Why is it that Americans are so uninformed about how much in taxes the wealthiest Americans pay? The reason is that the White House straight up lied about it and the media has been saturated with this lie. Let’s take a look (thread)...
Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed that the wealthiest pay only an 8% average tax rate, comparing it to working class tax rates. That seems insane, so I investigated.
I went to the White House site + looked at their “study” The study was not based on tax records or even income (which is what is tax rates are based on). The study said they included UNSOLD STOCK...
I was confused. What is income from unsold stock? Dividend rates don’t get you there, so what do they mean? What they are using is not INCOME at all, it is stock appreciation, NOT realized. This-again- is a made-up proxy of a wealth tax.
This is not how income tax works, and it is straight up a lie to say this is an income tax rate for billionaires and portray it as an average tax rate of the "wealthiest" They then have the nerve to compare a fake wealth tax with the income that everyone else pays
@caroljsroth How do you know that? Dividends might get them there.
@caroljsroth "Buy, borrow, die"? You can literally SPEND "unrealized gains" without it ever being called income. Neat trick.
@caroljsroth "income means all income from whatever source derived" (26 USC 61) Income = "the gain derived from capital" (Eisner v. Macomber)
@caroljsroth Uh, unsold stock is also stock grants like RSUs.
@caroljsroth Rich people salute you from their unrealized gains yachts and jets!