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no they don’t. warren buffet pays a true tax rate of 0.1% (1/10 of a percent). they hide their money in shares/stocks, which are largely untaxed.
So do you want to tax stocks?
I don’t think it’s reasonable to tax unrealized gains. It’s a good idea to tax unrealized gains on selling the assets or when they are inherited, but not to do it every single year.
What if someone doesn’t sell their stock for years? They pay taxes (likely a very large amount) for years and years, and pay even more taxes when selling the stock. Someone could pay more than the actual value of the stock just in taxes, before even realizing those gains. They’re not actually spending or making any cash money, but they’re still getting taxed.
Therefore, I think it makes no sense to tax them that way. Just because they have a ton of stock doesn’t mean it should be taxed every single year. It would do nothing except drive billionaires away from the USA. Only tax it when it’s sold, it’s much more fair.
Maybe, instead of taxing the ultra-rich and relying on that to solve all the economic problems, find some other way to save money. What about cutting spending?
is it really fair for billionaires like donald trump and elon musk to pay $0 on their hundreds of billions of dollars in stocks? seems like a loophole that means that poor people (whose money is not in stocks) pay more than the ultra rich. this is a loophole that is currently being exploited and means that these billionaires do not pay their fair share.
they will pay their fair share when they sell the stock.
Keep in mind, the stock value could just disappear if the stock tanks. If we tax them every single year on money that could just vaporize into thin air, they could end up paying much more than their fair share. They deserve their money just as much as we do, you know (at least most of them do).
And, they don’t actually get any benefit from stock (other than control of the company) until they sell it. The way billionaires really get money (to spend) is that they get loans, with their stock as collateral. Why don’t you tax loans instead?
they should tax that too
but if a billionaire like Jeff Bezos never sells his stock (which he almost never does), he will likely never pay his fair share on it. if i get a traditional job that pays me in cash, that should count as income. The same is true for the ways these billionaires get paid. they use public services, roads, law enforcement, airports for sky travel, air control, fire departments, the mail service, etc. so they should pay every year on their income, whether or not it's realized yet. if their unrealized gains disappear (which can also happen to traditional cash jobs when banks/markets crash or when a recession happens) they should suffer the same way ordinary people do.
Here is an example bill that does this: https://cohen.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/cohen-evo.house.gov/files/BMIT%20One%20Pager.pdf