Elizabeth Warren proposes ‘wealth tax’ on Americans with more than $50 million in assets

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has proposed a “wealth tax” on some of the richest Americans.

The new tax from Warren, who recently announced her bid to challengePresident Donald Trump in 2020, would only apply to Americans with more than $50 million in assets.


Her Twitter announcement on Thursday came hours after an economist who advises her told CNBC he believed the proposal would soon be made official.



The Washington Post first reported the development.

“We helped her with the numbers,” economist Emmanuel Saez told CNBC. He said his understanding was that the Warren team had already spoken with the Post at the time he told them the details of the report.

The wealth tax is projected to apply to less than 0.1 percent of U.S. households, and would raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years, Saez said.


Warren’s idea comes alongside other Democratic lawmakers’ plans to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for ambitious policy goals, such as a “green new deal” that aims to reduce economic inequality and combat the causes of climate change.

The development has not gone unnoticed by affluent investors and executives, many of whom are meeting this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“By the time we get to the presidential election, this is going to gain more momentum,” Scott Minerd, global chief investment officer of $265 billion Guggenheim Partners, told CNBC earlier this week.

He was referring specifically to freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal for a 70 percent marginal rate on income above $10 million.

While Ocasio-Cortez’s plan is a tax on income, Warren’s proposal would tax wealth. In America, wealth inequality is greater than income inequality.

While the 1 percent of Americans with the highest incomes receive about 20 percent of the total income in the United States, the top 1 percent of wealth holders collectively own more than 40 percent of the nation’s total wealth, according to a report published Wednesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy arguing for a wealth tax.

The Post reported that Warren has been advised by Saez and Gabriel Zucman, left-leaning economists affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley, on a deal that would levy a 2 percent wealth tax on Americans with $50 million-plus in assets. For Americans with assets above $1 billion, that tax rate would increase to 3 percent.

The newspaper, citing a person familiar with the plan, reported that Warren’s plan would try to counter tax evasion by boosting funding for the IRS, and by levying a one-time tax penalty on people with more than $50 million who try to renounce their U.S. citizenship. It would also require that a certain number of people who pay the wealth tax be subject to annual audits, the Post reported.

Tax-the-rich policies are not a new phenomenon among political candidates. In fact, Trump himself floated a similar measure in 1999 as he explored a presidential bid as a prospective Reform Party nominee.

Trump’s proposal was to impose a one-time 14.25 percent tax on individuals and trusts worth more than $10 million, according to reports at the time.

On Tuesday, Saez and Zucman published an article in The New York Times defending Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal.

“An extreme concentration of wealth means an extreme concentration of economic and political power. Although many policies can help address it, progressive income taxation is the fairest and most potent of them all,” they wrote.

When Warren announced her exploratory committee for a 2020 presidential bid, she pledged to pursue policies promoting economic fairness.

“Our government is supposed to work for all of us,” Warren said in an announcement video. “But instead, it has become a tool for the wealthy and well-connected.”

Those on the left and right have raised objections to the idea of a wealth tax on legal grounds. Article I of the U.S. Constitution says that no direct tax can be levied unless in proportion to the “Census or Enumeration.” The 16th Amendment expanded Congress’ power to collect taxes on “incomes, from whatever source derived” without regard to the census.

In 2014, Thomas Piketty, one of the most prominent economists in the world and a proponent of a wealth tax, said of the idea: “I realize that this is unconstitutional, but constitutions have been changed throughout history. That shouldn’t be the end of the discussion.”

Piketty is the author of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century.”

But in an article for the Indiana Law Journal last year, Dawn Johnsen and Walter Dellinger, two prominent legal scholars, argued against the ideathat a wealth tax is unconstitutional.

“We believe this conventional wisdom is wrong and its casual repetition has been harmful,” the two wrote.

“Devising a progressive tax system that effectively taxes the wealthy is notoriously difficult, but whether a wealth tax is part of that system should depend upon the policy choices of democratically elected representatives, not faulty constitutional understandings.”
 
Is this her wall? I mean, Trump proposed the wall that he couldn't get done, he probably knew at the jump that he wouldn't be able to get done but he said it to get a whole bunch of people behind him.

everybody middle class and below thinks the rich should be taxed more because they've been taxed less for years, but in order to get that shit passed, the house has to get behind it, which they won't do... Because they are the rich. Same way they won't vote against their own pay raises or vote for them to be unpaid during this government shutdown.

Is this tax increase for the rich Elizabeth Warren's wall?
 
Why don't the wasteful fucks try to manage spending before they piss away more money? Have no problem giving Israel a nice raise last fall and now want more taxes. FOH I don't give a fuck about the rich, but these politicians are wasteful as fuck and if they get more money they just waste it.

These frauds like irresponsible teenagers.
 
So a tax for being successful !?! Maybe it's just me, but how come no democrats talk about cutting spending. It seems to always be; hey we can't afford something so let's raise taxes . I'm just a dude raised by a single mother who thought me what it means to manage my financial situation
 
I don't make $50M a year, so fuck 'em. Tax dey asses! :lol::money:
The question is actually how many do. Like will it even put a dent in anyone.

Anyone in biz making 50m a year on paper, doesn't even collect a salary trackable of 50m. They keep it rolling in biz and pay themselves maybe 100k. So don't see what all the news is about.
 
The question is actually how many do. Like will it even put a dent in anyone.

Anyone in biz making 50m a year on paper, doesn't even collect a salary trackable of 50m. They keep it rolling in biz and pay themselves maybe 100k. So don't see what all the news is about.
She said wealth of 50 million...not income
 
So a tax for being successful !?! Maybe it's just me, but how come no democrats talk about cutting spending. It seems to always be; hey we can't afford something so let's raise taxes . I'm just a dude raised by a single mother who thought me what it means to manage my financial situation
It aint a bad idea and it would kick the economy up a notch.
 
So a tax for being successful !?! Maybe it's just me, but how come no democrats talk about cutting spending. It seems to always be; hey we can't afford something so let's raise taxes . I'm just a dude raised by a single mother who thought me what it means to manage my financial situation
When crypto was booming in 2017 and bgol cats were up big time, I think 90 percent were trying to figure out tax avoidance so much so that leaving the country was an option. I admit to being one of them.

It's funny that when it's your pockets being emptied how quick you change on this shit. I even brought up the fact that our outlooks had drastically changed. lol Cats went from democrat opinion on this to republican in a blink of a fucking eye.

If there aren't loopholes, people will leave. Why stay? :confused: Cats on this very board couldn't come up with reasons to stay when fuck you money was on the table.
 
When crypto was booming in 2017 and bgol cats were up big time, I think 90 percent were trying to figure out tax avoidance so much so that leaving the country was an option. I admit to being one of them.

It's funny that when it's your pockets being emptied how quick you change on this shit. I even brought up the fact that our outlooks had drastically changed. lol Cats went from democrat opinion on this to republican in a blink of a fucking eye.

If there aren't loopholes, people will leave. Why stay? :confused: Cats on this very board couldn't come up with reasons to stay when fuck you money was on the table.

Yeah that’s why wealth tax will not work. Most rich people will just leave the country. Which is why most socialist country’s end up broke.

They think rich people will pay 70% tax without some kind of loophole or avoidance. They don’t. You want to lower taxes to increase investing in your country.
 
chance-card-vintage-monopoly-board-game-pay-poor-tax-design-turnpike.jpg
 
What does Lebron James and other NBA players think about this tax proposal? I bet we gonna hear from them in the next year, so this is going to be an interesting ass election.
 
What does Lebron James and other NBA players think about this tax proposal? I bet we gonna hear from them in the next year, so this is going to be an interesting ass election.
So your concern is what celebrities and athletes think? :smh:
 
Leaving the country does not relieve you of your tax burden. Most rich folks in the us get their money via inheritance.

And ain't no 50 millionaires on here.

Learn how to mitigate your taxes through investments and strategic losses.
 
Time and time again, politicians REFUSE to look at the case study and verified history and will advance a failed policy despite the ample evidence left by other countries who tried the same - which lead to an economic collapse. Dems always seem to think the solution to every problems resides in a simple linear thought process:
"Let's tax them more! They have it, we want it, and they don't need it anyway."

HINT: England tried this very thing in in the 70s; a wealth tax that would impose an excise 'success' tax on the top income brackets. The outcome was callamitous.

The ultra wealthy and wealthy simple gave Parliment the middle finger, packed up their bags and accounts and moved to other countries and territories (The USA, Monaco, France, etc.) The resulting MASSIVE outflows of working capital and tax revenue lead England's economy to first fall flat and then nosedive into a recession.

The London School of Economics have a good paper. Are you telling me that a goddamn US Senator and her staff doesn't have enough common sense to consult published reports and white papers, or even a school of economics to vet this idea? Moronic.


Edit: For those interesting he's the LSE's white paper on the failed '74 policy.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/42582/1/Why_was_a_wealth_tax_for_the_UK_abandoned_(lsero).pdf
----------
A snippet:
From this point on, April 1974, however, the Treasury began to become more and more sceptical. Civil servants began to look more carefully at the practical problems and the wider economic impact. An internal note dated 20th May 1974 was entitled ‘Wealth Tax – possible exodus of UK capital.’ (TNA: PRO T328/1017.) Harold Lever, Harold Wilson’s advisor on financial matters, wrote to the Prime Minister on 7th June putting the Wealth Tax in the context of other things the government were trying to do. ‘We are now running a serious risk of a crisis of confidence ....

One paper, after reviewing the likely impact of the tax, concluded that a wealth tax: ‘1. Will lead people to seek non resident status, result in a considerable outflow of funds in the form of dividends and interest.2. Since it will apply to all wealth held world wide foreign employees in foreign companies resident here would be subject to tax. This would result in a big movement of banks, insurance and shipping business moving out of the UK. 3. Assets held here would be affected. This would reduce the level of business in UK.’
 
Leaving the country does not relieve you of your tax burden. Most rich folks in the us get their money via inheritance.

Yes, in many cases it can.
Foreign Earned Income exclusion so long as you pass the 'bonafide resident test' or physical presence (i.e. you have to live outside of the US for one uniterrupted tax year.), and of course keep the money out of US banks or foreign banks with branches on US soil.

This is why so many wealthy people have accounts and addresses in the Caymans and BVIs. Favorable banking & tax laws aside, it's also close enough that they can scoot to a US Caribbean island or territory and back to the mainland relatively quickly (or low on the radar if they charter), but also keeps their residence in a foreign country if they need to lay over for tax strategy.
 
Yes, in many cases it can.
Foreign Earned Income exclusion so long as you pass the 'bonafide resident test' or physical presence (i.e. you have to live outside of the US for one uniterrupted tax year.), and of course keep the money out of US banks or foreign banks with branches on US soil.

This is why so many wealthy people have accounts and addresses in the Caymans and BVIs. Favorable banking & tax laws aside, it's also close enough that they can scoot to a US Caribbean island or territory and back to the mainland relatively quickly (or low on the radar if they charter), but also keeps their residence in a foreign country if they need to lay over for tax strategy.
Bruh...im not talking theory.

http://money.com/money/4298634/expat-expatriate-taxes-us-myths/
 
Time and time again, politicians REFUSE to look at the case study and verified history and will advance a failed policy despite the ample evidence left by other countries who tried the same - which lead to an economic collapse. Dems always seem to think the solution to every problems resides in a simple linear thought process:
"Let's tax them more! They have it, we want it, and they don't need it anyway."

HINT: England tried this very thing in in the 70s; a wealth tax that would impose an excise 'success' tax on the top income brackets. The outcome was callamitous.

The ultra wealthy and wealthy simple gave Parliment the middle finger, packed up their bags and accounts and moved to other countries and territories (The USA, Monaco, France, etc.) The resulting MASSIVE outflows of working capital and tax revenue lead England's economy to first fall flat and then nosedive into a recession.


The London School of Economics have a good paper. Are you telling me that a goddamn US Senator and her staff doesn't have enough common sense to consult published reports and white papers, or even a school of economics to vet this idea? Moronic.


Edit: For those interesting he's the LSE's white paper on the failed '74 policy.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/42582/1/Why_was_a_wealth_tax_for_the_UK_abandoned_(lsero).pdf
----------
A snippet:
From this point on, April 1974, however, the Treasury began to become more and more sceptical. Civil servants began to look more carefully at the practical problems and the wider economic impact. An internal note dated 20th May 1974 was entitled ‘Wealth Tax – possible exodus of UK capital.’ (TNA: PRO T328/1017.) Harold Lever, Harold Wilson’s advisor on financial matters, wrote to the Prime Minister on 7th June putting the Wealth Tax in the context of other things the government were trying to do. ‘We are now running a serious risk of a crisis of confidence ....

One paper, after reviewing the likely impact of the tax, concluded that a wealth tax: ‘1. Will lead people to seek non resident status, result in a considerable outflow of funds in the form of dividends and interest.2. Since it will apply to all wealth held world wide foreign employees in foreign companies resident here would be subject to tax. This would result in a big movement of banks, insurance and shipping business moving out of the UK. 3. Assets held here would be affected. This would reduce the level of business in UK.’
How many people in the United states have a net worth of 50mill or more and if they left would anyone know? And how many people would exponentially increase their hustle to try to fill the void?
 
Yes, in many cases it can.
Foreign Earned Income exclusion so long as you pass the 'bonafide resident test' or physical presence (i.e. you have to live outside of the US for one uniterrupted tax year.), and of course keep the money out of US banks or foreign banks with branches on US soil.

This is why so many wealthy people have accounts and addresses in the Caymans and BVIs. Favorable banking & tax laws aside, it's also close enough that they can scoot to a US Caribbean island or territory and back to the mainland relatively quickly (or low on the radar if they charter), but also keeps their residence in a foreign country if they need to lay over for tax strategy.
So they have already taken thier money out of the U.S.? Calamity will soon ensue.
 
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