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"Bernie Sanders Enters New Territory: A Wealth Tax," September 20, 2017
Link to tweet
Posted on September 20, 2017
In 1997, in his book, Outsider in the House, he declared it “high time to establish a tax on wealth similar to those that exist in most European countries.”
During the Democratic primary in 2016, the Sanders campaign did consider an official wealth tax, two former officials said, but the idea died over concerns about the reality of implementation and that the tax plan would be perceived as far out of the mainstream.
Last week, he outlined a wealth tax policy for the first time in a white paper released alongside the single-payer bill, with a list of 10 ideas for how to pay for such a program.
“This is something that he's always given some consideration to,” said Warren Gunnels, a policy adviser who has worked for Sanders for 18 years, served on his presidential campaign, and helped craft the new bill.
As outlined in the six-page fact sheet, titled “Options to Finance Medicare-For-All,” Sanders’ federal wealth tax would establish an annual 1% levy on net worth exceeding $21 million. (For a family with $21.5 million in assets, that would mean paying a 1% tax on $500,000, or $5,000. For the wealthiest man in the United States, Bill Gates, whose net worth is speculated to be valued around $86 billion, the annual 1% tax would likely apply to all but a sliver of his net assets, and potentially total hundreds of millions of dollars.)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/with-popular-single-payer-plan-bernie-sanders-enters-new
In 1997, in his book, Outsider in the House, he declared it “high time to establish a tax on wealth similar to those that exist in most European countries.”
During the Democratic primary in 2016, the Sanders campaign did consider an official wealth tax, two former officials said, but the idea died over concerns about the reality of implementation and that the tax plan would be perceived as far out of the mainstream.
Last week, he outlined a wealth tax policy for the first time in a white paper released alongside the single-payer bill, with a list of 10 ideas for how to pay for such a program.
“This is something that he's always given some consideration to,” said Warren Gunnels, a policy adviser who has worked for Sanders for 18 years, served on his presidential campaign, and helped craft the new bill.
As outlined in the six-page fact sheet, titled “Options to Finance Medicare-For-All,” Sanders’ federal wealth tax would establish an annual 1% levy on net worth exceeding $21 million. (For a family with $21.5 million in assets, that would mean paying a 1% tax on $500,000, or $5,000. For the wealthiest man in the United States, Bill Gates, whose net worth is speculated to be valued around $86 billion, the annual 1% tax would likely apply to all but a sliver of his net assets, and potentially total hundreds of millions of dollars.)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rubycramer/with-popular-single-payer-plan-bernie-sanders-enters-new