Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reintroduced her signature “Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act” for consideration on Tuesday, calling for higher taxes and asset confiscation on the 100,000 wealthiest households in the country.
“As President Biden says, no one thinks it’s fair that Jeff Bezos gets enough tax loopholes that he pays at a lower rate than a public school teacher,” Warren said in a statement. “All my bill is asking is that when you make it big, bigger than $50 million dollars, then on that next dollar, you pitch in two cents, so everyone else can have a chance.”
President Biden wants to tax billionaires and invest in affordable child care.
That means most families will pay less than $10 a day for child care — and they won’t keep paying higher tax rates than Jeff Bezos. https://t.co/nEPaCwFXx2
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 20, 2024
Under Warren’s proposed bill, the government would level an additional 2 percent tax on households making between $50 million and $1 billion, and a 3 percent tax on those worth over $1 billion. The bill also contains additional rules cracking down on tax avoidance for wealth held in trusts, providing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with $100 billion for new auditing and enforcement efforts.
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Warren specified that the bill would only affect roughly 0.05 percent of the population, but critics warn that the proposal would also allow the new IRS resources to target middle and lower-class households as well.
If passed, the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act would also place a staggering 40 percent “exit tax” on people with over $50 million who renounce their US citizenship and relocate their wealth elsewhere.
According to the Wharton Budget Model at the University of Pennsylvania, Warren’s bill would raise $2.7 trillion in tax revenue in the next 10 years. It also indicated that the wealth tax would reduce capital by 3.1%, slash average hourly wages by 1.2%, and reduce GDP by 1.2% in 2050.
Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Brendan Boyle (D-PA) have introduced a companion bill in the House of Representatives.
Dan Savickas, director of policy at the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, warned that the reintroduced bill will “cost jobs” and hurt the “working people Senator Warren purports to champion.”
“It is clear that lawmakers at the highest levels of government fundamentally misunderstand what net worth actually means,” he said. “Senator Warren’s proposal sets out to tax wealth as if net worth reflected cash in the bank. It paints a fictional ‘Scrooge McDuck’ image of these billionaires storing their own money in large swimming pools, just laying around.”
“A tax on wealth is a tax on gains that have not been realized. Innovators and investors cannot pay off something they don’t have,” he continued. “In order to comply with Senator Warren’s ridiculous scheme to boost her political profile, these businessmen and businesswomen will have to sell off these assets or shrink their operations.”
Connor Walcott is a staff writer for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X and look for him on VT’s “The Unusual Suspects.”
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