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If you win a million dollars in a lottery, you will pay approximately $370,000 in federal taxes. An X post complained about the tax on such a windfall and said that we should tax billionaires the same way.
Of course that is exactly what we do. Everyone is subject to the IRC and the same type of income is taxed the same way for all. I think billionaires get a bad rap.
A 2021 study by economists from the Council of Economic Advisers and the Office of Management and Budget, using data from Forbes and public records said the top 400 wealthiest taxpayers paid an average income tax rate of 8.2%. Many people jumped on that as proof these folks were grossly undertaxed. However, to arrive at that percentage, the growth in net worth from unrealized capital gains was used. Hardly apples to apples.That’s like including the growth in your home value and 401k to determine your effective tax rate.
Nevertheless, I have decided to become a billionaire myself. I have the same chance as anyone, but time may not be on my side.
I invest in the stock market, in a single company stock and in real estate. That’s what billionaires do. I don’t have a garage or dorm room to start a business, but there are other ways. Unfortunately, I don’t have the entrepreneurial skills or desirable personality either.
On the other hand upon realizing that one billion is one thousand million, and looking at my current net worth, I have the same chance as Don Quixote.
Are billionaires self-made? Most are, but even those who inherited big bucks, inherited it from someone who did earn it. The Waltons are a good example. Some of the wealthy inherit a nice nest egg and then grow it on their own.
I look at a list of some well known billionaires and think to myself about how they changed the world, made life better, more pleasurable for the rest of us. About the millions of jobs they created around the world and about the many other small businesses that thrive by leveraging what the entrepreneurs created.
Steve Jobs / Steve Wozniak Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page & Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, Reed Hastings, Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Daniel Ek, Evan Spiegel, Jack Ma, Sam Walton, James Sinegal, Philip Knight, Oprah Winfrey, George Lucas, Ralph Lauren
Many of the people on this list did the same thing, they took risk, created something, eventually issued an IPO while holding millions of shares and let the stock market take over. And then they diversified.
While many Americans envy such actions, the Philadelphia Fed found only 42.8% of U.S. adults personally own stocks. Pew Research Center, says only 21% of American families own individual shares directly. Roughly 60–65% of Americans have some exposure to the stock market through retirement accounts like 401k, but relatively few invest directly-many fear the risk. The thing is you don’t need big bucks to get started. Getting ahead requires constant change, growth, a bit of risk. You won’t improve your economic standing working in a minimum wage job relying on increases in the minimum wage.
To be honest, if they never paid a penny in income taxes, I think society at all income levels more than receives its moneys worth from these billionaires.
Billionaires underappreciated? I think there must be a million other concerns that an average human being might come up with, especially in the increasingly income-inequitable USA, that would warrant thought before arriving at the proposal that our long-suffering billionaires are not getting their fair share of societal strokes. Billionaires underappreciated…what a preposterous notion!
The income inequality is not a problem created by billionaires. Did they take from others or prevent us from getting ahead? Growth at the top does not prevent growth at the bottom, especially when most of the top growth is a function of the stock market.
Think of all the things we do and have that is the result of billionaires, including the ability to put comments here using a phone, tablet or laptop.
You seem to treat them like demigods passing out favors to all of us mere mortals. Income inequality surely is not helped by, for example, the constant tax and other breaks sent along to billionaires (some new ones cooked up even within the last several days, according to the NY Times). I’d rather celebrate some of the unsung heroes of our modern conveniences. Over the course of history, many who better the lives of others with their insights and inventions died without significant financial gain, with some being exploited by their so-called “superiors.” To the degree that innovators are enabled by billionaires, that’s great. And the billionaires are amply rewarded. But I agree with some other voices here that billionaires do not currently contribute their fair share in monetary terms to the welfare of society and the nation, even as they disproportionally influence the conventions and rules all the rest of us must follow. Only a few enlightened, such as Buffet and Gates (and no doubt several hundred more I can’t name), seem to realize that their success is dependent on the larger social matrix that is our country and is composed of all of us. Surely they can get by on a billion or so, and then give back in proportion to their means, not in comparison to the taxes paid by the likes of us.