Bill Gates wants ultra-wealthy individuals to pay more tax — and now a growing chorus of billionaires agree.
In his annual “Ask Me Anything” forum on Reddit last year, the Microsoft cofounder said he was “surprised” that taxes for the rich haven’t been increased more.
Gates doubled down on his calls to tax the rich in a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. He said the wealthiest nations should donate more money to developing countries to help redress inequality.
“Those who have the most — whether it’s countries, companies, or individuals — should be pushed to be more generous,” he said.
It seems others agree, as more than 250 ultra-wealthy people signed an open letter calling for global leaders to impose a wealth tax.
Says the guy that fought tooth and nail for MRNA vaccination patents to remain private. Yeah pay taxes but maybe don’t make the money to begin with.
actions > words
I can find anything on Google that says anything about this. Can you sauce please?
TRIPS agreement waiver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIPS_Agreement_waiver
https://observer.com/2021/04/bill-gates-oppose-lifting-covid-vaccine-patent-interview/
I believe this is what they’re referring to.
Says the guy who funnels his entire wealth through a foundation to avoid paying any taxes. Just like he told Epstein to do. Love you Bill
But you see, he deserves it for stealing all that work and ideas from other people
I mean, isn’t that the definition of owning a company? You profit off of the work your employees do
Even when we pretend that’s ok, and pretend that his policy of “embrace, extend, exterminate” is also fine, he personally stole other people’s work. He straight up admited stealing from Xerox (along with Steve Jobs), and stole MS-DOS from Gary Kildall.
It’s extinguish, not exterminate.
Much subtler, see =)
Wikipedia says both are right 🤓
¯_(ツ)_/¯ At least bill is probably the most generous billionaire that has existed so far
If there was ever a generous billionaire, they’d no longer be a billionaire.
It’s really fucking hard to spend that much money in a smart way.
Yea, you could just throw it out of a plane, but when you’ve got multiple billions it’s actually hard. There was even a documentary about it: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/
This is what slaves actually believe
Most of his charity is a smoke screen that allows him to hide billions in tax shelters.
I don’t believe shit they say, if they say “go ahead and tax me” it’s because they’ve got a way out so they won’t have to, somehow.
That “somehow” is called using credit to buy everything then setting your stocks as collateral, and since debt can’t be taxed well…
As it sits, yes, but ideally the wealth tax is based on asset valuation, not liquidity, which means that they would still be screwed. They are wealthy even if they carry enough debt to make it look like they are not on paper.
Imagine if a wealthy individual, who believes that the wealthy should be taxed more, actually used their wealth to take out TV commercials in all states/provinces advocating for the increase in taxes for the wealthy, actually trying to sway the political mindset in a big way with the power they have via their wealth.
Easier to just release a statement. That way you can be the “good guy billionaire” without actually having to pay up.
the problem is they don’t want to sink their relative power.
“i know you guys are upset at us fucking over all of you, but i assure you if you let us continue being petty tyrants with vast fortunes, we might give a marginally bigger sum of it back to the government, which will still spend it on whatever we tell it to anyway. win win!”
i don’t want you to be more generous, i want you to be gone. if anyone proposed a plan that would actually affect them i doubt they would still support a wealth tax.
“Generous” is the noteworthy takeaway. Either ‘currency’ belongs to society and some people hoard it instead of circulating it, or ‘the world’ ‘belongs’ to a very select few people.
Dear Bill,
Would you be up for taxing charities owned by billionaires?
Sincerely yours
Charities are such an obvious money laundering scheme. “Philanthropy” my ass, it’s always tax evasion, all of this is just for the gallery.
Source: https://ips-dc.org/report-true-cost-of-billionaire-philanthropy/?mc_cid=bfa8894a28
The point of a charity is the wealth is no longer owned by the donor, and it has to be used for one of a few purposes in the public interest. Depending on how the charity is incorporated, I believe some have minimums they must pay out.
Regardless, really?
yes really, instances of abuse of charities by b/millionaires for tax evasion and money laundering are far too common (including transfer of donations back to the donor by indirect ways) https://www.oecd.org/tax/exchange-of-tax-information/42232037.pdf
Where there is a way to abuse something for tax evasion billionaires will find a way
It’s really not that simple, and depends on such a ridiculous amount of variables. If you think these multibillionaires are giving away their money out of the kindness of their hearts you’re deluded.
Where there are many variables, one can always find ways to nudge things in the right ways so that you can get from point A to any other point B despite many other constraints put on your movements.
Ok.
subriemannian geometry
Transliterative or transcendent?
transversal
TL/DR; The super wealthy own the politicians so much they can tell them to do something that they will never do. Democracy is a fool’s word.
They can flap their lips all they want, I won’t believe them til they lobby for it and it gets changed.
It’d be really cool if Gates and other not-so-evil megarich would just openly give a bag of money to every congressman to vote for more taxes to multimillionaires :)
He can say stuff like above, because he’s already hidden most of his money inside a “charity” he conveniently controls…
That’s what this is…
No this is a PR campaign to make you think Bill Gates is “one of the good ones”
Lobbying is when they’re paying people to go to Congress and say ‘hey the wealthy should have their taxes cut some more’
Do you think a random lobbyist will get more attention in Congress than one of the richest men in the world? Stop thinking like a poor person.
Bill Gates can have his secretary set up a phone call with any congressperson or senator in a few hours. Less if they really need money. He could literally ask them to set it up in a few hours, and go to the spa expecting for it to be ready when he gets out. He is the lobbyist.
Lobbyists for hire are a) generally well known to Congress people, these are people that spend their entire day working directly with representatives to push an agenda. And b) are very frequently former representatives. Yes, they absolutely get more attention than any individual billionaire it is literally their job to talk to Congress on behalf of people. Lobbyists can be more experienced at maneuvering Congress than your average representative.
Gates doesn’t have to make that phone call, he never has to go to Congress, because there’s a team of lobbyists who work directly for him that are well known in DC, and any representative is going to know that when this lobbyist asks for something, it’s Bill Gates asking.
After he has already used a “charity” he created to tax shelter most of his money…
He has more money now than when he started giving “virtually all” of it away to (his) charity. This doesn’t stop rubes from using his fauxlanthropy as some kind of proof that not all billionaires are evil.
Too late, compost these fuckers.
Oh, thank goodness the billionaires will save us from [checks notes] the billionaires.
Removed by mod
That’s not the point. A one-time donation is not the same thing as a tax. Governments need to plan and budget, random donations from rich people don’t work well for that. It would potentially cause programs to be started that cannot be sustained, etc.
Like many necessary changes, this needs to be a part of the system, not something these people just do out of the goodness of thier hearts. They benefit massively from capitalism, and they should be forced to share some of that with the masses that’s are currently struggling to survive.
And that would open the door to paying an additional annual tax on your house, vehicles, stocks, etc. Make no mistake, this would be designed to go after the middle class, not the wealthy.
If you overpay taxes, the government is expected to return it. They return overpaid taxes all the time to hundreds of millions of Americans. It’s really not that simple.
Additionally, someone calling for increased taxes on their class is not automatically morally expected to just contribute without the law changing. If anything, the govt being flush with cash is a great way of getting the focus off doing the right thing and actually taxing the wealthy more.
Bill Gates should either shut his stupid fucking mouth or put his insanely exorbitant amount of money where that stupid fucking mouth is. Oh, he is a philanthropist and supports many causes and charities? No, he is an ultra wealthy individual who hordes his insane amount of wealth and has so much of it that he can casually drop seven plus figures in to any cause he wants, collect accolades from the public for it, and make that money back by the end of the fucking hour. Fuck bill gates
Not to mention he got a fake divorce from his wife for monetary purposes
Or that he wasnt even a struggling inventor like the stories have us believe, his mom was on the board for IBM ffs
The official reasoning from Melinda was about his business with Epstein I think? So basically Melinda didn’t like that Bill was fucking underage girls
Id be doubtful she didnt know her long time husbands proclivities if it involved flying to random islands with a bunch of pervos
Even so, the divorce was well timed considering the markets and tax laws
I think he donated half his wealth and convinced other billionaires to do the same a few years back.
he makes money exponentially, that is meaningless to his total wealth
Pretty sure I’ve seen this exact story about every 5 years for the last 20 years. It looks to me at this point like wealth apologism.
That’s funny. I swear he has always said that he believes that he can do more good in the world by controlling how his wealth is spent through his charity foundations, than simply handing his wealth over to the government via taxes.
I.E., he has been saying the opposite. Unless this is taken out of context
He’s probably said both, or at least news stories coming out with both positions. I mean, you’re not expecting consistency and accuracy from your propaganda are you?
Well, it’d be more interesting if he actually changed his mind on elective philanthropy to forced wealth taxes for the ultra wealthy.
That would be a very large shift in his long standing and very public advocacy. Since, you know, he was the one going around to other billionaires to get pledges on donating their wealth when they die, but historically defended their right to choose.
People can change their minds. It’s even an admiral quality.
No he uses his “charities” to hide most of his wealth from taxes he should be paying.
My nine year old: “My nails are sharp and they get stuck to my clothes”
Me: “You should cut them. Do you need any help?”
9 y.o.: “Please cut them even if I start crying”Sometimes people need their nails cut for them and you should be happy to oblige even if they start crying. Though I think Bill’s waning moment bribes are more convincing than offering to do chores.
