US Billionaires Have Doubled Their Wealth Since 2017 Trump Tax Overhaul
Billionaires now control 1 out of every 25 dollars of American wealth.
Over the past years in the U.S., everyday Americans have been increasingly crushedunder greed-driven inflation and debt, with homelessness hitting record highs. But as this modern affordability crisis has rocked households across the country, billionaire wealth has skyrocketed — and has now hit an all-time high, a new analysis reveals.
As of this month, the U.S.’s 806 billionaires are worth a collective $5.8 trillion, meaning that they control 1 in every 25 dollars of American wealth, according to an Americans for Tax Fairness report released Monday.
Due in part to the 2017 tax overhaul by Republicans, led by Donald Trump, this small group has seen an explosion of wealth in an extremely short amount of time.
Since the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, U.S. billionaire wealth has doubled, from an already staggering $2.9 trillion. In 2017, none of the richest Americans were centi-billionaires, meaning that they did not have over $100 billion; now, the top 10 U.S. billionaires are all centi-billionaires, according to the report.
https://truthout.org/articles/us-billionaires-have-doubled-their-wealth-since-2017-trump-tax-overhaul/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
The typical conservative argument I see is that they "already pay the most in taxes," which may be true in absolute terms, but disguises that they pay less of a portion of their wealth than anyone else.
Call me crazy, but I think the people who benefit most from society should pay more back into it, especially since billionaires get their dragon-horde by exploiting labor.
The article tied to the report is much more informative
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/tax-day-approaches-new-study-finds-u-s-billionaires-now-worth-record-5-8-trillion/
The Tax Cuts Billionaires And Other Wealthy Americans Don’t Need Extended
Below are the parts of the Trump-GOP tax law set to expire at the end of 2025 that exclusively or predominantly benefit the wealthy–including billionaires:
The central component of the Trump law was a two-fifths cut in the corporate tax rate, from 35% to 21%. Corporate tax cuts are almost synonymous with tax cuts for the wealthy, because it’s overwhelmingly rich people–prominently including billionaires–who own corporations through their stock holdings. To make the bill look less costly in order to conform to Congressional budget rules, it also included some tightening of rules on corporate tax deductions.
But implementation of these revenue raisers was delayed for several years with the clear expectation on the part of the Republican tax writers and their corporate backers that they would be revoked before ever coming into effect. Surprisingly, preemptive repeal efforts failed and now the GOP goal is to retroactively quash these sensible restrictions on corporate tax dodging.
The recent effective tax hikes on corporations that Republicans want to reverse are:
It's also worth noting that the March '24 Biden budget proposal brings the $400k+ income back up to 39% from Trump's 37.5$ and tackled a number of other loopholes for the wealthy and included several benefits for the middle class. I'm not able to find what was actually in the approved budget though.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/09/politics/2024-budget-joe-biden-explainer/index.html
Here’s what’s in Biden’s budget proposal
Place a minimum tax on billionaires:
Increase the corporate tax rate:
Repealing Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy:
Our governor: socialism has never worked! That means you must remove all social services. I disband the Postal Service if I could.
Also our governor: if capitalism isn’t working, we just haven’t deregulated enough.
Which one? There are so many that fit the description.
A rule of thumb for invested money is that it doubles every 7 years. It’s possible that it’s more to do with time than the tax break. It was likely to happen anyway.
On the other hand, billionaire wealth isn’t just invested moneys, it’s usually corporate fuckery.
That said, let’s ACTUALLY tax the fuck out of it and put it to good use.
I don't think an 80% tax rate is too much. Billionaires shouldn't exist and now we're moving closer to having a trillionaire.
Sky high rent, insane greedflation food prices? Looks like we are headed for even more of the same come November, in orange spades this time.
You may have missed the SOTU when Biden addressed these concerns.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/03/05/remarks-by-president-biden-and-members-of-the-competition-council-announcing-new-actions-to-lower-costs-for-hardworking-families-by-fighting-corporate-rip-offs/
Harsh words and no teeth to anything. He calls them out, but has no way to do anything about it.
He started two days later.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-is-taking-action-to-lower-costs-for-families-and-fight-corporate-rip-offs/
All there are so far are announcements, meanwhile we still have high inflation, corporate greed, layoffs, and no real pain or repercussions for the wealthy. They still just pass on any penalties to consumers and workers. This is all a dog and pony show, it's bullshit.
This is the action, posed two days later.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-lowers-costs-for-the-american-people/
-Joe Biden to billionaires in 2019
That’s simply not true.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-cuts-taxes-for-working-families-and-makes-big-corporations-and-the-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share/
Huh?
He said that...
Are you arguing that after saying that things fundemantelly did change for billionaires?
Because they're still making insane gains to their net worth...
But I really did think this is the one campaign promise he kept. So it's strange to see people claim it wasn't.
They are making insane gains due to the 2017 tax cuts that expired for lower and middle class, but are still in effect for the top income earners, coupled with loopholes/breaks/incentives that are being addressed with his tax reform proposal. I’m not saying Biden’s proposals will fix everything, but it’s a large step away from Trump’s engorgement of the wealthy.
Mate...
They were making too much before the 17 cuts, and 7 years later they'll still making too much.
Biden said that two years after the cuts went into effect, and nothing has fundamentally changed.
Like, you got that right? 2019 was after 2017?
He said this at the SOTU address this year. The proposal is dated March 2024. I agree that billionaires inflated greatly in recent years. The last tax proposal was put in place by Trump in 2017, with massive breaks for the wealthy. The cuts for the low and middle class expired last year, while the breaks for the wealthy aren’t set to expire until December of this year. Trump put capitalism into overdrive in his second year in office.
So...
You're saying when Biden said "nothing will fundamentally change"
That he was being dishonest, because he has changed something significant?
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-is-taking-action-to-lower-costs-for-families-and-fight-corporate-rip-offs/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/03/11/fact-sheet-the-presidents-budget-cuts-taxes-for-working-families-and-makes-big-corporations-and-the-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share/
1/25=4%
According to Google, there are 735 billionaires in the US, and the US population is 336,269,260. That makes Billionaires about 0.000002% of the population.
And they control 4% of the wealth. (And that's probably not counting money they have hidden and sheltered.)
For reference, 4% of the population would be 13,450,770.
So 735 people have as much wealth as would be held by about 13.5 million people, if all wealth was distributed evenly. So each billionaire would be worth about 18,000 people.
But, it's even worse in our current distribution:
And, since money is free speech, that means these 735 billionaires have 1.5 times the voice of 65 million people, the majority of Americans, combined.
We've gone full oligarchy.