Editor’s note: Abyel Disney is the Amy Prize -winning documentary, activist, and a member of the National Millions. The latest her latest movie, “The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales”, participating with Kathleen Hughes, his first international show at the Sundance Film Festival 2022. Morris Perl is the head of the National Millions, and the former administrative director of Blackrock. The opinions expressed in this comment are their own. View more opinion on CNN.
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On Tuesday is the day of taxes in America, one of the most exhausting days of the year, when many taxpayers finally finally finish their procrastination, offer their federal returns, and hope for money recovery from the Tax Authority. But for many of the richest nation, it is just another Tuesday.
The tax day is not just a deadline for the deposit-it is also an annual reminder that the very rich presence in a completely separate world when it comes to taxes. For us, the gaps are larger and sometimes the rates are lower. At the same time, the wealthy continue to become richer, with wealth One of the billionaires in particular grows more than $ 1.5 trillion over the past few years.
This current situation is unfair, but most importantly, it is not sustainable. Such high levels of inequality pushing our economy and democracy to collapse points. For this reason we must study how we can prepare our country for stability and prosperity in the long run. We must start by making sure that the wealthy pushes more than they owe to the country that made their success possible.
There are three changes to the tax law that will help us to do so:
Currently, the American tax system appreciates money on sweat. If you are working hard for your money instead of earning it negatively, you mainly punish this. People who earn salaries salaries much higher than their income from wealthy investors who earn negatively Capital gains income.
Inheritance of money is a better deal. Thanks to former President Donald Trump 2017 Tax lawThe first 12.92 million dollars (or 25.84 million dollars for the couple) is completely exempt from any Real estate taxand The foundation of the foundation of the foundation The wealthy families permanently allow millions to wipe out the taxes of capital gains by reseting the market value of these assets to their value at the time of the death of the original owner. However, it becomes relatively simple for the wealthy to dozens of inheritance, up to hundreds of millions of dollars, and they do not pay almost anything in taxes. A person works for these funds, on the other hand, will pay more than a third of them in federal income taxes.
Why do we have a tax law that says taxes must be imposed on people more than wealthy investors and those who have become rich by virtue of the newborn in the appropriate family? At the end of the day, money is money, whether you work for it or if you have inherited it. As a heir and an investor, we should not pay less tax rates than people who earn their money from work.
It is time to treat the tax law on all income equally by imposing taxes on all capital gains that exceed one million dollars with the same rates of ordinary income, and replace the real estate tax that suffers from the vulnerability with the simplest inheritance tax that treats the inherited wealth as income.
However, we can not focus only on income, because many of the richest Americans earn any taxable income of any kind in a typical year. Taxes are not imposed on capital gains except when selling assets, so instead of selling them, the wealthy uses their assets as a guarantee to borrow huge sums of money at very low interest rates to live in, then declares a small or even negative “income” in their tax forms. The “purchase, borrowing and death” strategy is a major cause of billionaires who paid a The rate of effective tax is low During the last years of the working class families.
By rethinking what is taxable, we can reach trillion dollars from billionaire wealth that cannot be prejudiced under our current tax structure. For this reason, President Biden suggested The minimum income tax is billionaireWhich would impose taxes on unreasonable capital gains for the richer families and why others suggested wealth taxes on billionaires.
Finally, one of the most required direct changes is just a very wealthy taxes than just the rich. our income tax It reaches the highest rate of 37 % for any income of more than $ 578125 (or 693,750 dollars for married couples). Regardless of how much someone makes, they will never pay more than 37 % of federal income taxes.
While someone earns $ 600,000 makes it certain to live a very comfortable life, in a different world from someone who gets $ 600 million a year. In order to reflect the real differences between the rich and the rich, we need to return to The highest prices We had through the most prosperous contracts in the twentieth century and adding more tax brackets. They should reach 90 % for people who get more than $ 100 million per year.
Certainly, these three changes will not fit all the problems of our country on its own, but they will make a long way to stop the continuous flow of our country’s wealth towards a smaller and smaller group of people, a change that would make our democracy and economy more stable. The tax law can be a powerful tool for social and economic change. We just need to use it more effectively.