Just force all of them to sign Bill Gates giving pledge.

Which I actually think is a good idea.

What the hell are the idiot sons and daughters of billionaires going to do with all that money besides sit around and play golf all day?

Waste of capital resources unless the kids are smart enough to employ the capital productively, which I believe would be under 5% of billionaire or hundred millionaire sons and daughters.

How would that work - free staff paid by the government would make it harder for other people.

Eg, if a prison gang cleared some trees for free, where is the gardener getting paid from?

Ultimatly there is a % of society who are just a burned.

I'll admit that I'm not sure income inequality is really a huge problem.....but I think hyper progressive taxation on capital gains makes the most sense, if we want to do anything. Leave long term capital gains untaxed till 100k earned income and get fairly progressive and top out around 50% somewhere near 1 mil. The big issue is what, if anything, should be done with unrealized capital gains. If you close corporate tax loop holes (including alot heavily exploited by hedge funds afiu), i think it would be fair even without some sort of Buffett rule. I also think somebody like Nick Saban pays a reasonable amount of tax and shouldn't be taxed a ton more.

50% of capital gains in the market come from the top 300k families

I don't think it should topout around 50%. I think all that really needs to be done is to tax capital gains at regular earned income rates for people that make over 500k a year in capital gains.

Just tax people who get 300k in dividends every year the same as you tax doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc

We don't all agree on that.

Ok, but the issue is still realized vs unrealized capital gains. We can tax Buffett and Gates at 90% of their realized gains while taxing them <<1% of their unrealized gains in a given year.

I've never really been in that boat either until recently.

At some point 400 richest = 160,000,000 poorest is a problem.

The modern mainstream media/democratic party definition or framing of the debate is not something I agree with though. Saying over 250k is rich, saying we need to "spread the wealth"

What we need to do is spread upward mobility and opportunity.

I don't think you can tax unrealized gains, I think just taxing capital gains and dividend distribution at earned income levels would be the best solution.

Chiefsplanet has decided that "eliminating the death tax" is one issue everyone can agree on. Over/under on the percentage of them that have any idea it starts at $5 million?

I mean, we CAN...not sure if we should though. And it would be pretty complicated afaik, but i dont think we can address the whole top .1% owns as much as the bottom x% without doing that, given we even need to address it (which I lean against to being with)

Taxing unrealized capital gains is ******ed. Hey Mr. IT entrepreneur, congrats on earning $5M. In addition to your 40% income tax you now owe us another $5M because we have calculated that based on industry EBITDA multiples your stock is worth $25M more than last year. So you owe $7M on your $5M of income, please remit immediately.

#classwarfare

Yes, taxing unrealized gains in a ******ed manner is ******ed. I don't really think we should, but obv we aren't going to do it like this if we're going to.

I just feel like that is a completely draconian policy measure.

Better ways to curb income/opportunity inequality.

yeah im pretty sure taxing unrealized gains is really stupid

I mean, if the issue is to curb inequality (ie such a small percent owns ZOMG such a huge percentage of the assets) you have to address the notion of multi billion dollar estates that don't pay on taxes on billions and billions of asset appreciation. I don't really think we should tax them either, but then we have to be fine with the rich owning a hugely disproportionate share of the wealth.

Obviously there is no reasonable/practical/fair/not horrible for the economy generally way to tax unrealized gains. But the scam where you can donate appreciated capital assets to charity and both claim a full deduction and avoid taxation on appreciation is a pretty big loophole that desperately needs closing.

Also the exemption is $10 million for married couples.

I mean, sure....there is no reasonable/obvious/practical unrealized gains taxation scheme that random dudes on the internet can think of in 15 seconds.....if actual tax experts spent a year maybe they come up with something, or maybe not. Payroll tax seems horribly impractical to me, other than the fact that it exists. And carried interest + high frequency trading being taxed at long term capital gains (or even below) rates via offshore trusts seems way more in need of closing than the other stuff.

Not sure where the prison gang came from but if the government pays some people a living wage to clear some trees then McDonald's has to pay more than a living wage to get those people to work for them and the furniture factory has to pay more than McDonald's to get those people to come work for them. 0% unemployment should push wages up for everybody which you would think would have a positive effect on the entire economy.

250k in California is not rich. That is lolworthy.

And the circle of life continues...

Also MultiPass!

Do not pass go, do not collect 250k dollars

Generally, the higher the inequality, the less social mobility.

b

What is Middle Class? Vox

I'm going to summarize the article w/o clicking the line: "it depends".