2. Amazon Hits $1 Trillion on September 1, 2018
3. Microsoft Hits $1 Trillion on April 25, 2019
4. Google Hits $1 Trillion on January 16, 2019
5. Facebook hits $1 Trillion for the first time on Monday, June 28, 2021
Posted on 01/24/2022 4:46:53 AM PST by Kaslin
Every year, a few vocal multimillionaires and billionaires publicly announce that there is nothing they would like more than to finally pay more taxes. Every such announcement attracts a great deal of media attention. After all, there is one rule journalists learn very early in their careers: “Dog bites postman is not a story, postman bites dog is.” This is a typical “postman bites dog” news story.
Over the last few days, the media was again awash with reports that a group of more than 100 millionaires from nine countries have called on governments to make them pay more taxes.
“Tax us, the rich, and tax us now,” pleaded the groups Patriotic Millionaires, Millionaires for Humanity and Tax Me Now, according to the left-wing organization Oxfam.
For many years, I earned a decent amount as an entrepreneur and real estate investor in Germany, but my tax burden from my entrepreneurial activities was almost 50 percent every year. I also don’t evade taxes and don’t ‘cheat’ the system, although that is precisely what many people claim the rich are doing across the board. Yet not a single study has ever proved that tax evasion is more common among the rich than among the non-rich. What really annoys me are multimillionaires who themselves take excessive advantage of a host of tax planning arrangements and then publicly announce that they would like to pay more taxes.
I know hundreds of multimillionaires and plenty of billionaires and conducted in-depth interviews with 45 of them for my doctoral dissertation, The Wealth Elite. But I have yet to meet anyone who felt they weren’t paying enough tax. The 100 millionaires and billionaires from nine countries who have signed the latest letter asking to pay more tax might sound a lot, but there are 2,755 billionaires around the world.
There are more than 20 million millionaires in the world, so 100 is equivalent to 0.0005 percent. These are the postmen who bite dogs.
In many cases, the signatories are heirs who have not earned the money themselves and who now (for whatever reason) have guilty consciences and feel the urge to tell everyone that they want to pay more tax. Sometimes it is the super-rich who have long since feathered their own nests. While the voices of anti-capitalists such as George Soros and Warren Buffett, who vehemently argue for the rich to pay higher taxes, can be heard loudly, those who believe that taxes are far too high rarely speak out in public.
“The public silence of most billionaires,” report Benjamin Page and Martin Gilens, two left-leaning political scientists who are themselves highly critical of the rich, in their book Democracy in America, “contrasts markedly with the willingness of a small, unusual group of billionaires – including Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates – to speak out about specific public policies … All three have favored a substantial social safety net, progressive taxes, and moderate regulation of the economy. An ordinary American who tried to judge what U.S. billionaires think and do about politics by listening to Bloomberg, Buffett, or Gates would be badly misled.”
This observation is correct and points to one crux of the problem: The public pressure to criticize capitalism is so great that it even silences billionaires, while rich people who advocate higher taxes on the rich and more government regulation are free to speak their minds without concern.
Although some millionaires suffer from the feeling that they are not paying enough tax, strangely enough, the treasury account into which money can be voluntarily transferred remains almost empty year after year.
All they have to do is write a check. It’s that simple.
Millionaires and billionaires don’t have incomes. Their businesses own everything and pays all their bills.
For example, I know of one businessman who caters lunch for his employees every Fruday. However, he also orders enough food for himself and his family so he doesn’t have to spend money on groceries. The whole thing is a tax write-off fir him and his food is free.
Millionaires and billionaires don’t have incomes. Their businesses own everything and pays all their bills.
For example, I know of one businessman who caters lunch for his employees every Friday. However, he also orders enough food for himself and his family so he doesn’t have to spend money on groceries. The whole thing is a tax write-off fir him and his food is free.
Then they don’t support restoring SALT deductions.
They can pay more taxes if they want. The government won’t refuse the checks.
1040EZ, no deductions. You’ll pay more.
They actually tried something like that in Massachusetts some years ago. I believe it was under Dukakis Administration.
The Massachusetts State Tax form that year had a checkbox in which citizens could elect to pay a higher rate of state tax. The thought was that all the wealthy liberals would eagerly pay the extra tax, you know, to help out the homeless and the downtrodden, etc.
But virtually nobody checked that box.
I don’t want to pay more
Of course they don’t want to pay more taxes. If they did, they would not spend a fortune on lawyers and accountants who find every tax avoidance law and regulation available to help them keep more of their money.
It’s like all the virtue signalers who proclaim they are not leaving their fortune to their children. Of course you are not, Bill Gates. Your fortune is tax-protected in foundations, trusts and whatnot. Guess who gets to be president of the foundation or trustee or beneficiary of the trust when rich dad dies? Why, his children, of course. They will control his fortune eventually.
2. Amazon Hits $1 Trillion on September 1, 2018
3. Microsoft Hits $1 Trillion on April 25, 2019
4. Google Hits $1 Trillion on January 16, 2019
5. Facebook hits $1 Trillion for the first time on Monday, June 28, 2021
It is just virtue signaling PR. When the time came to pass the tax increases, their lobbyists would fight it tooth an nail. Or make sure there were loop holes to avoid it. In fact, these stories might be a scheme to get the upper 80-99.5th percentile to pay more taxes — but not the top 0.5% (who can afford the best accountants and tax attorneys).
Anybody, ANYBODY, any time they want to, may voluntarily pay more into the taxing authority than that to which they are obligated.
Most people, including millionaires, do not believe they should pay more than they are obligated to by law.
But virtually nobody checked that box
Wait. Someone did?
I’m thinking it was Mike Dukakis himself.
Hell, I’ll bet that most rich liberals don’t even check the box to give $3 to the presidential campaign.
After the way the wealthy treated Trump, I am ALL FOR nailing them with higher taxes. If they don’t like it, fine, let THEM fight it, I’m sicking of carrying their water, watching their tax cuts be used to finance DEMOCRATS, and then being told I supported an ‘insurrection’ by these same people. It’s THEIR fight.
Also keep in mind that the Democrats now have a HUGE voting block in the Upper Middle Class (around $150k to $400k), and are not about to raise taxes on them - not even close, so most people here don’t have to worry about being hit with new taxes directly from them.
What people here need to worry about are the broad-based taxes, hidden or not, hitting them, like gasoline and food...but then those don’t even affect the upper classes...but then these have nothing to do with extracting some pain from the uber-wealthy.
All virtue signaling BS. I’ve heard it from more than a few leftists, all of them higher to very, very high income. Seems as if it’s just bragging that they are so wealthy it wouldn’t bother them to pay more. But they for some reason never take the opportunity to do so, and aren’t very charitable in general.
However, The Daily Caller attended their press conference with an iPad, which displayed the Treasury Department’s donation page, to find out if any of the “patriotic millionaires” were willing to put their money where their mouth is.
Guess what....? None of them were willing to do so.
The kicker about the foundation’s is that he can take back the money when he wants, as long as he pays the taxes.
If you have to the Bill Gates Foundation, you really gave to him.
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