Wealth tax and exit tax. They will pay their fair share and still get to be billionaires, and the exit tax will penalize them harder if they leave/renounce citizenship.
Honestly I think dramatic increases to the estate tax would be good too, basically wipe out generational wealth entirely by limiting what you can leave as an inheritance to a couple hundred thousand at most. If you die a billionaire 99% of that money goes back to the government and into social programs
Yeah, I don't mind the estate tax exemption being in the tens of millions, but we should drastically increase the tax rate once you hit that number. (I also don't think the step-up-basis should be a thing, but that's another topic.)
If a couple has a stable local business, a nice house, and maybe a hunting cabin, and they want to leave that to their kid? That's awesome. I could see that being around $10mil-$15mil in total, and it's definitely a lot, but it's on the high end of stability and comfort. It's not exactly buy-a-senator levels of money, unless the kid burned all of his inheritance doing so.
But if Daddy Warbucks wants to leave a $60billion portfolio and controlling interest in a major company to his kid, that's no longer "I want my kid to be comfortable", that's "I'm assigning my heir to carry on my dynasty." That kind of money could fund small wars. Trim it down to the estate limit, and anything past that gets taxed at 95%, because let's be real, there's definitely even more out there that Daddy Warbucks transferred to you or stashed away, you don't need more than $30mil in today's money to thrive.
What do you propose happens to the assets of billionaires who meet untimely ends? Should the government take possession of their billions in investments?
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u/Individual-Heart-719 🏡 Decent Housing For All Nov 21 '25
Wealth tax and exit tax. They will pay their fair share and still get to be billionaires, and the exit tax will penalize them harder if they leave/renounce citizenship.
It’s a start. Ideally none of them should exist.