Wealthy Americans like us have rigged the tax code to give ourselves countless handouts, leaving working people paying higher rates than billionaires. We need to build a tax system that puts a check on the extreme inequality that threatens our economy and our democracy.
Today, America’s 800+ billionaires hold more wealth than the 66 million households that make up the bottom half of the country. And yet, because of the way our tax code is structured, they somehow manage to pay lower tax rates than working people.
We started our campaign to urge lawmakers to right this wrong and restore some semblance of fairness to the tax system. There is no reason why investors like many of us should get to pay lower tax rates on the money we make from our wealth than nurses and firefighters do on the money they earn through their blood, sweat, and tears. There is no reason why we should get to pass down large fortunes to our children and grandchildren that have never and will never be taxed. And there is absolutely, positively, no reason whatsoever why billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos should be able to get away with paying $0 in federal income taxes. (Yes, that actually happened.)
“Tax cuts for the wealthy have never and will never stimulate the economy and create jobs. What they do is make rich trust fund kids like me even richer through utterly unfair means. Most of us are not going out and starting successful businesses, employing workers, or even buying that many goods. We're just sitting on our wealth and letting it accumulate.”
Ian Brownell, Patriotic Millionaire
But the issue with taxes goes beyond just a question about fairness. It’s also about reducing extreme levels of economic inequality, putting a check on the ultra-wealthy’s power, and safeguarding our democracy.
The dirty little secret to having a lot of money is that it comes with power. On account of their wealth, billionaires have the ability to buy mainstream media outlets and entire social media platforms at the drop of a hat. They can spew tons of toxins into the atmosphere with their private jets, superyachts, and spaceships – setting our shared planet on fire in the process – and nobody will stop them. And most importantly, they can bankroll election campaigns, right-wing institutes that provide intellectual backing for policies that help their economic interests, and other political entities to the tune of billions, virtually guaranteeing that their preferred candidates come out on top on Election Day and that a network is already in place for those candidates to do their bidding once in office.
Inequality is a major problem, but the good news is that the solution is simple and staring us all right in the face: taxes. Reforming our tax code to ensure that wealthy people like us finally start paying what we owe is the simplest and single most important thing that lawmakers can do to put a check on democracy-destabilizing inequality. What’s even better is that there are already plenty of specific legislative solutions out there for elected officials to choose from to achieve this aim. The Patriotic Millionaires have offered a number of them ourselves through our legislative platform, AMERICA 250: The Money Agenda.
Let’s be clear: no one, including us, likes Tax Day. But we recognize that we have a patriotic duty to pay taxes along with our fellow citizens, and would be happy and proud to pay more if it means securing the future health and stability of our beloved country.
Tax the rich!
Tax the Rich! How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer
In Tax the Rich! former BlackRock executive Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, and Erica Payne, our Founder and President, take readers on an engaging and enlightening insider’s tour of the nation’s tax code, explaining exactly how the rich — and the politicians they control — manipulate the tax code to ensure they get richer and everyone else is left holding the bag.
States are ramping up efforts to tax the super rich
It’s clearer than ever that the effects of the national rise in economic inequality are spilling over into local communities. With the federal government lacking the necessary urgency to respond to and address the crisis, states are taking matters into their own hands and proposing their own millionaire taxes. From coast to coast, officials have proposed all sorts of measures to raise the wealthy’s tax bills.
According to President Trump, the state of America’s union is STRONG, the Golden Age is upon us, and “we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it.” All true…for multimillionaires like us. For the 86% of Americans who are worried about the price of groceries? Not so much.
What the Epstein files tell us about extreme wealth
Most of the reporting around the Epstein files has centered on the salacious and horrific allegations against members of Epstein’s elite inner circle contained in the troves of documents. Yet, there has been little public discussion about what the files reveal about how our “Second Gilded Age,” with its unprecedented concentration of wealth, not only shields perpetrators from accountability but makes their crimes possible in the first place.
A CLOSER LOOK: A lot to gain by raising taxes on the rich
For this week’s Closer Look, we’ll dive deeper into what The Washington Post Editorial Board got wrong about taxing the rich and income tax rates. Besides the fact they are blatantly shilling for their billionaire-owner Jeff Bezos, we think the Editorial Board is off-base on multiple fronts on their arguments.
