Posted on 08/07/2020 6:49:15 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Top tech leaders and other billionaires would be forced to hand over billions of dollars in wealth they've gained during the coronavirus pandemic under a new bill introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.
The "Make Billionaires Pay Act" would impose a one-time 60% tax on wealth gains made by billionaires between March 18, 2020, and Jan. 1, 2021. The funds would be used to pay for out-of-pocket health-care expenses for all Americans for a year. As of Aug. 5, the bill would tax $731 billion in wealth accumulated by 467 billionaires since March 18, according to a press release. If passed, the bill would tax billionaires on wealth accumulated through the end of the year, however.
Under the bill, tech and other business titans who have seen their wealth shoot up during the pandemic would take huge charges. Amazon and Walmart, for example, have both seen their stocks grow as Americans increasingly relied on their services during stay-at-home orders during the pandemic.
That added billions of dollars in wealth for their top shareholders, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Walmart founding family the Waltons, respectively.
Here's how much some would pay under the bill due to wealth gains between March 18 and Aug. 5, according to a release accompanying the bill:
* Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would pay a one-time wealth tax of $42.8 billion.
* Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk would pay a one-time wealth tax of $27.5 billion.
* Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would pay a one-time wealth tax of $22.8 billion.
* The Walton family would pay a one-time wealth tax of $12.9 billion.
Those figures could rise (or lower) as the effect of the pandemic on the billionaires' wealth changes over the rest of the year.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
There is no such thing as a “temporary tax”
Oh goody goody.. can’t wait
Sanders is a moron.
He thinks it’s piles if cash under their mattress.
Why do I think the billionaires financial people are smarter than politicians and can make billionaires money disappear?
I propose a one-time tax on all U.S. Senators with more than one home, the tax amounting to the current fair market value of all homes other than the Senator’s primary residence.
That will do what for the trillions dollars shortfall?
Damned jealous Democrats can’t stand anyone getting wealthy other than them. Democrats so much want to be the “In crowd”.
Old Bernie, still saying stupid things
Is there a flaw in the calculations?
So to say that Jeff Bezos is worth tens of billions of dollars more because of the economic success of his company, that doesn’t mean that he personally has all these billions of dollars in the bank, does it?
What I’m wondering is if they’re doing calculations based on the market value of Amazon stock. But if Bezos had to sell a ton of his stock in order to pay these billions of dollars in taxes, wouldn’t that tank the value of his stock? And then he would have nowhere near 42 billion dollars to be able to wire to the IRS the next day to pay his tax bill?
Jesse James extracted similar one-time taxes. The difference was Jesse was far more honest about it.
It would be a horrible precedent, but it’s appealing because most of these billionaires are pro BLM social justice warriors.
I’d rather see their money go towards the military, social security and Medicare than to BLM.
How did Elon Musk benefit from the China Virus? Oil prices crashed making electric cars less desirable.
Isn’t he making enemies? He may have “health” concerns.
Billionaires don’t like getting money taken from them. Social justice virtue signaling goes only so far.
They’re only going to steel once. Fat Chance.
a punitive wealth tax on billionaires would effectively be a one time tax. You can buy a lot of politicians for a billion dollars.
well.. you can if you're not Bloomburg,
Isnt proper etiquette to point a gun when you make a suggestion like that.
Yup, Bernie is a simpleton. These guys will move most of their wealth overseas.
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