Wealth Of 400 Richest Americans Doubled Over Last Decade & Their Tax Rates Actually Dropped
The staggering amount of wealth held by the Forbes 400 more than doubled over the last decade. But their tax rates actually dropped. Business Insider, Nov. 26, 2019.
The share of wealth held by the Forbes 400 more than doubled from $1.27 trillion in 2009 to nearly $3 trillion this year. That marks a significant increase encouraged by a combination of sliding tax rates, stock market growth, and the economic recovery, according to Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.
Zucman, an economist who has consulted with the Warren and Sanders campaigns, noted the staggering amount of wealth that the richest 400 US citizens or roughly 0.00025% of the American population has built up over the last decade in a Sunday tweet.
The amount of taxable income for the wealthiest group of US citizens dropped from 27% in 2009 to around 23% this year, the first time they were effectively taxed lower than the nation's working class, Business Insider reported last month. The drop reflected changes in federal income tax as well as state and local levies, but particularly corporate taxes, Zucman said in an email to Business Insider.
A blend of factors which included the rapid growth of the stock market, the nation's economic recovery after the Great Recession, the unfettered growth of large corporations, and declining tax rates fostered a favorable environment for a surge in the wealth held by the Forbes 400, Zucman said.
Meanwhile, the tax rate that the bottom 50% of American taxpayers pay hasn't budged much over time.
Zucman and Emmanuel Saez another economist at the University of California he's partnered with have argued that the relatively small tax burdens of the wealthy are the product of decisions made by American lawmakers, whether directly or through congressional gridlock. Tax avoidance has also become more common.
Congress has cut taxes on capital gains and estates over the years. And the top income tax rates were slashed six times since 1980, some with the support of Democrats, The Washington Post reported. In 2010, President Obama delayed ending the George W. Bush tax cuts by two years, and Congress allowed it to expire in 2013.
President Trump's 2017 Republican tax cuts largely benefited wealthy citizens and corporations, experts say. They axed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, while also reducing the top rates for individuals. Many economists say that decades of income tax cuts in particular have led to the increasing concentration of wealth atop the economic pyramid and contributed to the accelerating inequality within US society, now at a record high according to the Census Bureau.
https://www.businessinsider.com/forbes-400-wealth-doubled-last-decade-as-tax-rate-fell-2019-11
- Top 15 Richest Billionaire Americans In 2019:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_by_net_worth
1 Jeff Bezos $114 billion 55 Amazon
2 Bill Gates $106 billion 64 Microsoft, Cascade Investment
3 Warren Buffett $80.8 billion 89 Berkshire Hathaway
4 Mark Zuckerberg $69.6 billion 35 Facebook
5 Larry Ellison $65 billion 75 Oracle
6 Larry Page $55.5 billion 46 Google
7 Sergey Brin $53.5 billion 45 Google
8 Michael Bloomberg $53.4 billion 77 Bloomberg L.P.
9 Steve Ballmer $51.7 billion 63 Microsoft, LA Clippers
10 Jim Walton $51.6 billion 70 Walmart, inherited
11 Alice Walton $51.4 billion 69 Walmart, inherited
12 S. Robson Walton $51.3 billion 74 Walmart, inherited
13 Charles Koch $41 billion 83 Koch Industries
13 Julia Koch $41 billion 57 Koch Industries, inherited
15 MacKenzie Bezos $36.1 billion 49 Amazon
bluedigger
(17,077 posts)Maybe "because"?
appalachiablue
(41,047 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)dalton99a
(81,062 posts)Response to appalachiablue (Original post)
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ismnotwasm
(41,916 posts)RussBLib
(8,983 posts)and I think of all those bumpkin yahoos who still vote GOP while they get robbed blind