We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share.

[Uncle Joe]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Grasswire2]

1. Did you see Elon Musk's response to this tweet of Bernie's?

Disgustingly insulting and rude. I hadn't realized what a horrible person he is.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Yes and

the threat to sell more stock is a microcosm of oligarch/billionaire arrogance and out-sized power in control of modern society.

I believe Musk knows selling a great deal of stock fast damages other share holders and perhaps the market but he's piqued at the idea that more Americans may become less desperate, increasingly independent which diminishes his power and power for him just as for Trump is what its' all about.

[WarGamer]

3. He's turning into quite the GOP'er down there in Texas.

[Uncle Joe]

8. I wonder if Elon is carrying emotional/mental baggage from South Africa?

https://mobile.twitter.com/shaunking/status/1460014990543532033

[grumpyduck]

4. As long as they keep donating money

to asshole politicians, they'll never pay taxes.

[Hortensis]

5. I don't know what their "fair" share would be, and it won't matter

if we get rid of them, as we need to. Their very existence is inimical to a democracy that conflicts with their sovereignty instead of creates it. Our ability to control them and decide what their share might be is both profoundly offensive to some and an existential threat to all.

[George II]

6. Only "extremely wealthy" now, not just "wealthy"?

[Hortensis]

7. What's "wealthy"? Many people with incomes in the "1%" after a period

of normal wealthy accumulation can be considered wealthy, by my notions anyway, but they're poor compared to the wealthy. Subective, of course.

Most of the 1% are working, taxed households, though; see the graph below. Those in the middle of that !% are far fewer and unquestionably rich by our standards. But wealth of the top 1% of the 1% is astronomical.

[NowISeetheLight]

9. I'd favor a minimum tax...

... Requirement for individuals just like corporations have with the new 15% minimum. That way the wealthy that are using loopholes to avoid taxes would have to pay something. I would tax things like loans against stock used for living expenses (Elon Musk does this).

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/26/corporate-minimum-tax-proposal-unveiled-by-key-senate-democrats.html

I pulled up my last employed years (2019) tax return in turbo tax and found my effective tax rate after deductions was 11.00%. I'm single, no kids so no credits or deductions there, I earned too much to deduct my considerable student loan interest. I did buy a house in 2017 so I have a mortgage interest deduction though. No other credits or deductions. My adjusted gross income was around $82k and my taxable income was $65k. My tax owed was almost $10k and I had paid $13k over the year so I got a refund. My tax rate in 2018 was 9.41% on less earnings. My biggest year was 2017 when my adjusted was over $100k and I owed $18k in taxes for an effective rate of 16.18%. In 2016 my effective rate was 15.49%.

I really don't care for the term "fair share" though because what is fair share? While there are some really super rich individuals like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos that do things like take out loans against their stock to live on (thus holding the stock and not paying gains) the majority of the "wealthy" appear to be paying taxes. The Tax Foundation in February of this year listed some data from 2018 that is very enlightening.

https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/

According to the data in 2018 the top 5% of earners (income cutoff $217k) paid 60.3% of all federal income tax revenue. The average tax rate was 22.0%. Using this as a benchmark a "minimum tax" rate of 22% for the wealthy sounds fair. Kind of like the alternative minimum tax.

[Tommymac]

10. K & R because musk stinks.

[ck4829]

11. K&R