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Millionaires ask to pay more tax:
A group of more than 100 of the world's richest people have called on governments to make them pay more tax. The group, named the Patriotic Millionaires, said the ultra-wealthy were not being forced to pay their share towards the global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
"As millionaires, we know that the current tax system is not fair," they said in an open letter. The signatories included Disney heiress Abigail Disney and Nick Hanauer. Mr Hanauer is a US entrepreneur and an early investor in online retail giant Amazon.
"Most of us can say that, while the world has gone through an immense amount of suffering in the last two years, we have actually seen our wealth rise during the pandemic - yet few if any of us can honestly say that we pay our fair share in taxes," the signatories said in the letter to the World Economic Forum.
[...] It said globally, $2.52tn could lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty and make enough vaccines for the world.
Gemma McGough, British entrepreneur and founding member of Patriotic Millionaires, UK said: "For all our well-being - rich and poor alike - it's time we right the wrongs of an unequal world. It's time we tax the rich."
Ms McGough added: "At a time when simply living will cost the average household a further £1,200 a year, our government cannot expect to be trusted if it would rather tax working people than wealthy people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 21 2022, @07:51PM (1 child)
They can all get together with their peers and decide to voluntarily pay more. Or donate it to a charitable cause (and even get a collective deduction) that would do better than the government (just about anything would do better than the government).
The government takes a TON of money and simply squanders it all while giving us very little in return. Look how poorly the USPS is ran, delivering mail to wrong address is a normal thing (compared to UPS for instance). Here is another recent example out of MANY MANY examples, this is normal, and look how much these places collect in taxes
NYC fines wrong person $259k, doesn't fix it until ABC news gets involved
Louis Rossmann
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DoVt5ggGWg [youtube.com]
(note: it too like 20 YEARS to get this resolved after this person paid a whole bunch of money to try to solve it, ie: hiring an architect to deliver paperwork and whatnot)
In fact one can argue that the governments that tax the most are too often the ones that provide the least back (ie: look at socialist countries like China, Russia, and Hispanic countries along with most other socialist countries and you can compare this by U.S. states as well).
If enough millionaires agreed then the very few that don't agree will make no difference. (But, let's be real, giving the government more money is like throwing it away, they will just squander it).
Or is it just a very small percentage of millionaires that claim they want to be taxed more. If the argument is that 'look, they're millionaires and so their opinion should count on this matter and if they think they should be paying more in taxes then maybe they should" and they're only a small percentage then that argument doesn't really work.
If they're a very large percentage then they are free to collectively get together and pay more in taxes or collectively start their own charity or donate to whatever cause they think is best.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 21 2022, @07:54PM
(but my theory is that these are just a small percentage of millionaires that just want a little bit of attention).