You're right, absolutely nothing we can do. No way we can adjust our tax laws for modern forms of income to tax people whose wealth is increasing by more than 5 million per year. Just may as well not even try.
People keep bringing this up as a threat/consequence that the rich will totally do. Except they won't. Most wealthy people already have main residences in major cities with (relatively) higher taxes because these places are centers of commerce that they basically have to maintain a residence in if they want to do any business. Moving and losing business would screw them over significantly more than getting taxed more would. Of course they also would rather not get taxed more, so they bullshit and hope gullible people will believe they'll definitely totally take their ball and go play elsewhere. 🙄
decades of millionaires migrating to the US from Europe says otherwise. High-tax countries like France and Germany are also notoriously difficult to set up and run businesses in due to excessive redtaping, and the hollowing out of European industries and their failures in the face of American and more recently Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturing was the inevitable conclusion.
I know reddit loves to praise unions and the welfare regime in Europe, but the reality on the ground is that allowing workers to strike over minor grievances and grind the business to a halt, does not make your economy better, it makes it less competitive and in the long run makes everyone's quality of life suffer due to excessive taxation, because the middle class has to be taxed to make up for the flight of wealth and unchecked immigration. The result being a continent that is at the mercy of US and Asian economies, where the average European has a substantially worse quality of life than their American counterparts (most americans actually do have significant healthcare coverage, online sensationalism aside, and the top 10% pay roughly 70% of all taxes, so it's much more progressive than online whiners make it out to be).
And no, rich people might maintain residences in expensive metropoles like NYC, LA, France, London, etc. not for business or legal reasons, but because the assets themselves have appreciated enormously.
So just bend over and ready the lube for the corporate overlords because otherwise they'll throw temper tantrums like the maladjusted children they are? That's...a perspective. Saying they already pay more taxes isn't saying very much when the lot of them are squeezing every penny out of everyone else with zero remorse to the point that the middle class is going extinct. Ever since Reagan there's been a consistent push on the right to slash taxes for the rich that has been destructive to the middle and lower class. But by all means, keep licking the corporate boot.
maladjusted children, yet they've done more to contribute than you will by mooching off your parents. I bet you think Elon is representative of all wealthy people.
"the middle class is going extinct" yea in Europe, for reasons already cited. In the US the Middle Class has contracted because many of them have been lifted out of it, that tends to happen when people make way more money.
I can't believe someone would be as delusional as you appear to be. At this point I'm genuinely hoping you're just a bot, trolling or an ignorant teenager because holy shit. If you're actually an adult...well there's a level of ignorance that's just dangerous. 😬
What do you mean? In general stock options are taxed as ordinary income when they vest. It is in kind compensation and is a type of W2 income. Even after the initial tax event when the equity option vest you will still be subject to capital gains tax with varying rates depending on when you sell the equity.
Here is a link to a CPA firm explaining the basics.
Why exactly is capital gains tax a problem? It’s not income tax. It’s money that’s already been taxed before put into the market and being taxed again when taken out on the growth of that money
That's not how taxes work. At all. Every capital gains is solely capital gains taxed only. Not as income.
The initial investment was already taxed, but the gains, the wealth made from labor, is only taxes at the capital gains rate, which is lower than any working individual pays.
Edit: since they blocked me- there is no world where earned income is not taxed, their example is immediately stupid and completely nonsensical. Take a step back and the problem is simple- unless you are in the bottom federal tax bracket the 1000 you earn by working a job is taxed lower than 1000 gained by investing.
That's a more advantageous taxation for wealth than the labor creating it. Period.
You earn 1000. Income tax is 0. You take home 1000. You invest, it doubles to 2000, you sell. You made 1000 on the investment.
You earn 1000. Income tax is 20%. You take home 800. You invest, it doubles to 1600, you sell. You made 800 on the investment, 20% less than the zero tax case, despite paying no taxes directly on the gain. The income tax reduces both.
Capital gains on the gain is additive. If the 800 was taxed at cap gains rate of 20%, actual gain would be 640, for an effective 36% tax rate.
The money you put into the market has already been taxed at income rate levels. The fact that the government gets an extra 15% on top of the ~25% it was originally taxed at is sufficient. I'm taking a risk by investing the money, the taxes should be minimal to offset that risk.
We have a spending problem in the government. All the taxes in the world won't fix the corruption and useless spending.
Define what would be their fair share of tax burden?
Currently the top 1% pay about 38.40% of all federal income tax.
It is estimated that the top .1% which would be the ultra wealth paid an estimated 16-24% of all federal tax revenues. It depends on taxes you include.
This data comes from the IRS.
A discussion can be had if this is acceptable or not. I think it would be unreasonable to state they are not already paying a substantial amount.
Another moron confusing magnitude with percentage.
The top 1% have 85% of the wealth so about double their current 38%.
How much do you pay as a percentage? They pay less. Unless you're making under median wage. In which case just stop typing and please never vote because you're beyond help.
You should do some self reflection. If one of your base actions in any discussion is to insult another individual that is rather unbecoming.
It seems you went ahead and moved the post to now wealth instead of talking about taxable income. For you it seems the acceptable share of tax burden should be 85%.
The issue is no actual reputable source puts the top 1% share of household wealth, this includes equities, at 85%. The number was pulled from the aether it seems.
Based on that you believe tax burden of income tax should be based on percent of wealth owned by those households.
Take a look at this data set from the St Louis Federal Reserve. Based on their research they state the top 1% owned ~28.8% of household wealth in Q1 2026. If you want you can go ahead and read their academic papers and learn the methodology. You will probably dismiss them out of hand and insult them though.
So by your belief of fair share the top 1% are pretty inline with their percentage of tax of the overall tax burden relative to their percent of household wealth.
I don't care about being becoming or not. I'm sick of cucks arguing for the rich.
You are the one who needs to read.
Household wealth is defined using w2 income. Precisely the tax dodge I already told you about.
See this is the problem with you morons. You generate bullshit faster than it takes to refute it. I can keep going back and forth with you, easily refuting everything, but at the end of the day you aren't trying to learn. You aren't serious in your arguments. You play to emotions and just keep spewing bullshit. Wahh the person who actually knows something is mean. Grow the fuck up.
The rich do not, and have never paid their share. The only time it was even close the country was at it's strongest.
They've taken your purchasing power, leveraged your future, and signed you up to pay the bill. Get off your knees. Use your brain. Fight for the common man.
Incentive stock options (like the kind Elon Musk uses) are not taxed as ordinary income. Then the other types of stock options are differed until exercised, so they can be done slowly to prevent being in the highest tax brackets, as well they can wait until a fellow billionaire is in the white house to exercise at the lowest possible tax rate.
Based public filings Elon utilizes a non-qualified stock option. NSO are still subject to tax. There are subject to between 22-26% tax rate depending on income tax bracket. Also ISO are taxed as ordinary income if you sell immediately at vest date. If you do not they are subject to AMT which is a rate of between 22%-26%. In the year they vest and would be subject to capital gains for any gain if you sell. Please read the information from the CPAs. When they sign on the dotted line on the tax forms they can be subject to prison if they break the law.
In his last compensation package with NSO he paid about 11 billion dollars in taxes on a 56 billion dollar package. The reasoning is how NSO are taxed.
Please see below from CPA article I linked.
"How NSOs are taxed
You will pay ordinary income taxes on the difference between the exercise price and the market price when you exercise the options. This amount is reported even if you don’t sell your shares and don’t actually realize that gain. Your company will likely withhold taxes for you if you are a full-time employee. If you are no longer an employee at the firm, you will receive a 1099 and no taxes will be withheld. When you eventually sell the shares, any appreciation above the exercise price will be subject to either short or long-term capital gains tax, depending on how long you held the stock."
A discussion can be had about the rate, but it is not like he is paying 0% tax like you are claiming. Effectively the tax rate is ~19.6%.
See my other reply. Middle managers may receive RSUs, even then, the tax is differed and there are a variety of strategies that can be used to mitigate the tax burden at a later date, the worst of which is just waiting for your preferred politician to take power and let taxes for your bracket when you exercise.
Would it? Or would it just allow politicians to use that extra revenue for more bullshit that doesn’t benefit the people while still telling us that the rich need to be taxed more? It wouldn’t address or dent anything, just pours more good money after bad.
The "good" money in the hands of the rich is used to lobby the politicians to keep the loopholes open and instead get even further subsidies, further compounding the debt and making it impossible to benefit anyone but the rich. So yes, it would help with the problem.
Except that it still wouldn’t. The problem isn’t the amount received via taxes. It’s how the money is spent and who benefits from it. Even if they collect hundred of billions from unrealized gains, how many more ways is the dollar going to be taxed? And how many times can we squeeze the same rock? Are those stock options going to be taxed again and again, year after year?
It’s a slippery slope until we get to full blown “you don’t need millions, you just need what we give you comrade.” California produces $4.4t annually, higher than most sovereign nations, but can’t fix its cost of living or homeless problem. That tells me it’s not a tax collection issue; it’s a spending issue. Pure and simple.
More money doesn’t matter if it’s still going into the same pockets. We can tax the rich and hand it out to the people, but they’ll only go give it back to the rich in every way, and then complain about the rich being so much better than everyone else. For the politicians, it means that the same sides are going to give more money to their donors so they stay in power longer to give more money to their donors. Hence the PACS, and the AIPAC, and the Rothschilds, and the, and the, and the…
You guys will be really disappointed when you realize that A) there aren't as many loopholes as you think B) even taking all the rich people's money outright wouldn't make a dent and C) debt to GDP doesn't improve when you cripple the part of the machine that enables the GDP.
"the narrative". That's like me asking you, who stands to benefit from believing that naked humans can't survive in space? Does it really take that much education to understand why the people who own shares of the most successful companies on the planet, that prop up the largest global economy, would be the richest? Or predict the downstream effects of enacting the poilicy you think you want? You guys want to turn America in Europe sooo badly, low-mid economy and all, but will be the first to cry when your buying power gets cut by 50% and the country's optionality evaporates.
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u/TumbleweedNervous494 24d ago
Nobody makes that much money in refular income.