Bernie Sanders’ Tax: Jeff Bezos Wealth Tax Bill To Be $9 Billion A Year

The wealth tax mooted by presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders’ will hit multibillionaires very hard. Based on the current fortune, the wealth tax of Amazon founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos could run into $9 billion a year.

The Amazon CEO will have to pay more wealth tax than other richest Americans listed by Forbes.

According to observers, the Sanders tax formula that seeks to cut the wealth of billionaires by half in 15 years, is an effort to stump the progressive tax plan mooted by the fellow aspirant and Democrat peer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Sanders also told The New York Times that “I don’t think billionaires should exist.”

Warren’s tax proposals target billionaires at a higher tax rate than multimillionaires. But Sanders’ plan is harsh than that and he hopes to elicit strong support by taxing the richer elite.

Warren Vs Sanders

Warren’s plan imposes a tax of 2 percent of wealth over $50 million and 3 percent on wealth over $1 billion.

But Sanders’ plan digs deeper and starts from $32 million as the wealth tax base with a 1 percent tax rate slab. That would target 180,000 families while Warren’s proposal aims at 75,000 households.

The Sanders tax slab jumps beyond the benchmark of $500 million with a 4 percent tax rate. The wealth above $10 billion would be taxed at 8 percent, per Sander’s tax plan.

A wealth tax liability of the top 5 richest Americans under Sanders’ plan based on the wealth data in 2019 will be like this.

• Jeff Bezos — $9 billion
• Bill Gates — $8.6 billion
• Warren Buffett — $6.6 billion
• Mark Zuckerberg — $5.8 billion
• Larry Page — $4.8 billion

Unlike the 2020 poll’s tax pitch, the tax discourse in 2016 polls was dominated by the promised Trump tax cuts.

President Donald Trump later acted on it and slashed corporate tax rates making consistent Trump news in business and corporate circles.

Sanders’ Extreme Wealth Tax targets to raise $4.35 trillion in 10 years as the source of funding for programs such as Medicare for All, Universal childcare and social programs including housing.

Sanders’ campaign team said the proposed wealth tax would reduce inequality in America and “stop our democracy from turning into a corrupt oligarchy.”

The concept of wealth tax is attributed to French economist Thomas Piketty’s book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” that said economic inequality is worsening and wealth taxes can stem that slide.

The book says when the rate of return on capital surpasses the rate of economic growth, wealth begins to concentrate in a few hands and the unequal distribution of wealth would eventually threaten social stability.