We're millionares. Please tax us more.

Yahoo

15-04-2025

While most of the country spends Tax Day occupied with the stress of W2s, 1099s and tax-filing software, millionaires like us pay our tax attorneys top dollar to make sense of all the red tape for us.
That doesn't mean Tax Day isn't still a nightmare for us, too, albeit for a different reason. For us, as Patriotic Millionaires, April 15 serves as a scary reminder of the rigged nature of America's tax code. The U.S. tax system has enabled a concentration of wealth so extreme that it threatens our economy, our democracy and the planet. And this year's Tax Day is even scarier, as Republicans are negotiating a tax bill that would further rig the system in favor of wealthy people like us and deepen America's inequality crisis.
According to Forbes' 2025 Billionaires List, the U.S. has 902 billionaires whose combined net worth is a record $6.8 trillion. These 902 individuals hold more wealth than the entire bottom half of the country; their riches exceed the GDP of every country in the world aside from the U.S. and China.
Of the many factors that drive America's growing inequality, our tax code is among the most significant. For much of the 20th century, the U.S. had a fairly progressive tax structure that limited large, dynastic fortunes. That is no longer the case. Those who are already rich can make money in ways that are subject to income taxes at lower rates or don't count as 'income' at all (for example, by borrowing against unrealized capital gains). Billionaires now pay lower effective tax rates than all other income groups. For the ultrawealthy like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, paying $0 in federal income taxes isn't outside the realm of possibility.
Our organization, Patriotic Millionaires, has frequently sounded the alarm over the threat that wealth inequality poses to society. Our economy doesn't stand a chance when this much money is concentrated in the hands of wealthy people like us. It leaves millions of working people without the incomes they need to buy products and services necessary for survival while also maintaining strong consumer demand. Our democracy doesn't stand a chance when a mere 100 billionaire families are responsible for 1 out of every 6 dollars spent in federal elections, giving them an outsized voice and access to our elected officials and candidates for office. And our planet doesn't stand a chance when the ultrawealthy can continue to accelerate climate change into overdrive with their private jets, superyachts and spaceships.
The problem of extreme wealth has festered for years, if not decades, but it has taken on a new level of urgency with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk at the helm of the federal government. Billionaires subsidized Trump's ticket back to the White House, accounting for no less than a third of the funds he raised. Musk alone contributed $235 million to Trump's presidential bid. Now Musk and his fellow billionaires are getting major returns on their political investment, including the massive tax savings from the 'big, beautiful' bill that the GOP is crafting. Last week, Republicans in the House and the Senate moved one step closer to passing their respective budget blueprints: Both of their plans would cut taxes by no less than $5 trillion, and most of those cuts would be used to extend many of the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — a bill that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy.
If, as seems likely, the ultrawealthy receive another tax windfall from Republicans, it will only increase the threat that they pose to democracy. This would be bad news at any time and under any administration, but this is especially so under President Trump. Democracy is already hanging by a thread as the president targets perceived enemies, including universities, law firms and the media; purges the Justice Department of officials involved in criminal prosecutions against him; expresses interest in pursuing an unconstitutional third term in office; and declares himself a king on social media.
To be clear, we don't have a problem with wealth in and of itself. We make no apologies for our own financial success. People need financial incentives to innovate and work hard, and in the end, their ingenuity benefits all of us.
What we do, however, have a problem with is a small handful of people having so much wealth that it inevitably becomes power. We have a problem with billionaires like Trump and Musk using the government to improve their own financial situations and business ventures. More than that, though, we have a problem with the fact that the tax code has done virtually nothing whatsoever to prevent the oligarchic crisis in which America finds itself. If our federal tax system continues to privilege income from wealth over income from work, and if Republicans get their way in passing even more tax cuts for the rich in the coming months, we'll have baked a totally oligarchic concentration of wealth into America's economic cake.
There are several actions lawmakers must take to safeguard society from the ravages of extreme wealth concentration, but it is imperative they begin with reforming the tax code to ensure all millionaires and billionaires like us pay our rightful share in taxes. Paying taxes for the betterment of society is our civic duty that we are glad to do, because those who don't have the wealth we have should be able to not only survive but thrive in our society. And with so much on the line, it is important that wealthy people carry out this sacred duty now more than ever.
There's no sugarcoating it: Tax Day is a nightmare. And thanks to what Trump, Musk and other ultrawealthy oligarchs are doing to our country, that nightmare has become recurring. To wake our country up and pull our economy, democracy and planet back from the brink of total collapse, lawmakers need to tax wealthy people like us before it's too late.This article was originally published on MSNBC.com