One Direct Democracy

Billionaire Minimum Income Tax. Adam Radly. One Direct Democracy.

Billionaire Minimum Income Tax? Yes / No?

Billionaire Minimum Income Tax? Yes / No?

Income inequality has become a massive problem. The size of the gap between the ultra-wealthy and regular people increasing at a rapid rate and it cannot be good for society. The question is, what can we do about it? The Biden administration is proposing a new tax that targets the wealthiest people. Is it a good idea?

And, if you could vote on it directly, would you vote for it or against it?

In the meantime, if you’re new to my content, One Direct Democracy is a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people using Direct Democracy. It will also eliminate left and right politics. I’ve created the technology and a plan for how to make it work.

I’ll pick an important issue, give you an outline of the problem, talk about possible solutions then you can decide how you would vote.

In this case, we’ll be talking about how to make sure that billionaires pay their share of taxes.

Okay, so let’s get clear about how this would work. According to this article from CNBC about the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax:

“Biden administration on Monday proposed what it calls the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax, which will require American households worth more than $100 million to pay at least 20% of their income in taxes. Over half the revenue could come from households worth upwards of $1 billion.”

So this tax doesn’t apply to rich people – it only applies to very rich people. The majority of the tax collected will come from the 700 or so billionaires in the US.

One of the supporters of this proposal is Senator Elizabeth Warren. She mentioned in an interview with CNBC that Elon Musk didn’t pay any taxes in 2018.

Warren said, “How much did Elon Musk pay that year? We actually saw his taxes that year and the answer is: He paid zero. The public school teacher did not have the option to pay zero in 2018 or in 2021.”

Warren was citing a ProPublica investigation that found Musk paid zero dollars in 2018 federal income taxes. Musk has said he paid no taxes in 2018 because he draws no salary.

It’s important to understand that we’re really not talking about income tax. We’re talking about taxing capital gains. If you’re an investor or a business owner you know that there are some years where you will sell assets and other years where you won’t sell assets. So you will end up with a big tax bill in one year and potentially pay no capital gains tax in another year.

“Musk is the richest person in the world, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire List, which pegs his net worth at over $290 billion. In February, Musk boasted in a tweet that last year he paid the highest tax bill ever in history for an individual in the U.S.”

Warren takes the view that Musk’s tax was only high in one year and very low in other years. She said:

“Regarding Musk’s massive tax bill, around $11 billion in 2021, after he sold $14 billion in Tesla stock that year, Warren argued that Musk paid very little in past years, which is not an option for most Americans. “

Warren makes the point that Musk didn’t create his wealth alone:

“I’m happy to celebrate success, but let’s remember, Elon Musk didn’t make it on his own. He got huge investments from the government, from taxpayers, from those public school teachers and those minimum wage workers who’ve been paying their taxes all along to get that business up and running and help see it through rough times,”

So what does she mean by “huge investments from the government, from taxpayers”?

“The Massachusetts Democrat was referring to the billions of dollars in U.S. government grant funding, subsidies, and incentives that for years have helped two of Musk’s companies — Tesla and SpaceX. Electric cars and commercial space travel were anything but sure bets in their early years. But now, Tesla has a stock market value of more than $1 trillion and SpaceX is one of the most valuable private companies in the world.”

My personal view is that the increasing income gap is unsustainable for society and needs to be addressed and I do think that billionaires should pay more in taxes. But taxing unrealized gains is very complicated and can have a lot of unintended consequences.

My preference is to use a big estate tax that only allows billionaires to pass a very small percentage of their wealth to their families. They can have the choice to pay the tax or put the money into a charity but the charity will have to have strict guidelines that prevent anyone related to the billionaire from becoming wealthy through the nonprofit. That’s just my opinion.

Okay, let’s look at an example of how this proposal would work. The people at CNBC applied these rules to a scenario hypothetical scenario invoking Mark Zukerberg. [see video]

I’ve created a listing on the ODD platform so that we can develop ideas about the best way to tax billionaires and how to reduce income inequality. You can add your own ideas or vote and comment on ideas from other people. You can also create your own listings for people to vote on. It’s a simple way to get used to using the ODD system.

So that’s the summary of the key issues.

If this proposal became a bill in Congress and you could vote on it directly, would you vote for it or against it?

The reality is that we have reached a point in time in our evolution where Representative Democracy no longer serves the will of the people and technology can solve the problems that made Direct Democracy impractical.

That’s why I created One Direct Democracy. It’s a movement for upgrading the global democratic system by taking the power away from politicians and putting it in the hands of the people by using Direct Democracy.

I’ve created the technology and a plan for how to make this work. We don’t have to convince any politicians or powerful people to do anything to make this happen. We have the power to do it on our own. We just have to decide to do it.

If you’re new to all of this, check out the other videos on my channel and the links in the description. Direct Democracy is the purest form of democracy. Representative Democracy is an outdated blunt instrument.

 

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *