Sanders took shots at Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos over their space exploration ambitions.
“The taxman cometh.”
Ben Franklin’s ominous quote about rendering taxes unto Caesar has greater significance to the country’s highest earners as the Biden administration looks to boost revenue.
President Joe Biden has floated a 20% minimum tax on billionaires in his 2023 budget proposal.
The new taxation plan could raise an additional $360 billion in new tax revenue over the next decade on the backs of the wealthiest Americans, including the roughly 700 billionaires that call the U.S. home.
The tax targets households worth more than $100 million that do not already pay 20% in taxes.
Biden’s proposal comes a little more than four years after his predecessor Donald Trump signed his 2017 tax-cut into law. While Biden ran on the idea that he would roll back Trump’s tax rules, there is now little chance the cuts are ever repealed, according to some political watchers.
Democrats have a reputation for increasing taxes and Biden’s election, along with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, was the first signal that the wealthy would be paying more.
Bernie Takes Aim at U.S. Oligarchs
Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) has made a career of looking to tax the rich.
The self-described democratic socialist has clashed with some of the richest people in the country, and this week he took shots at all of them.
“Anyone who thinks we do not have an oligarchy right here in America is sorely mistaken. Multi-billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson are off taking joy rides on their rocket ships to outer space,” Sanders said in a speech this week.
Musk is the CEO of SpaceX, Bezos is the CEO of Blue Origin and Branson is the founder of Virgin Galactic (SPCE) – Get Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc Report.
The U.S. has a progressive tax system that takes increases tax rates for wealthier income brackets. Progressive taxes are designed to redistribute wealth from the highest earners to the lowest.
However, wealth is being redistributed from the lowest earners to the highest in the U.S., according to Sanders.
“Over the last 45 years in this country there has been a massive redistribution of wealth. The problem is it has gone in precisely the wrong direction. Today in our country the very very wealthiest people are becoming phenomenally wealthier, while at the same time over half of the people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck,” Sander said.
Sanders wasn’t the only Democratic Senator taking shots at the wealthy this week.
Elizabeth Warren Feuds With Elon Musk
On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a longtime advocate for increasing taxes on the wealthy, went on CNBC to discuss Biden’s tax plan.
The former presidential candidate has also been a longtime adversary of Musk, and on Tuesday she used the interview to continue her feud with the world’s richest man.
“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 have been paying their taxes all along,” Warren said in response to a question about her criticism of Musk.
“All we’re saying is that when you make it to the top, pay something in so everybody else gets a share,” she said.
“Elon Musk paying this sure is great, because he chose to sell some stock. 2018, (he was)also one of the richest people in the world, how much did Elon Musk pay that year? He paid zero,” Warren said.
Tuesday wasn’t the first time Warren claimed that Musk paid zero taxes in 2018.
“Elon Musk in 2018, we’ve actually seen his tax returns. You know how much he paid in taxes, one of the richest people in the world? Zero,” Warren said in February.
Musk famously sold a bunch of Tesla stock late last year in order to pay an $11 billion tax bill.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index has Musk well ahead of second place Jeff Bezos, with a total net worth of $275 billion.
