Elon Musk says Democrats’ billionaire tax will not solve the U.S. debt crisis
For years, the U.S. ultra-wealthy have managed to pay little income tax by demanding a nominal salary and locking the vast majority of their wealth in stocks and other investments. An unprecedented tax bill proposed by Senate Democrats could change that from one day to the next.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Said Monday that he is preparing to release the proposal, known as the “billionaire tax” this week. While the details are still being negotiated, tax experts predict that the bill will raise tens of billions of dollars in tax revenue, half of which will come from the 10 richest people in the nation, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and others.
Not surprisingly, billionaires do not like the idea. Musk, the richest person in the new world, has been attacking the billionaire tax on social media since Monday. According to his calculation, even taxing all billionaires at 100 percent would not make much of a difference in resolving America’s debt crisis.
“US government debt is $ 28.9 trillion or $ 229K per taxpayer. Even taxing all ‘billionaires’ 100 percent would only make a small dent in that figure, so it’s clear the rest should come from the general public,” he tweeted. Tuesday.
“Expenditure is the real problem,” he added, taking issue with Democrats’ view that the billionaire tax could help pay for President Biden’s $ 3.5 trillion climate and social spending plan.
Still, it’s hard to ignore the fact that the total net worth of US billionaires has almost doubled since the pandemic began, standing at $ 5.04 trillion in October, according to Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness. The 10 richest Americans together are worth $ 1.3 trillion.
Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, now director of the United Nations World Food Program, discretion that only 2 percent of Elon Musk’s fortune, or about $ 6 billion, would be enough to solve the world’s hunger problem.
Under Wyden’s proposal, billionaires would have to pay a tax of about 24 percent on unrealized capital gains on an annual basis, meaning the increase in the value of their listed shares will be taxed even before they are sold. Critics of the plan argue that the measure would force these people to regularly sell corporate shares to pay tax in cash, which could reduce their voting power in their companies and hurt stock prices.
According to the billionaire proposal, Musk would pay as much as $ 50 billion in taxes over the first five years, while Bezos would pay as much as $ 44 billion according to UC Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman’s estimates, reported byWashington Post. The 10 richest people would pay a total of $ 276 billion in taxes on their livelihoods.
“According to their own estimates, this tax only covers 10 percent of the $ 3.5 trillion spending bill,” Musk said in an earlier tweet Tuesday. »Where should the other 90 percent come from? The answer is you. ”
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