Posted on 11/06/2019 6:44:14 PM PST by yesthatjallen
Warren says she'd talk to Bill Gates about what he'd pay under wealth tax: 'I promise it's not $100 billion'
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) responded to former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates’ reported concerns over what he would have to pay under the senator’s proposed tax on the wealthy.
“I'm always happy to meet with people, even if we have different views. @BillGates, if we get the chance, I'd love to explain exactly how much you'd pay under my wealth tax. (I promise it's not $100 billion.)” Warren tweeted Wednesday.
Gates spoke with The New York Times writer Andrew Ross Sorkin at the outlet’s DealBook conference Wednesday.
Addressing one aspect of Warren’s tax proposals for the wealthy – a 6 percent tax on assets above $1 billion, according to the Washington Post – Gates responded that there is a limit on what he would be willing to pay, although he said does support a progressive tax system.
“I’ve paid over $10 billion in taxes. I’ve paid more than anyone in taxes. If I had to pay $20 billion, it’s fine,” Gates said. “But when you say I should pay $100 billion, okay then I’m starting to do a little math about what I have left over. I’m just kidding”
He also warned that candidates who support taxing “too much” risk alienating “innovative” companies or entrepreneurs in the U.S.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
FDR said you have to pay 94%, and he wasn’t kidding.
It will be childs play to avoid a “wealth tax.” Some attorneys and accountants will make some money in the process, but in the end, no one with real money will pay.
I’m sure Warren can arrange something....perhaps a big donation to a foundation.
The total wealth of the richest 100 Americans is just over $1 Trillion.
If Warren confiscated 100% of that, it would only pay about 2% of her purposed Medicare-for-all estimated to cost $52 Trillion. Then, those billionaires would be broke and Warren would still be monetarily short by around $51 Trillion.
The woman should have Wall Street worried. She and her freebie plans could bankrupt the nation.
Under wealth tax, the rich will have to sell stocks and other assets every year that those assets go up. So the stock market will devalue far lower than it is now. We will be in recession because rich people will be forced to pull a full 2% out every year. And the government will yank this money out of the economy and hide it in under performing assets. Maybe the UN or Paris accord or wars.
Requiring ALL the US billionaires to liquidate some assets in order to pay a wealth tax, will drive stock prices down.
Worldwide, there are 2,153 billionaires, with a combined net worth of $8.7 trillion.
The US has just over 600 billionaires.
If the US billionaires make up 1/2 the total worldwide billionaires wealth, that is $4.35 trillion.
THAT ALONE wouldn’t finance 1 years worth of fauxahontas’ skeam.
But .06% tax on 4.35 trillion, means $260 billion gets pulled out of the stock market.
The market would drop noticeably.
Its one thing to say Bill Gates is worth 107 Billion, when Microsoft stock is at $144 a share.
But what it is “worth” today is different than what he’d sell it for.
Instead of $144 a share, maybe he sells it for $130 a share.
A 10% drop.
Now does he pay $6.4 billion, or $5.7 billion, because of actual sell value vs estimated value?
Next question. Who is buying this stock?
US citizens,
or foreign entities.
Great.
Let’s have foreign entities waiting to scoop up American assets, cheap, at fire sale prices.
These are just the Billionaires alone.
And it only brings in $235-$260 Billion, out of $5.2 trillion needed.
Every single person “WORTH” $1 million would have to be involved.
How many of those, is their house their single largest asset?
How many plumbers and electricians are “worth” $1 million, on paper, in their 401K’s and IRA’s.
As Bill Gates liquidates his stock, it drives the price down, thus driving everybody elses wealth down.
The plumber or electrician who was thinking about retiring in a year or 2 might have to put it off 2 or 3 or 5 years.
What a vicious circle.
Americans with real wealth are holding long term assets such as land or a business. Warrens idea will cause these people to sell assets to pay the taxes or they will just pick up and leave the country. Unless the dims make that illegal. Either way it is a losing plan.
two liberal punks and Gates could care less if he had a 95% tax. The “ oracle of Omaha” used many folks I knew.
Bill Gates is a PUNK.
Before long, the 6% annual tax would be on assets $200,000 or more.....then $100,000, and so on.
Just look at how the income tax started out, and what a nightmare that evolved from THAT scheme beginning in 1913.
She certainly won’t find $50trillion at Bill Gates’ house. Take all of his property, then what do you do the second day?
Socialists are like junkies, there is never enough.
Buy expensive paintings at auction in other countries. Leave the works in storage/banked offshore.
The reason a lot of these billionaires support these crackpot leftists like Warren is because it doesn’t cost them not to. In order to get a tax law like this passed it has to go through congress, every one of those congress critters is being paid off in one way or another by wealthy individuals from around the world. A doctor or small business owner making $500K a year doesn’t have the money to buy his own congressman/woman but someone like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos does, so the end result is a law that’s touted as going after the rich ends up with all kinds of loopholes to protect the Gates and Bezos while skipping over them to grab the wealth of those that aren’t rich enough to pay for protection, the upper middle class. Make $250K to $1MIL a year, you’re screwed. Make $10MIL a year and you’re in the group that can afford all the financial vehicles set up in the tax laws to hide your money, things like charitable schemes and having your business registered in Ireland so you pay almost nothing for corporate taxes.
Au contraire. They will change their behavior or wealth management practices to avoid paying, like you say, because it is human nature to do so.
People with real wealth have lots of choices and flexibility in life. They will avoid paying this wealth tax because they can.
Besides with all the corruption in DC, many politicians will be subject to such a tax and won't allow it to pass into law to begin with.
There's something fundamentally unfair about having to pay your taxes legally and then have what you have leftover be subject to being taxed again and again by some greedy politician who doesn't understand human nature.
Wealthy people have influence and power. And maybe more importantly, flexibility in their lifestyles and choices in what to do with their money. They would never allow this to happen.
So the middle class will be taxed up the wazoo to pay for Warren's $52 trillion Medicare-For-All plan. She is just too much of a coward to admit that in public on the campaign trail.
That's because she won't be electable once the middle class finds out that they are the ones who she really plans on stealing the money from.
Bernie Sanders had a similar plan he announced some time back at the beginning of his campaign but eventually dropped it when he admitted he couldn't figure out how to pay for it without taxing the middle class into poverty.
Warren's Medicare-For-All plan is dead on arrival for the same reason.
For a nice donation to her cause
Not a hundred billion, it’s just everything you own that’s all.
Would love to hear them have this discussion in public
You need not worry about such details.
The wealthy would move their assets out of US control the moment there was a Congressional whisper of a wealth tax.
They didn’t get wealthy by being stupid.
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