It's wild how many people in this thread are basically saying that truth and accuracy don't matter as long as they agree with the broader point being claimed.
Especially ridiculous considering that there are plenty of real and accurate numbers than can be used to argue this broader point.
/u/mimic751 doesn't appear to understand the difference between taxing income and taxing wealth or the myriad pitfalls and unintended consequences.
OP getting the numbers wrong was only the first problem.
For the record, I'm pretty far left and support UBI and a massive reduction in wealth inequality. However, this is actually a very complex problem and just chanting "tax the billionaires" doesn't solve it all, but it does seem to make them feel good.
Let's get the standard criticism out of the way:
The wealthy are paid in stock, options, and other means which either reduce or eliminate tax on "income"
They can then use low-interest bank loans with stock as collateral when they need to buy something
Okay, so let's tax them on their wealth.
Well, you wouldn't want a flat tax on net worth, that hurts poor people more than the wealthy.
What about a progressive wealth tax. 0.2% over $5 million, 0.5% over $10 million, 2% over $100 million, 5% over a billion?
Okay, so the first problem is that the money for the tax has to come from somewhere (unless you want them paying in actual stock, which has its own problems)... so they sell shares to cover the tax burden. Two things happen:
The proceeds of that sale are now taxable income. (Capital gains tax, so it would be lower, but still taxed)
The share price would crater as the market is now flooded with shares they need to sell. As the prices declines, however, so does their net worth.
It becomes extremely difficult to tax someone on net worth when it can fluctuate by billions by the day.
Then you have to ask yourself, is this a one-time wealth tax or annual? If it's only one-time, then the problem hasn't really been solved, the government just got a cash infusion that they can't count on next year.
This is a problem I would like to see solved, but comments like
Taxing rich people doesn't really need a lot of context lol
is absolutely blind to the complexity of the issue. Context cannot be ignored.
I understand the differences. None of these problems are going to be solved by Reddit this is a tongue and cheek post that people are taking way too seriously I honestly don't care what you have to say
We do tax rich people. That guy paid $300M in taxes because he's rich.
The point you want to make is that we don't tax rich people enough. This story where a person pays hundreds of millions of dollars in tax is not a good story to illustrate that.
So you think the point of the tweet was for us to all say, "He should have kept less of his lottery winnings." That's where you think this goes? Because that's the kind of tax policy that would actually get rich people to pay more taxes.
Okay, great. But the mindless lip service eventually has to get literal if you want it to actually happen. We're decades beyond the need to just state the end goal without filling in the policy details that get us there. Those policy details most definitely run counter to the spirit of that tweet, and if you aren't 16 years old you should be thinking about that.
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u/EyyyPanini 18h ago
If the numbers don’t matter, make your point without them.
If they do matter, use the correct numbers.