If Bernie Sanders did win the U.S. presidency, it could prove bad news for U.S. billionaires. Elizabeth Warren is planning to levy taxes of up to 62 percent on the country’s wealthiest people but, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy details, Sanders’ proposals go much further. That’s according to a new interactive website developed by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman from the University of California, Berkeley which shows presidential candidates’ tax plans by income group.
The data shows that while Sanders would tax the majority of income groups at a lower rate than the current tax system, it starts to increase dramatically when it comes to the top 1 percent of earners. It doesn’t stop there and the country’s 400 wealthiest individuals would have to pay 97.5 percent tax compared to the current 23.1 percent – bad news for people like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates who would pay approximately $9 billion and $8.5 billion this year respectively.
You will find more infographics at Statista
Sanders and Warren have made wealth taxes central to their campaigns and historically, such moves have proven popular with voters. Every year between 2013 and 2018, Gallup polling found that 60 percent or more of the U.S. public felt that upper-income people pay too little in federal taxes annually.
Sanders tweeted yesterday that “billionaires should not exist” and that 500,000 Americans are homeless, 87 million are uninsured or underinsured and 45 million have student debt, all while three people own more wealth than the bottom half.
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If the Bern wins, you will hear a massive sucking sound as capital flees the US. Followed by the sound of many many private jets. Talk about taking a country straight to the shitter, that will do it. Can you spell Singapore?
I agree. The shit for brains politician and the shit for brains voter really have no clue do they?
For years I’ve been dreading the day the politician came up with a tax on wealth because I knew the general population would demand it.
The wealthy pack up and leave for Asia, and that leaves the fucktards left behind to pay the new bills they blindly thought were going to be taken care of by others.
What an awakening this country is facing.
Did you say “sucking sound”?
He was right!
The sucking sound also went west across the Pacific, leaving giant holes in the Midwestern manufacturing cities.
Still glad I voted for Ross, even though he gave us B J Clinton and the disgrace he brought on the White House.
Ah yes, BJ Clinton. The man whose unique use of a cigar brought a whole (hole?) new meaning to the name of ‘The Oval Office’…
The millionaires and billionaires don’t usually have that much in income, relatively speaking. They own assets. Between intricate tax planning and asset ownership, the amount of taxes to be clawed from the ultra rich is far less than these lunatics presume.
I call bullshit on this. Coupled with the earlier article regarding the IRS refusing to audit the 1% of wealth tax returns and the hordes of tax accountants and tax lawyers employed by the 1% to compile and complete those returns due to their complexity; I project, that even under the “Bern”, the 1% will lose next to nothing to the Federal Government. The tax code would have to change substantially for the 1% to be affected. I don’t see that happening “Bern” or no “Bern”.
Take everything from the rich and get the destruction of the country over with. Most think that wall street should be destroyed and that the banks are corrupt to the core. When all is destroyed then we can start over, ya, like hell we can.
This shit is hilarious. If Bernie’s plan *really* would end up taxing billionaires as much as he claims, they’d have put him 6 feet under already. He certainly wouldn’t be a finalist in the DNC beauty pageant. No, this is just a dogwhistle to his mouthbreather lefty NPC supporters. His plan will finally crush the last blood from the middle class while the 1% continues to shelter their assets and income as they’ve done since the dawn of time.
Finally – someone gets it. From FDR on the middle class is always the group that gets screwed by the dems and their tax “reforms”.
The plan has always been Trickle Up Poverty.
The top 1% earned 21% of the country’s income, and paid 38.5% of federal income taxes and the bottom 50% paid 5% of federal income taxes.
“Sanders tweeted yesterday that “billionaires should not exist” and that 500,000 Americans are homeless, 87 million are uninsured or underinsured and 45 million have student debt, all while three people own more wealth than the bottom half.” Don’t take this so lightly. None of the Dim candidates have a clue as to how to fix anything. But some of them are light years ahead of anyone else in putting their finger on the problem. The rise of American oligarchs is going to have to be dealt with somehow, I’m not sure tax policy is the right way to go about it, but you can take this to the bank. There are tens if not hundreds of millions of Americans out there who are seething at what happened to their country in the last 20 years. And that might end up being a more potent force then the one Donald Trump harnessed 3 years ago. End result may not be pretty.
Star, you and I have always agreed on this. Not sure why so many others on TBP don’t get it.
2 things, in the economic realm, make a society good (imo) is 1. A widespread belief that a person can work hard and get ahead and 2. Being an ownership society.
Both of these are under attack by politicians (think immigration and more) and oligarchs (think immigration and more).
Donk – In the modern tech world, most people will not be hugely successful. If they do not have an IQ above say 110, just what can a person do to add serious value in a high tech economy? To be successful, they will need to work hard, be thrifty, value education, and value family. Does that sound like the a average Joe to you? People do not want to do those things.
The reality is going to be the same as it has always been, throughout the history of man: the spoils will go to but a few. And the rest will get to survive, just, if they are lucky. The smart, the crafty, those with good character can still do well. But the average Joe waiting for wealth and success to be thrust upon them are screwed.
This will be a most fortuitous time to be a smart, hard-working young person. The wolves will flourish, and the sheep will get shorn.
Time to be a wolf.
If these assholes really wanted to tax the 1%, they’d end the carried interest loophole. Every 4 years the politicians swear up and down they’re going to end it, but neither party ever does, and nobody seems to remember until the next election.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. You can never project what someone will pay with new tax rates, because they can change their strategy to take advantage of the tax laws.
The FAIR tax is the only way to do away with our convoluted tax system that favors those who buy politicians.