US Economy: Elizabeth Warren Makes Push For Wealth Tax, Calls Out Jeff Bezos
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is calling for a wealth tax on the richest Americans after publicly calling out Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for not paying his fair share of taxes.
“I want to see us tax wealth, however your wealth is tied up. It shouldn’t make a difference whether you have real estate, or whether you have cash, or whether you have a bazillion shares of Amazon, Yes, Jeff Bezos I’m looking at you,” Warren said.
According to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index, Bezos has a net worth of $208 billion making him the wealthiest person in the world.
Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders., I-Vt., both campaigned for the Democratic nomination on fairly similar wealth tax proposals. Revenue collected from a wealth tax would be allocated for healthcare, childcare, housing, education, infrastructure, and combating climate change.
According to Forbes, the country's billionaires became $1.2 trillion richer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During Warren’s 2020 campaign, she proposed a 2% “ultra-millionaire tax” on wealth over $50 million and 6% on fortunes of more than $1 billion. According to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the revenue would raise between $2.3 trillion and $2.7 trillion in additional revenue in the 10-year window 2021 - 2030 while reducing GDP in 2050 by about 1% to 2%, depending on how the money is spent.
Sanders campaigned on a similar tax on the richest 180,000 American households who hold a net worth of at least $32 million. The proposal would cut the wealth of billionaires in half in 15 years and entirely close the gap in wealth between billionaires and the average American family, according to University of California Berkley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez. Sanders' plan would raise $1.6 trillion more in revenue than Warren’s plan over a decade.
Both Warren and Sanders have been very critical of Bezos for not paying his fair share in taxes.
“He’s worth a bazillion dollars and he has not paid taxes on all of that wealth. In fact, Jeff Bezos, for many years, has either paid nothing in taxes or paid 1%,” Warren said.
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