they must pay it forward for the benefits the system gave THEM to get where they are.

140B is nothing. My plan produces 840B a year.

Candidates who boldly propose ideas like this will win a strong following. Americans instinctively understand we are being screwed by the extreme concentration of wealth in our society. No human needs that kind of wealth. For them, money is a measure of the love they never received in their lives. Let's give them gold stars and a pat on the head, but they don't need to hoard billions of dollars while so many suffer for no good reason.

But that is not what is happening in late stage capitalism. Nearly 100% of the obscenely rich either inherited that or else they were able to take advantage of their wealth to dial up special deals for themselves that took them from comfortably wealthy to unfathomably rich. Just look at the money that goes into defense contractor hands. Look at all the no-bid contracts Trump is illegally giving out. Look at hos these insiders are stealing hundreds of billions of dollars from regular people by their daily insider trading games.

If we can't police the white collar crime, we should at least tax the fruits of those crimes.

And regarding the inheritance factor, our founding fathers were very much against generational wealth because in the old country, that became pretty much the same thing as royalty. I have no problem with a person wanting to give their children a good start in life. But there is no earthly reason that a person should be able to pass along billions of dollars to their offspring. Our public policy should make it much more attractive to dispose of massive wealth through philanthropy than to give it to generations of the family so that they can lord over the rest of us forever.

I guess my point in all of this is that America is very much in an "Eat the Rich" state of mind, and our politicians should stop being so timid about saying this out loud.

til the needs of the many are satisfied.

Ask Reagan, Bush, Bush, Trump

They all seem to have a "formula" for knowing how to give tax cuts to the rich

Maybe when the Ds have power they can RESCIND some of those?

Problem solved

1 in 6 Americans are millionaires in net worth, mostly locked up in real estate and retirement accounts. Few consider themselves wealthy.

Maybe a small 0.3% tax... write down all assets on single form and it's $10M... x 0.3% = $30,000 annually

Maybe 0.5% at 25m, .75% at 50m, 1% at 100m... 2% at 250m and 3% over 1B

according to Gemini... my plan would generate $840B a year. More than the DOD budget

Some years the farm makes money. Some years it doesn't. Small farms often have a tenuous existence. Imposing a wealth tax may well push them over the edge of selling to some developer of McMansions. When you factor in the externalities, the community as a whole ends up worse off than before the wealth tax was imposed.

That's a pretty big loophole.

You think a farm with a value of $10 million is a small farm?

You're hilarious.

Also, please point me to anywhere in the US where a single farm feeds a community. You're about 150 years behind times on that one.

We had a much higher tax rate for the uber wealthy then--and a much stronger middle class.

That does not also provide a tangible income or other asset, financial or tangible to someone else or to a business that creates a product -
Tax buy-back shares, but not any excess revenue that's pumped back into the business or given to all employees as some form of shares or benefit payments (bonus, additional payments into a Roth IRA that's added to the company 401Ks, ect...).
Maybe there should be a "hoard" tax. If you're able to use it for a loan collateral, it can be taxed.

That's not "wealth" in comparison. Killing generational "wealth" is a terrible idea at that low level.

Oh, and let me know when these folks bar the rights of congress to trade/speculate securities.

I was a school teacher for 20 years. I rolled that pension onto a 503b when I joined a non profit.

I have lived frugally and will hopefully end with between 1-1.5 million when wife and I die if we don't require long term nursing care.

Giving about 20 percent to a variety of charities. The rest is split between our two kids. If it was taxed heavily would not be fair relative to how we lived.

But if I had climbed the corporate ladder and had $5 million, that should be taxed at some decent rate. Especially since most of it was put in as tax deferred money into retirement accounts or the equity build up in the house.

There are millions of folks in your exact position. And, including them (and you) as targets of future tax reform would - i believe - be wrong.

First, social security it should be everyone, all income. The donut plan of $400 k is acceptable.

For income taxes... Increase tax over $400k to much higher percentage and escalate as well.

For the wealth tax, even if you take the top 10 percent or 5 percent makes sense to me.
Hit anyone over $500 million hard. If you want to wait until it's billionaires for messaging for harsh wealth tax, that is ok as well.

... homes do they need?
... rental properties, Airbnb, etc. do they own?
... how much do they receive from royalties?
... earned income?
.... millions per second do they make?

Shall I continue?

I invested the max into my 401K for 30 years. That money needs to last me 25-30 years. It’s my retirement fund. I’m not “wealthy”. I saved as I was told to do since our pensions were severely reduced.

was the only president in recent history to leave office with a balanced budget.