March 4, 2021
5 min read
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billionaires The Americans would have paid a combined amount of 114 billion dollars by 2020, under the “ultra-million dollar” tax proposed on Monday by the senator. Elizabeth Warren Massachusetts, according to two tax groups.
The bill, called Ultra Million Tax Law, would apply an annual tax of 2% on the individual net worth between $ 50 and $ 1 billion. Individuals should pay a 3% annual net worth tax of more than $ 1 billion.
Warren said the tax will affect only about 100,000 American families and that the nation’s billionaires will pay about half of the total tax.
About 650 billionaires in the nation have a collective wealth of more than $ 4.2 trillion, Americans said for tax fairness and the Institute for Draft Policy Studies on Inequality, based their estimates on Forbes data. Their fortunes have increased by about 44 percent since March 2020, when pandemic closures began in the United States, the groups said.
Based on the wealth of American billionaires at the end of 2020, for more than a decade, the wealth tax on them alone would fund about three-quarters of President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus aid package. said officials.
And about a third of the property tax would have been paid by the richest 15 Americans, who together have a fortune of over $ 2.1 trillion.
A separate analysis from the University of California at Berkeley, quoted by Warren, estimated that the tax will generate revenue of $ 3 trillion over 10 years.
Warren proposed that the new federal money be invested in programs such as child care, education and infrastructure.
This is what Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, the richest people in the country at the end of 2020, according to Forbes data, would have paid for 2020 based on the wealth tax proposal, according to ATF and IPS calculations.
Jeff Bezos: $ 5.7 billion
Image: Alex Wong / Getty Images
The outgoing Amazon CEO would have paid $ 5.7 billion in wealth taxes by 2020, ATF and IPS said. At the end of 2020, it was worth $ 191.2 billion, according to Forbes data.
Washington lawmakers have also proposed a tax on state billionaires. Bezos would pay nearly $ 2 billion a year under this tax.
Elon Musk: $ 4.6 billion
Image: Maja Hitij / Getty Images
Musk, the technology billionaire behind Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and The Boring Company, is said to have paid $ 4.6 billion for 2020 according to Warren’s proposal, ATF and IPS said.
At the end of 2020, Musk’s real-time value was 153.5 billion euros, after his fortune multiplied by more than six in 10 months, according to data from Forbes.
Bill Gates: $ 3.6 billion
Imagen: Dursun Aydemir / Agenția Anadolu / Getty Images
Gates, who had a fortune of $ 120 billion in December, according to Forbes, allegedly paid $ 3.6 billion in real estate taxes during the year, ATF and IPS said.
Mark Zuckerberg: $ 3 billion
Image: Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
The Facebook CEO reportedly paid about $ 3 billion in wealth taxes by 2020, ATF and IPS said. At the end of 2020, worth $ 99.9 billion, according to Forbes.
The momentum of the wealth tax increased during the pandemic
An Oxfam report found that billionaires’ wealth increased by $ 3.9 trillion from March to December globally. Raising the world’s 10 richest billionaires could pay for everyone to get vaccinated and stay out of poverty, Oxfam said. Meanwhile, in the second half of 2020, 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty.
Oxfam suggested that wealth taxes could be a good option to reverse this. In December, academics published a 50-year study of tax cuts for the rich, which suggests that the “leakage” economy has exacerbated inequalities and not led to growth or employment.
“Growing the wealth of billionaires amid an economic and health crisis weighing on millions of Americans is one of the best reasons for passing the Ultra Millionaire Tax Act,” said Frank Clemente, the United States’ chief executive officer for taxation.
“This legislation will narrow the destabilizing gap in national wealth while raising billions of dollars from billionaires and other super-rich people.”
Argentina became the first country to respond to the pandemic with a single “million dollar tax.” Less than one in 100 beneficiaries will pay the tax, which the government hopes will raise $ 3.78 billion to help pay for its response to the pandemic.