Radical progressive politicians are aiming to implement a wealth tax that will strip Americans of the assets they own. Your Survival Guy has discussed the dangers and problems of wealth taxes before. The wealth tax is a pet project of radical progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). In The Spectator, Lewis M. Andrews discusses Joe Biden’s indirect appeal for “tax fairness” as a stealth push for wealth taxes. Andrews writes:
As the level of US debt zooms past the $34 trillion mark, it has become increasingly clear that the American left has no intention of trying to help control government spending. To the extent that annual deficits must be trimmed to protect the integrity of the nation’s currency, Democrats and their allies are instead planning to go beyond the current progressive tax on income and institute a new levy on citizens’ assets.
Some such as Senator Elizabeth Warren openly advocate taking the conventional idea of a property tax and applying it to everything a person owns — cash, savings accounts, stocks, jewelry and even art. Calling for what she has termed her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax,” Warren would start by imposing a 2 percent federal tax on every dollar of an individual’s net worth over $50 million, adding a percent more on every dollar above $1 billion in net assets. Over time, the tax rates could be increased, and the amounts they cover lowered, to fund new or expanded public programs.
On the other hand, Democrats such as President Biden, knowing that voters are smart enough to realize that the threshold of a wealth tax could someday be dramatically lower, prefer to promote it indirectly. That is, they don’t about the need for a wealth tax, but for “tax fairness.” Biden himself takes every opportunity to complain that Americans worth over $100 million pay only 8 percent of their income in taxes each year, supposedly a much smaller percentage than their fellow citizens.
What the president and others talking tax fairness conveniently fail to mention is that their definition of the wealthy’s undertaxed income includes paper gains on investments, what neither Congress nor the IRS has ever considered real income until the underlying assets have been sold. According to a 2023 study by the Tax Foundation, the top 1 percent of taxpayers actually pay an average income tax rate of 26 percent, the top half an average rate of 14.8 percent, and the bottom half an average 3.1 percent tax rate.
Action Line: The history of income taxes since 1913 is good evidence that a “millionaire tax” will soon become a tax on everyone once it’s implemented. Wealth taxation could wreak havoc on retirement savings, putting those living on a fixed income at risk. Click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
