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This is not always a surprise...since we tax based on income and not net worth. Most billionaires are wealthy because they own significant amounts of stock...s

This is not always a surprise...since we tax based on income and not net worth. Most billionaires are wealthy because they own significant amounts of stock...so unless someone like Bezos sells a significant amount of stock and it's then income they won't pay taxes on it. The same way we don't tax people's house value every year even though their net worth has likely increased year over year. Oh, and with some proposed taxes on net worth that would force someone like Bezos or Musk to sell their company stock and potentially lose controlling interest in his company. It also means a lot of work and random assessments of property...which is not a perfect science (even worse than calculating income and taxes).

kevinventullo 5y ago
The second sentence in the article: “But even if you use the most conventional yardstick — income — the wealthiest still pay low rates.”
- j_walter 5y ago
  "That’s lower than the rate a single worker making $45,000 a year might pay if you include Medicare and Social Security taxes." Not quite saying the same thing. Comparing capital gains taxes to regular incoming taxes plus medicare and social security. Hell let's just throw property taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and every other tax in there and then compare...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - curryst 5y ago
    They're completely different taxes that are taxing money used for the same purpose. To put it another way, for the very wealthy, capital gains is their "income" (in a colloquial sense). They gain a tax advantage by making their money through a different route. One that is unavailable to most (at least in sufficient quantities to live on). > Hell let's just throw property taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and every other tax in there and then compare... There's not much point. They're discussing rates, not absolute amounts. Those are all fixed-rate, so they're the same for everyone (maybe not property taxes in all jurisdictions? I'm not sure). Gas taxes do apply; electric cars pay no or reduced gas tax. The same discussion has been brought up, since gas taxes pay for highway maintenance.

kevinventullo 5y ago

The second sentence in the article: “But even if you use the most conventional yardstick — income — the wealthiest still pay low rates.”

j_walter 5y ago
"That’s lower than the rate a single worker making $45,000 a year might pay if you include Medicare and Social Security taxes." Not quite saying the same thing. Comparing capital gains taxes to regular incoming taxes plus medicare and social security. Hell let's just throw property taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and every other tax in there and then compare...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- curryst 5y ago
  They're completely different taxes that are taxing money used for the same purpose. To put it another way, for the very wealthy, capital gains is their "income" (in a colloquial sense). They gain a tax advantage by making their money through a different route. One that is unavailable to most (at least in sufficient quantities to live on). > Hell let's just throw property taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes and every other tax in there and then compare... There's not much point. They're discussing rates, not absolute amounts. Those are all fixed-rate, so they're the same for everyone (maybe not property taxes in all jurisdictions? I'm not sure). Gas taxes do apply; electric cars pay no or reduced gas tax. The same discussion has been brought up, since gas taxes pay for highway maintenance.