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.
How about backing up that letter with some lobbyists?
Ads. We need these folks taking out issues ads, raising the profile of taxing the ultra-rich.
Hi, I’m Bill Gates, and I am spending more on this ad campaign than I paid in taxes.
Paid for by Bill Gates
As long as it is only a letter other billionaires don’t care. They know it’s lip service.
You know, you can voluntarily pay more taxes. I don’t think the irs would stop you paying more if you wanted to
Bill paying what he should in taxes doesn’t get Jeff or Elon to pay what they should be paying.
The system is broken. Bill should not be propping it up.
Then what’s stopping bill and Warren?
They don’t want to lose their ranking
if you overpay the IRS they will refund you
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Yep, who cares what these billionaires say.
Other billionaires are spending tens or hundreds of millions on lobbyists to prevent tax.
If they want it to change, they need to pay some lobbyists too.
This is the correct answer
“I’m surprised the thing me and my ilk have been actively working against hasn’t magically happened despite our massive efforts to the opposite effect.”
Bet you Bill thinks these kinds of publicity stunts will exclude him from being eaten, when we go to eat the rich.
Just curious, how has he worked against it?
Irrelevant to this tax thing but Bill Gates still helping known patent trolls obtain more patents
Bill Gates is widely known for massive hypocrisy. And funneling his “Charity” money into vaccine companies he owns himself. And buying up an insane amount of farm land during Covid.
If Bill Gates says something you can bet that he’s doing the exact opposite. There’s a reason that this “charity man” somehow keeps getting richer.
Is he funding lobbyists to affect this kind of change? No.
Is he employing top tier accountants to make sure he doesn’t pay his fair share like the poors? Betcha.
Does he funnel his wealth into charitable foundations that are a tax write off leading to him getting money rather than having to pay it, while it stays in an eco system he has full control over? Betcha.
Is he buying expensive art, property, etc. to incur expenses that are tax write offs? Betcha.Since I’m not a Billionaire, I won’t be able to tell you all the ways that cunt is 100% pushing for a status quo while putting out fluff pieces like these that make him look good while doing literally nothing to affect the change he supposedly wants.
Wouldn’t even be surprised if this was something to get out ahead of some revelations about tax evasion, so if you ever search up Bill Gates taxes, all you get is this curated nonsense of what a stand up good lad he is, trying oh so hard to pay his fair share. Why won’t anyone take his money? Poor Bill. Must be hard not getting taxed and being utterly powerless to do anything about that. Shucks. Now he has to go another decade without ever coming close to paying his fair share.
Oh, also garbage takes like these, where he publicly opposed new tax plans - but it’s fine, it was all cute and the audience laughed and he payed soooo much, sooo many taxes. https://youtu.be/dXxP4S_WwS0
By being part of the billionaire owner class for decades and saying nothing about it until there’s very real threats of working class solidarity.
Being part of the billionaire class prevents taxes being levied against you?
Yes. It’s what they’ve actually lobbied for.
If I’m asking this, I’m looking for specifics
Aaah, sealioning then. That’s like asking for specifics about this sun rising in the east thing. If you haven’t been observant enough at this point to have noticed. Then someone taking good time out of their lives to gather, organize and set. The evidence in your lap isn’t going to change things.
The whole system from the start was designed by, and to favor the wealthy. And it’s never really changed.
Dude, I just need something I can actually search for or, even better, a link. I’ve scoured the Wikipedia pages about Gates and they have no mention. I’ve searched the search results and as expected, there was nothing. I’ve just asked politely once, or maybe twice, and get nothing I want in response but an accusation of sealioning? If it’s the “polite” part that sets you off: fuck shit mom damn darn.
He feels really safe saying these things while letting the wealthy elite in power do all the law-writing.
I’ve come to the right place if bill gates isn’t cheered on by leftwingers… Dude has such a sketchy past especially regarding intellectual property and market manipulation.
But “at least he doesn’t support trump”
He probably is through some back-ass-channel. These kinds of assholes always play all colors, all cards and have backup plans. He still wants to cling to his little riches even if the political winds change again. Gotta be able to show receipts when that happens.
I’ll never support a single Billionaire ever for any reason whatsoever. They’re leeches and parasites to society, our species and planet.
Buy a few Republicans and let’s make it happen, Billy Boy.
They’re surprisingly cheap too
I wouldn’t say “surprisingly.”
Yup, the ruble doesn’t go as far as it used to. In 1990, you could buy cheap helicopters because the russians were in dire need of cash infusion. In 2024 you can buy cheap politicians.
It should be noted that hardware from the cold war is cheap for a reason. And the helicopters aren’t very good either.
He could do that with his pocket lint, and it’s what needs to happen
I’ll be a Republican for this purpose. Buy me daddy Gates! Licks boot Make me your little Democrat!
People are right to point out that he should not simply cut a check to the government, instead he should lobby for higher wealth taxes like he lobbies for patents or voucher schools. Anything less is just free PR.
And cut a check.
QED: bringing MacKenzie Scott’s total reported giving to more than $16 billion since 2019
I am a bag of meat and shit yet I can still recognize that is cutting a check.
I think people often lob unfair criticism at Gates, but this is more than fair.
Gates has done enough evil during his lifetime to earn all the shit talk.
K
Yeah I’m all for some much needed tax reform but on the flipside can you imagine what the current form of government would do with all the money from tax revenue? They would fuckin blow it and we’d be fucked all over again.
Our current government is all too happy to build weapons with borrowed money. What taxation does is it causes deflation, and a wealth tax has the benefit of deflating the power of the ultra-wealthy.
I was in no way disagreeing with reform. Just had one of those flashes of the current regime scrooge mcducking it in a sea of money and shuddered.
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’t 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 🤓
and stole MS-DOS from Gary Kildall
Didn’t he buy it?
Bought it under false pretences and massively profited off of it, but bought it nonetheless. That makes it seem more similar to typical capitalist exploitation than direct theft.
¯_(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
It’s all relative. The “most generous so far” can still be a really low bar.
I think Elon is most generous billionaire, for spending 44b to free us from Twitter
Most of his charity is a smoke screen that allows him to hide billions in tax shelters.
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
Billionaire philanthropy is also frequently a PR thing-- image rehabilitation.
That’s in the “Oh and to sweeten the deal we’ll also throw in these flashy sunglasses for ya, how about that” part of the contract.
It’s about money laundering, everything else is negotiable.
Here’s one of a thousand sources btw, 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?
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
So? You know that Bill can’t really spend all his money so the extra wealth is used to influence policy on national and global scale. Charity is a perfect tool for that and Bill used his to influence American education policy for decades. The “it’s not my money, I don’t control it” is just PR and tax avoidance scheme.
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
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 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.
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.
What’s the other word? There’s a lot of details that are missed where we could have a better functioning democracy, not that it’ll happen. But other words tend to be authoritarian, could be a bias. Anarchism will never count imo :)
We live in a perpetual state of anarchy. Nobody is beholden to the law or state, they’re just imaginary rules that we all adhere to like kids in a playground. Everyone does what they do based on the everyday needs of life, we put food on the table simply because we need to put food on the table, we keep the lights on because we want them on. Even within so-called “states” are a messy web of allegiances and alliances, where nobody knows what anyone’s doing and are also doing what they do based on their everyday needs. Realizing that everyone is an individual with their own needs, that cooperative projects are agreed upon works by the needs of the many, and that the “state” has nothing to do with that process, is proof that we live in a perpetual state of anarchy, society can be whatever WE want it to be, and the notion of a “state” in opposition to “anarchy” is just copium.
Anarchism is a lack of hierarchy where nobody has power over another. If you get a job, you need to tell the state. You need to pay taxes to the state. If you buy something, the seller must have a bill to register the transaction with the state. If you want to give your property (like a house) to someone, you must tell the state. Every significant transaction between two induviduals needs to go through the state, otherwise that very state will use force (police) to punish you. We don’t live in a state of anarchy as thought of by political anarchism.
Even if the “state” is a cooperative project, it still lies above you in the hierarchy and has power over you, that’s why we don’t live in a state of anarchy.
Using your example, if say a village or town wants to build a well to supply water to their inhabitants, they’ll have to jump through hoops and abide by rules of the state and pitch to them the viability and cost of building the well, permits, etc. etc. Anarchism is when the town builds the well anyway and dares the state to stop them.
Worth noting I’m a communist, not an anarchist, so I’m not the best representative of “anarchy”.
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.
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.
People are mental on this website. To them, all good is just evil pretending.
Literally nothing is stopping any of them from cutting a massive check to the government. This is lip service to stop people from hating on the billionaire class.
Except the issue is systemic. You have a percentage of mega wealthy who simply don’t even pay their share. A few billionaires sending a large check to the government doesn’t fix anything. They could but until we change the way we handle taxes for the wealthy, we have a systemic problem we need to fix.
Speaking out that all the rich should pay more helps (maybe) make the case that those making hella bank should pay more.
Your statement is a bit of a straw man which doesn’t actually address the fact that the mega rich aren’t paying their fair share.
Except I wholeheartedly agree with you. There is a huge issue here, but at the same time if these billionaires truly believe that they should be paying more, they should just… do it. There is literally nothing stopping them. They should be forced to, yes, and that’s what they’re saying. But they should be putting their money where their mouths are in the meantime.
The man is covering like 11% of the WHO budget. On the one hand I want to say that that’s too much power, OTOH he doesn’t do too terribly a job at allocating money (compared to, say, the IMF) and every man deserves a hobby.
The billionaires complaining about wealth taxes, should lead by example by paying them at the same time lobbying governments to fix the issue.
Ah I see. I apologize if my comment came off as overly rude. I have heard the comment of them sending money as a reason to do nothing.
I assumed you were advocating we do nothing, which to me implies keep the taxes low on the rich and just let them send whatever they want.
I think saying that their taxes should be raised is doing something. Sending extra cash money into the giant money pit is kinda pointless until we address the military industrial complex getting the lion’s share and we start using the money more effectively.
They buy politicians left and right, but THIS issue is completely out of their hands.
Hang on, my eyes rolled so far back I need to cough them up now
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They signed a letter?!?!?!?
Damn, if only there was literally anything more they could do 😥
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I mean, it’s not like they’re going to bribe the government into forcing them to pay greater taxes.
Why not? Gates sounds like he wants to
If you are cutting massive checks for the social good, private charitable organizations are typically better stewards of the money than the government. Unless you want the military to have more fighter jets, I suppose
Cutting massive checks into charities THEY own to hide it from being taxed…
FTFY…
You aren’t wrong
Except you think they’re actually using the money for charity, when it is actually a way to pass the money to children/heirs without paying inheritance tax…
These philanthropy projects are definitely tax shields but they actually do have to do charitable work to keep their tax-exempt status.
In theory, reality is not so much. Many of them do very very little.
If you think billionaires paying more taxes to governments will mean better lives for the poor then oh boy do I have a bridge to sell you.
No, obviously it takes those in government to have good intentions as well.
It means better lives for those poor executives of military contractors. Think of Lockheed-Martin’s children!
“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,
the german government has a banking account where you can send them money, no questions asked. Feel free to send over your fair share of taxes you are avoiding by routing the Microsoft profits from Germany via Luxembourg and other tax havens.
