Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduces "ultra-millionaire" wealth tax bill

I've seen quite a number of Biden bumper stickers, and election lawn signs still remaining.

 

I have always assigned knicknames not just for politicians. Yet I almost never use nicknames for the American political parties. I have seen Dims, Dumbocrats, and Repubtards, Fascistpubs..... but would never use any of those.

You mention three Trump related nicknames but ha e you ever admonished those who support Trump for his Lying Ted, Little Marco, Sleepy Joe, Slow Jeb(Bush). Ugly Fiorina, Pocahontas, Criminal Hillary, ......I. Can write all afternoon and still not record call the knicknames Donald uses.

No that does not justify nicknames especially nasty ones but when a candidate for POTUS and acPORUS uses nicknames are we supposed make. Elieve we did not hear him?

 

Try again why doesn't everyone make minimum wage so the rich can satisfy this desire you claim they have to make everyone poor?

 

Define "labored". And so what, what does that have to do with the fact that effective tax rates have hardly changed over the years and the highest payers pay LOTS more than the middle and lower classes.

BTW half my income now comes from investments I have, does that make me some half evil wealthy person and it's unfair to working people therefore the government should take more of my investment income?

 

Okay, once more for the cheap seats, since it seems a LOT of non-wealthy folk love to carry water for those that truly are wealthy:

1) Income tax means just that ... INCOME. Nowhere in our tax laws or the Constitution or the Bill of Rights does it state that once one becomes "wealthy" beyond a certain monetary limit that they can limit the amount of taxes paid into the national coffers.

2) Despite #1, the tax laws over the decades have done exactly that...allowed "rich" folk to avoid fair taxation on all their income through "loopholes" and "tax breaks" that are UNAVAILABLE to non-wealthy citizens. This creates an economic "Catch-22", because those wealthy who are NOT paying their fair share of taxes HAVE NOT BEEN CREATING JOBS, AS 30 YEARS OF REAGANOMICS (trickle-down economics) has shown. Therefore, state and federal gov't have less money for infrastructure and job creation funding...and the working/middle class citizens bear the brunt of the taxes to make up that chasm. This is why twice in my lifetime this country came damned close to a second Depression.

3) If people actually READ the proposal put forth by Sen. Warren, they would not that the WEALTHY WOULD STILL BE WEALTHY AFTER THE NEW TAX IS ENACTED. So it's not about pending bankruptcy, but just arrogant greed.

Now, why don't you knock off the mantras and smoke blowing and try to factually prove me wrong on any point or show where Sen. Warren's proposal is flawed? I'll wait.

 

Yea true point its not a one sided thing I just think the practice is unproductive.

 

What's the word from Dems in the Senate? Anyone beside the usual liberals voicing support for this? Anyone yet put their reservations to the measure, on the record? I would imagine those being targeted realize they have a little bit of time to strategize-- this hasn't yet been put on the Senate's calendar, has it? Does it still need to pass the Finance Committee, or have they already approved it? And you thought you would be the one asking all the questions(?).

How is getting the richest Americans to contribute more toward the appreciable expense of operating our government-- which we're obligated to pay, with or without their enhanced contribution-- creating MORE government?

Oh, I know, if you feed the government, it only gets hungrier. So, having the very wealthiest in the country kick in a couple of TRILLION dollars of our debt-- which would then be taken off the backs of those taxpayers who have less than $50 million in assets-- would, actually, turn out costing, "the little guy," more...In fact, the more of their money the top 1% KEEPS, the better off the rest of us are, is that it? (So I guess we should all thank Donald Trump for only paying $750 income tax). The problem with your trying to peddle your Paul Ryanism, here, is that there aren't enough, "misguided, credulous people," to buy what you're trying to sell.

We need to shrink the government, you say: when has that EVER happened to our non-military government spending? The secret is out that, "smaller government," is merely code for government doing less in, "our best interest(s)."

The challenge for you neo-cons (if that's what you call your ilk), is to show what you preach is possible, without cutting any funds from school lunches, or seniors' benefits, or poverty assistance (like food stamps), or medicare & medicaid, or enforcement against industrial polluters, or food safety inspections, or the CDC, or our group that goes around the world, securing loose nuclear weapons (which we actually have, & which had its budget slashed by Trump), but instead, by finding the fat in, I believe, our country's biggest tangible expenditure, our military. If the smaller government crowd cannot reduce the size a budget that, for some reason, to keep us safe, must be bigger than China's, India's, Russia's, Saudi Arabia's, France's, Germany's, the U.K.'s, Japan's, South Korea's, AND Italy's--the next 10, top spenders--COMBINED, a mind-blowing 38% of GLOBAL Military Spending, then all your anti-Marxist jaw-boning is exposed as only so much tripe.

If I wasn't sure I knew better, I would think you must have over $50 million in net worth. Just high aspirations?

Moving out of New York City (just north to Greenwich, or Darien, or New Canaan, Connecticut) is not at all like leaving the U.S.! Vladimir Putin would probably live here, if he could. Plus, many of those families involved, have vast real estate holdings here. So they're gonna sell the estate, the Summer Mansion, and all the other properties in a fire sale & become ex-pats? Not that likely. I think MJ called it right, when he said they'll try to persuade a Senator or two. Problem is, they'll probably only need one.

Sell their big, family mansion (and all their medium-sized & petite mansions) and thousands of acres of property, along with their private jets, yachts, rare & vintage, collectible automobiles, art collections, the horses, etc., & move all the funds into a corporation? I'm not saying nobody will do that, but the kind of families we're talking about generally have very considerable holdings, to which they have become attached. Most will have valuable possessions, and massive amounts of wealth tied up in things they consider either part of their, "roots," or their, "legacy," or both.

If this makes it into law, we'll see if a sudden liquidation begins, to make all the richest people's wealth, well, liquid. Only problem is, if the richest, as a class, are all selling-- who's buying it all? China?

Somehow, I don't think, should this become law, the owners of Walmart would be allowed to hide all their wealth from taxation, while continuing to reap the profits of their little retail establishment. It would not be impossible, or even that difficult, to craft a law that had no loopholes for a lawyer, no matter how top-shelf, to find (do you not believe that some of those loopholes were put in the tax code, on purpose?). The question is, is there the will or, more specifically, will there be enough votes in the Senate, to enact this bill?

 

tax them the same, treat all income as income equally

 

Taxing the wealthy sounds as a good idea, unfortunately the wealthy are much smarter than the average Joe, on top of it they have a huge army of accountants who work overtime to save the wealthy money. How much taxes Amazon in 2018? In 2018, Amazon paid $0 in U.S. federal income tax on more than $11 billion in profits before taxes. It also received a $129 million tax rebate from the federal government.
Here is more information:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/ama...r two straight years of,roughly 1.2%, in fact.

Good luck Pocahontas with your great plan!

 

Outside of a nasty Trumpian shot at Senator Warren, you haven't exactly explained what is wrong with her proposal aside from the fact that arrogant greed is the key factor why folk are against it (rich folk, that is....I haven't a clue why the non-rich are carrying water for these jokers).

From your link: "....Of course, $162 million is still just a fraction of the $13.9 billion in pre-tax income Amazon reported for 2019 — roughly 1.2%, in fact. The federal corporate tax rate is 21%, but as in the past, Amazon likely employed various tax credits and deductions to reduce its federal tax bill. Amazon also reported $280.5 billion in total revenue in 2019."

 

Taxes don't have to be a punishment, but they also can be a punishment. Blatant punishment taxes are sin taxes. When you tax Cigarettes at 1600%, it is a punishment. Alcohol taxes - punishment. Marijuana laws started as a punishment tax. Gambling taxes - punishment.

Then you move to more nuanced punishment taxes. Making rich people pay more because someone deems that to be "fair". If you abide by the laws and still haven't paid enough, then you get to pay AMT. Because someone doesn't like it that you have more money. Taxes are necessary. That doesn't mean that the tax laws haven't been played with to punish certain activities. Most usually, these punishment taxes come in the form of "help". If you promised to give an extra $2000 in child tax credits, then you are actually punishing those that don't have kids because they are the ones picking up the slack.

 

Nasty Trumpian shot at Senator Warren? I am not Trump supporter, but I think it is funny to call someone who falsely call herself Native American – Pocahontas.
Now about the taxes. American tax code was created by wealthy people in order to pay as little as possible. The simplest way to avoid taxes: you create a corporation in a foreign country with very low taxes and you buy from them a pencils – you pay for each pencil $100, so your profits in the US go down and the corporation in a foreign country has a nice profit, but there taxes are very low. And once every 10-20 years US government creates Tax Holiday for corporation which bring profits from overseas to the US. There are other tricks, some described in a book “Take this job and ship it” by Byron Dorgan.

So the point is to create a tax which will work. I would like Pocahontas promise to Americans people that if her tax will not collect as much money as she claim, she will quit politics.
I am not a politician and not tax expert, so of course I support this tax.

 

There are tons of unearned investment income that is not capital gains. Also, an executive (or any employee) getting paid with shares of stock has to report the value of the shares received as regular income in that tax tear.

 

"Profit" and "maximizing" are terms never used in a corporate charter AFAIK.

 

If the tax code explicitly says a corporation (which is not a "rich person" BTW) pays X% tax rate compared to M%, N%, O%, and P% rates for individuals, that is not a "loop hole."

 

For starters, to repeat an earlier post, it is unconstitutional.

 

per @Bluesguy, unearned income from investments is tax exactly the same as wages.

 

per Amazon's 10K in 2018 they had sales of $233B, net income before taxes of $11.2B, and paid income taxes of $1.2B (about 11%), (saying "federal, state, and foreign" without breaking it down.) For the record their total assets were $162B and stockholders equity was $44B

 

For me taxes were always a mystery, here some info from CNBC:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/15/amazon-will-pay-0-in-federal-taxes-this-year.html
Amazon is one of the world’s most valuable companies, valued at nearly $800 billion, and the e-commerce giant pulled in $232.9 billion in global revenue in 2018.
And yet, Amazon’s federal tax bill this year: $0. For the second year in a row.
In fact, Amazon is actually getting a federal tax refund of $129 million this year, due in part to a combination of tax credits and deductions. This is despite the fact that Amazon nearly doubled its taxable income in 2018 to $11.2 billion, from $5.6 billion a year earlier.
In other words, Amazon is basically paying a -1 percent federal income tax rate this year after reportedly paying a federal rate of more than 11 percent between 2011 and 2016, according to The Week.
[...]

 

Many if not all of those cases have costs that taxpayers have to pay. (Ignoring your inclusion of your very different last claim.)

Smoking costs all taxpayers, for example. The costs are NOT born by the purchase of the product without taxes.

By adding taxes, the full cost of the product contributes to the public costs of the use of the product.

That money can go to the public costs of policing, first responders, hospitals, addiction mitigation, in-patient treatment, and the other various costs that are the average result of those products being used.

 

Again, you haven't explained why her tax wouldn't work. All you've done is just recite some moot points. Essentially, you're theorizing that the rich folk will just figure out a way to bypass this tax....but you give no specifics because you're not directly discussing Warren's specifics.

 

Remember, those pushing this nonsense consider themselves to be the "smartest people in any gathering"
These people aren't stupid, they know exactly how it will turn out and they want that outcome.

 

Since the pandemic started, the government stole $5 trillion from your grandkids. Something tells me you are ok with that because you got yours.

 

Your argument is silly but would have more bearing if the taxes were used for the cost that you believe exists. But they don't. They pay for other welfare programs. Usually they argue that it's paying for child lunch programs or some such thing that helps the poor children. Even the tobacco settlement money was wasted on stuff like horse tracks. Additionally, sin taxes are the most regressive of all taxes. Tell yourself what you want to make yourself continue to feel justified but those taxes are punishment for stuff you don't like.