U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, joined U.S. Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TV) and Don Beyer (D-VA) to introduce legislation they says would ensure billionaires pay their fair share in taxes each year.
Wyden’s legislation, the Billionaires Income Tax Act, would require that billionaires’ income would be based on their gains or losses on tradable assets like stocks, and non-tradable assets like real estate. Every year, the assets would be marked to market each year, and the billionaires would be assessed tax on the gain or loss in value of the asset as their income. Cohen and Beyer introduced identical legislation in the House making this the first time in which the legislation was a bicameral proposal.
“While people like nurses and firefighters pay taxes straight out of every paycheck, there’s a thicket of little-known tricks and accounting rules that allow billionaires to opt out of paying a fair share of tax on the income they enjoy,” Wyden said. “Billionaires and Republicans are going to offer up the same set of trickle-down arguments to pretend this proposal would bring about the end of western civilization. The only time you hear billionaires claim they can’t scrounge together any cash is when somebody brings up taxes, and odds are a lot of these mega-wealthy individuals are crying poverty from their yachts and private islands. This is a carefully designed proposal that draws on accounting methods already used in the tax code and raises revenue without increasing any tax rates.”
The legislation would only apply to about 1,000 taxpayers, the law makers said but would raise more than $500 billion which could be used to help fund Social Security and Medicare, the Congressmembers said. The legislation would only apply to taxpayers with more than $100 million in annual income or more than $1 billion in assets for three consecutive years.
The legislation has support from more than 20 Senators including U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), Peter Welch (D-VT), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), John Fetterman (D-PA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Brian Schatz (D-HI), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). It is also endorsed by more than 100 organizations across the country including Americans for Tax Fairness, AFL-CIO, Main Street Alliance, Patriotic Millionaires, and Public Citizen.