Billionaires, Saying the American Dream Is Fading, Push for Tax Hikes — on Themselves

A group of 250 millionaires and billionaires is pushing world governments to tax “extreme wealth,” but if they’re sincere, why wait? They can cut checks today to combat what they call “the dramatic rise of economic inequality” or relocate operations to places with higher tax rates.“We ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” a letter from the Proud to Pay More campaign said. “If elected representatives of the world’s leading economies do not take steps to address the dramatic rise of economic inequality, the consequences will continue to be catastrophic for society.”The letter’s signatories say writing checks to reduce the wealth imbalance isn’t the answer. “The solution,” they write, “cannot be found in one-off donations or in philanthropy; individual action cannot redress the current colossal imbalance.” So, it will be business as usual.A Disney heir and executive vice president of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, John Driscoll, one of the letter’s signatories, wrote that the American Dream is “rapidly diminishing” because the wealthy aren’t paying enough in taxes. However, his company does its best to minimize the bite the government takes out of its profits.In November 2021, Walgreens extracted a $1 million tax break from the city of Mansfield, Massachusetts, to open a warehouse there. The company also sought a reduction of personal property taxes beginning at 40 percent and growing to 70 percent over seven years.When President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced the corporate rate from the world’s fourth highest to mid-range 21 percent in 2017, Walgreens could’ve relocated to the African nation of Comoros — with the highest tax rate in the world at 50 percent — or gone on paying the previous American tax rate of 35 percent. They did not.Instead, Think Progress reported in June 2018, “Like so many other massive corporations,” Walgreens used the money it saved “to enrich itself, not its workers.” They launched a $10 billion stock buyback and announced reducing their “effective tax rate” to a mere 7.6 percent.The wealthy employ armies of accountants to exploit tax law to their benefit. Growing the bottom line is part of a corporation’s fiduciary responsibility to stockholders. Lobbying to increase the size of governments in a quixotic quest to tax the world into utopia isn’t.Smaller corporations and less wealthy people won’t have the resources to maximize the tax code or to fight audits, putting them at a competitive disadvantage. The result will be yet more power and money in the hands of entities so large, they verge on monopolies. This will increase “economic inequity” rather than reduce it.“Not only do we want to be taxed more but we believe we must be taxed more,” the signatories wrote. “We would be proud to live in countries where this is expected.” Of course, such countries already exist. A Comoros or Ivory Coast — with the world’s highest personal income tax rate at 60 percent — would welcome those seeking to contribute to their treasuries.Hiking taxes will also deny nations with lower GDPs a tool for attracting foreign investment. This was the method Ireland, one of Western Europe’s poorest countries, used in the mid-1990s. The so-called Celtic Tiger expanded its economy at an average rate of 9.4 percent between 1995 and 2000.It’s worth noting that almost all of the Proud to Pay More letter’s 250 signatories are in North America and the European Union. Despite the promise of higher taxes lifting poor nations, only four signatories are from outside the G7, one each from Ghana, India, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia.“We ask you to take this necessary and inevitable step” of raising taxes “before it’s too late,” the Proud to Pay More letter concludes. If the situation is so dire, wouldn’t divesting themselves of wealth buy humanity some time and prove that making more makes them “patriotic millionaires” as they claim?A campaign whose members urge higher taxes while going to great lengths to shield their wealth invites skepticism. If backers of the Proud to Pay More campaign really wish for the public and policymakers to take them seriously, there is a better way: cease signing letters and start signing checks.

Billionaires, Saying the American Dream Is Fading, Push for Tax Hikes — on Themselves

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