Benjamin Hie

David Friedberg: California’s “Billionaire Tax” is a Trojan Horse to Go After the Middle Class's Private Assets @friedberg: “The reason they're calling it a billionaire tax is to make it easier for people to vote for it, and sign up to this entirely new tax system that they're proposing to put on all Americans at some point, and for the first time ever degrading our private property rights.” “Forget about how much wealth you have, forget about how rich you are, forget about the term billionaire, millionaire, whatever it is.” “We're creating, or proposing the creation, of a new tax system that allows the government for the first time ever to come in and audit everything you own.” “All the jewelry your grandma gave you, the value of all the couches in your house, the value of your car, the value of all your stocks and bonds, and the government can come in, and for the first time, look through the veil into your personal property.” “And say, ‘Here's how much all this stuff is worth. I'm charging you a percentage of that. That's what I need to get paid.’ And it doesn't matter that it starts with billionaires. What matters is that we're giving the government the right to look into our private property and take a percentage of it every year.” “The total net worth of billionaires in the US is $8 trillion.” “The net worth of the US, the middle class, and everyone else is $170 trillion, compared to $8 trillion of the billionaires.” @chamath: “They need a way to open the door so that they can go after the real honey pot.” “The real honeypot is not 200 people.” @friedberg: “Just so everyone understands the real goal of this is not to tax billionaires, because there are other ways to tax billionaires.” “Charge them a capital gains tax if they borrow against their assets that they haven't paid capital gains tax on. Very simple, that can resolve this.” “Another thing you can do, you can raise the capital gains tax rate. Sounds unpopular. I don't agree with that, but that's another way to deal with this, which is to take the capital gains tax rate from 20% to 30%. You could do that.” “The real goal of this is to create, for the first time in American history, a private property asset seizure tax. Because they're going after the $170 trillion, not the $8 trillion that the billionaires have.”