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Abigail Disney, Brian Cox and Valerie Rockefeller among signatories of open letter condemning inequality
More than 250 billionaires and millionaires are demanding that the political elite meeting for the World Economic Forum in Davos introduce wealth taxes to help pay for better public services around the world.
“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” the wealthy people said in an open letter to world leaders. “This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”
The rich signatories from 17 countries include Disney heir Abigail Disney; Brian Cox who played fictional billionaire Logan Roy in Succession; actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg; and Valerie Rockefeller , an heir to the US dynasty.
Warren Buffet was one of the first I heard a few years ago say he’s not being taxed enough and they should be taxing companies like his more. I think this was related to him signing up to the Gates fund which will see most of his wealth donated to charity.
There were others that were not happy with Buffet’s comments about taxing billionaires more. It’s nowhere near as high as Britain which spurred on the Taxman song by the Beatles. At that point 90 percent was going to the tax man then. Britain still had an enormous debt from WW2 and left over from WW1 they were still trying to pay off.
For the US I did hear a argument being made for a return to corporate taxes levels pre Reagan as that was a time when corporations and industry in America contributed a lot to society. The tax rate was like 58 percent if I recall correctly from the interview and the companies paid their staff well and they invested into a great deal of research like Bell Labs as preferred ways to earn write offs to not give the taxes to the government.
Back in the day, corporate taxes were like 25% of federal revenues. After Trump’s tax cuts, it’s down to 10%. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1edSi
High corporate tax rates encourages companies not to have profits - pay their revenues out as wages, research new technologies, build infrastructure. Do useful shit with their gains rather than just sit on big bags of cash.
Looking at you Apple
That would be $99 for iSee!
90% wasn’t going to the Taxman, only 90% of the top tax bracket. The effective rate was likely significantly lower.
Buffet avoided and skirted taxes (legally). Him saying he “should be taxed more” is just moral fronting. He could easily pay more taxes if he wants. He just has to stop using all the extremely expensive tax lawyers that move his money around dozens of companies in tax havens….