Posted on 01/04/2020 8:27:49 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates rejected the idea of voluntarily donating to the U.S. Treasury after calling for the U.S. government to raise taxes on the wealthy.
"When I say the government needs to raise more money, some people ask why Melinda and I don’t voluntarily pay more in taxes than the law requires," Gates, the second-richest person in the world, wrote in a recent blog post. "The answer is that simply leaving it up to people to give more than the government asks for is not a scalable solution. People pay taxes as an obligation of law and citizenship, not out of charity. Additional voluntary giving will never raise enough money for everything the government needs to do."
In June, PJM had asked Gates if he plans to voluntarily donate to the federal government in the absence of tax increases but he did not respond to the question.
Gates argued that "Americans in the top one percent can afford to pay a lot more before they stop going to work or creating jobs." He referred to the creation of Microsoft to support his position on taxes.
"In the 1970s, when Paul Allen and I were starting Microsoft, marginal tax rates were almost twice the top rate today. It didn’t hurt our incentive to build a great company," he said.
Gates called for increasing the capital gains tax, "probably to the same level as taxes on labor" as well as raising the estate or "death" tax.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a Democratic presidential candidate, has called for the implementation of a "wealth tax." Gates explained that he supports "taxing large fortunes that have been held for a long time," perhaps "ten years or more."
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Sideways.
Another freeper (who I don’t remember) coined the perfect word - Democrite
How about if Bill Gates and Melinda use H & R Block rather than teams of the best CPA’s in the country?
Why doesn’t FR have a “like” button?
” People pay taxes as an obligation of law and citizenship, not out of charity”
Which just proves the adage that taxation is theft.
Also that Bill Gates is clueless about what it means to be a citizen or how a republican form of government works - where the people stay involved in the government and have near direct impact on how the tax dollars are spent and appropriated.
What Gates, the Democrite, wants here is his socialist utopia for the poor while he gets his privatized riches and, of course, he won’t spend one more dime than he’s legally required to to see his dreams fulfilled - he wants YOU to pay for his largesse.
The 1 percent can barely afford to live in NYC.
People confuse the 1 percent with the .01% in their rhetoric.
Doesn’t everybody equally deserve a 66,0000 sq. ft. house?
The pick of Zuckerburg shopping for little TV’s in Costco is hilarious. Someone tweeted they might be heading for the $1.50 hot dog special next.
LOL
The likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pay lip-service to paying higher taxes because they know they probably never will, but more importantly, they know they are the main beneficiaries of scores of statist and progressive programs and particularly, printed, fiat money from the Federal Reserve at historically low interest rates.
The Gates foundation trust was setup to avoid both CapGains and estate taxes. Most of Gates’ wealth is from his stock in MS. He has moved some of it (and plans to move it all) into his non-taxable charitable trust. Doing that avoids having to sell, where he would pay taxes. Moving it while alive means his estate will not have that massive sum exposed as taxable. Warren Buffet is doing the same.
The uber rich couldn’t care less about taxes....they welcome stomping out potential up and comers with strangulating government.
DDBG
Ditto.
Gates should donate the Blue Screen of Death to the Pentagon for use on Iran.
"F" in "hypocrite" for the benefit of those in Sinsheim.
Hypocrite.
Gates motto is More Taxes for thee but none for me.
How about instead we heavily tax intellectual property—especially software patents. Shorten the software patent protection to 5 years and require the source code to be open-sourced after that.
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