The “Billionaire Tax”: What It Is and Why We Need It
UPDATE: Senator Ron Wyden has released his “Billionaires Income Tax” legislation—read the language of the bill here: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Billionaires%20Income%20Tax.pdf. As negotiations between President Biden and House and Senate members over the Build Back Better plan have developed in the last few weeks, a new tax proposal to fund the close to $2 billion investment in health care, child care, paid family leave, climate change, and other programs, has come to the fore: a “billionaire tax.” While Senator Wyden and others have been discussing this proposal for some time, it is a relatively unknown concept and would be a new form of federal taxation. Here we briefly explain what it is and why it is an excellent idea. The new proposal is to tax the increased wealth of the richest Americans each year. The tax would apply immediately to tradeable assets—stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and derivatives—where the value of the asset is… Continue reading