The wealth of the richest 50 people is equivalent to half that of the whole country, and the United States plans to levy a "rich tax" on both the rich and the poor.

Recently, in view of the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States, US Democratic Senators elizabeth warren and bernie sanders formally submitted a bill called the Super Millionaire Tax Act.

The bill proposes to impose heavy taxes on the super-rich. For families with net assets (including trust) of 50 million-654.38+0 billion yuan, the annual tax is 2%; Tax 3% per year on families with net assets exceeding 654.38+0 billion.

Lawmakers hope to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor through the "rich tax".

In 2020, the total wealth of the richest 65,438+000 people in the United States increased by 598 billion dollars. If this bill is finally successfully enacted and put into practice, 13% of these wealth will be paid as tax.

The richest 100 "super rich" in the United States will pay more than $78 billion in taxes.

The first to be affected are the well-known "big brothers". According to Bloomberg's analysis, if the bill becomes law, in 20021year, Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, will face at least $5.4 billion in additional taxes, Elon Musk will pay $5.2 billion, Bill Gates will pay $4 billion and Mark Zuckerberg will pay $2.9 billion.

This bill can be said to be aimed at the money bag of the super rich. Then why attack the rich man's purse?

On the one hand, the US government is really short of money.

In 2020, as the country with the largest number of confirmed cases in the world, the American economy was hit hard. The U.S. government has passed several rounds of economic aid bills and started helicopter-style fund distribution. As a result, the US government's fiscal deficit and public debt reached the highest level since World War II. In fiscal year 2020, the total budget deficit of the US government exceeded $ 3. 1 trillion, and the annual interest expenditure of the US government has reached $500 billion.

The deficit and debt are both high, and the "lack of money" has caused the federal government to face "closed doors" several times. People are increasingly dissatisfied with the government's economic policies. In this case, it has become the consensus of the two parties in Congress to reform the current economic policies, including the tax system, in order to achieve the purpose of "increasing revenue and reducing expenditure".

In short, after massive blood transfusion, the US government now needs to return blood.

Emmanuel Saz and Gabriel Zuckerman, economists at the University of California, Berkeley, analyzed that if the proposal is passed, the US government will generate at least $3 trillion in revenue within 10, which can alleviate the debt pressure. At the same time, this part of the "wealth tax" will also be used for infrastructure, child care and medical reform.

On the other hand, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States has also reached a very serious level.

According to data released by the Federal Reserve last year, in 2020, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States will further widen. The top 65,438+0% of the rich have a total net worth of $34.2 trillion, and the richest 65,438+00% of households in the United States hold 69% of the country's wealth; The total wealth of the poorest 65,438+65 million people is only $2.08 trillion, accounting for 1.9% of the total family wealth in China.

The data also shows that the wealth of the richest 50 people in the United States is equivalent to the sum of the wealth of half the people in the United States.

The income at the top of society has soared rapidly, largely because of the squeeze on the bottom of society. The polarization between the rich and the poor caused by Matthew effect has intensified in the epidemic crisis.

Under the epidemic, all walks of life are affected to varying degrees. Unemployment and laid-off are common, low-income people engaged in service industries are seriously unemployed, and non-white ethnic groups have also suffered more infections and deaths.

Compared with the poor who are struggling on the edge of society, the rich in the United States enjoy the feast of asset bubbles brought about by the big water release because they hold assets such as equity and real estate. With the continuous rise of the stock market and the appreciation of real estate, their value has also risen.

At present, the gap between the rich and the poor in America has affected social stability. In the past year, many riots in the United States were related to the gap between the rich and the poor.

This drama of "increasing taxes on the rich" has happened several times in history, but most of the time the rich have found a breakthrough.

From 65438 to 0950, the marginal tax rate of progressive personal income tax in the United States increased many times, and the highest income tax rate was as high as 9 1%. This means that when you earn more money, if you earn another 65,438+million, you must hand in 90,000 of them.

But the rich are not vegetarians. They quickly hire top lawyers to find a breakthrough in the tax bill. At the same time, rich people from all walks of life lobbied members of Congress to formulate various "tax exemption clauses". The writer suggests that the copyright income of special works should be taxed less, while the entrepreneur suggests that the production and sales of certain commodities should be taxed less. ......

2 1 century, the tax avoidance strategy of the super-rich has also been upgraded. Registering a divorce company, converting wages into equity options, transferring tax burden, emigrating overseas and setting up charitable trust funds are all routine operations for these rich people to avoid taxes.

According to media reports, Biden is worried about fulfilling his campaign promise to levy trillions of dollars in new taxes on the rich. In 2020, a group of rich people in the United States suddenly retired and transferred their property to countries with lower tax burdens.

According to the data released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in 2020, * * * 58 16 Americans gave up their American citizenship, much higher than the 2,072 in 20 19.

Compared with the complex tax exemption, large multinational companies directly choose to take advantage of the policy differences of different sovereign countries to maximize their own interests, which is completely legal.

According to The New York Times's report, in 20 1 1 year, Apple's profit was $34.2 billion, and global tax payment was $3.3 billion, accounting for 9.8% of the profit, but overseas tax payment only accounted for 3.2% of the overseas profit. More interestingly, Amazon has paid zero taxes for many times. According to the federal tax law, the government has to pay back 266 million US dollars in taxes to Amazon. ...

In a capitalist country like the United States, whether to increase taxes on the rich and how to increase taxes on the rich are very thorny issues. In today's free flow of capital, raising taxes on the rich means that the rich run away with capital, and the departure of capital means drawing blood from the economy.

So the ultimate goal of taxing the rich is how to tax the rich. Around the rich tax, the struggle between Biden's government and the rich is a predictable drama.

Text/Frida Meng Intern Xiang Li