Tax The Rich
Terminology
Buy-Borrow-Die: Is used for wealth preservation. The rich buy assets that appreciate in value. Then they borrow low-interest, tax-free loans using those assets as collateral. When they die, heirs receive the assets on a “stepped-up” basis which resets the asset’s value to current market rates and erases all previous capital gains.
Carried Interest: Allows hedge fund and private equity managers to have their income taxed at the 20% long-term capital gains rate rather than the standard 37%.
Real Estate Depreciation: Investors claim “losses” on depreciation of their properties even if those properties are increasing in value (i.e. 1031 Exchanges).
Asset-as-Income Swap: Billionaires take a “nominal” salary and then receive the rest of their compensation as stock options. Pass-Through Entities: Business owners use S-corporations or LLCs to push profits directly to themselves, avoiding double corporate taxation like Section 199A.
Sports Team Ownership: Owners amortize the value of their player contracts as if they were depreciating equipment.
GRATs (Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts): The rich can transfer asset appreciation to heirs entirely tax-free.
Private Placement Life Insurance (PPLI): The ultra wealthy can invest in high-growth assets (like hedge funds) inside a policy where earnings grow tax-free and can be borrowed against without tax.
Charitable Lead & Remainder Trusts: Immediate tax deductions while allowing donor to retain income or control over where the funds go.
Opportunity Zones: Investing capital gains into specifically designated distressed communities; the wealthy can delay or entirely erase taxes on those gains if held long enough.
Converting Hobbies to Businesses: So luxury assets like yachts, private jets, or racehorses are considered “business entities” and can be written off.
Tax-Loss Harvesting: Selling investments that lost value to offset gains from other profits.
Offshore Accounts: Deferral of earnings, bypassing the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, transferring patents or trademarks to offshore subsidiaries at low costs then licensing them back to the US parent at a high cost (this generates large tax-deductible expenses), using IRS Form 8832 to make the entity “disappear” for tax purposes. This is legal except if it’s used to hide income (which is tax evasion).
Educate
Watch: “How Billionaires Cracked the Food Stamp Cheat Code” More Perfect Union. Large companies like Kroger and Walmart hire employees at just below hours required to pay them benefits, expect the government to subsidize their employees’ food and health costs, then expect those same employees to turn around and spend those subsidies within their stores. Trillion-dollar companies are the ones guilty of taking advantage of SNAP, Medicare, and workers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKRLZk98EOg
2017
2017-11-01 The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 reduced corporate tax from 35% to 21%. As a result, the richest people took their own tax breaks while inflating their own wealth, it was the largest stock buyback in history, it caused a 120% billionaire boom, and it widened the deficit.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-a-comparison-for-businesses
https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-did-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-change-personal-taxes
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-2017-tax-cuts-helped-companies-more-than-workers-11590778957
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/buyback-blowout-trump-gop-tax-law/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/effects-of-the-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-a-preliminary-analysis
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tcja-2-years-later-corporations-not-workers-big-winners/
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/billionaires-2-2-trillion-richer-since-2017-trump-gop-tax-law/
https://populardemocracyinaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Trump-Corporate-Oligarchs.pdf
https://x.com/barronsonline/status/1877264406230310976
2024 January
2024-01-10 The top 10% of Americans own 93% of US equities.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealthiest-10-americans-own-93-033623827.html
https://www.axios.com/2024/01/10/wealthy-own-record-share-stock-market
2025 January
2025-01-25 Trump handed four big tech giants massive tax breaks.
https://itep.org/trump-meta-tesla-alphabet-amazon-obbba-taxes/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazons-tax-bill-plunges-gop-182806826.html
https://www.uscirf.gov/publications/sudan-issue-update
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a1VhttWfDI&list=WL&index=1
2026 April
2026-04-13 Texas Democrat Representative James Talarico announced he will introduce a bill to close billionaire loopholes by targeting luxury deductions, restricting offshore accounts, and ending buy-borrow-die practices.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHVMdKGRSbM&list=WL&index=3
https://www.statesman.com/news/politics/state/article/james-talarico-tax-billionaires-22203628.php
2026-04-16 New York Governor Kathy Hochul proposed a new tax on multi-million dollar second homes in New York City. In a press conference she stated, “Those who benefit from the city without living in a full-time capacity should contribute to the cost that it takes to run the city…” This tax would target roughly 13,000 high-rise condos and investment properties, generating at least $500M in revenue annually as Mamdani tries to fill a $5B budget deficit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZAyePIcFzY&list=WL&index=2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdLW12tcbGc&list=WL&index=1&t=68s
ACCOUNT WALL https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/nyregion/hochul-pied-terre-tax.html
2026 May
2026-05-05 Met Gala protestors criticized Jeff Bezos and Amazon labor conditions.
TIMESTAMP 10:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmFI8zifRY8&list=WL&index=1&t=166s
2026-05-06 Republicans proposed spending $1B in taxpayer funds on ballroom “security features.”
https://www.today.com/video/gop-bill-would-fund-1b-in-taxpayer-money-for-trump-ballroom-262830149683
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/us/politics/republicans-immigration-bill-trump-ballroom.html
2026-05-16 Trump dropped his $10 billion IRS lawsuit in exchange for a taxpayer-funded $1.7 billion slush fund to pay off J6 insurrectionists. As part of the IRS settlement, the DOJ agreed to drop pending tax claims involving Trump and his family, and never investigate them for tax fraud again.
https://time.com/article/2026/05/16/trump-irs-lawsuit-weaponization-fund/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/16/trump-irs-lawsuit-compensation-fund
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/17/politics/irs-doj-trump-fund-billion
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/19/g-s1-122938/irs-trump-settlement-tax-returns-audit
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/19/politics/irs-barred-investigating-trump-new-settlement-term
2026 June
2026-06-01 Anthropic filed for an initial public offering after it raised $65B and pushed its valuation to $965B. Bernie Sanders announced a new bill that would create a sovereign wealth fund by imposing a one-time 50% tax on big-tech stock. Sanders wrote in an op-ed it would, “give the public a direct role in determining the future of this technology….not simply to make the richest people in the world even richer…”.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/insight/anthropic-files-for-ipo-after-65b-funding-boost/gm-GMDE74FCD0
https://www.anthropic.com/news/confidential-draft-s1-sec
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/28/anthropic-open-ai-startup-value.html
2026 August
2026-08-05 Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won the Michigan Senate primary campaigning on Medicare for all, ending aid to Israel, and getting money out of politics. Trump said on Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI), “He’s a man of hate. He doesn’t love Israel, he doesn’t love Jewish people, he hates ‘em. He hates ‘em with a passion that burns in his heart and there’s not a freaking thing he can do about it”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/05/michigan-senate-primary-results-abdul-el-sayed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T67SarATXnE&list=WL&index=5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9mHl8f7OH4&list=WL&index=4
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6012517-trump-abdul-el-sayed-michigan-senate-primary/
2026-08-07 A New York judge issued a pause on Mamdani’s Pied-a-Tierre Tax. The tax is meant to target homes valued at $5M or more and co-ops and condos worth $1M or more when the owners do not live there as a primary residence. The surcharge asks those who own second homes valued in the millions to contribute their fair share to the city from which they benefit.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/mamdani-second-home-tax-paused-010957589.html
https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-pied-a-terre-tax-and-its-potential-revenues/
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/10/judge-blocks-new-york-city-pied-a-terre-tax-01031481
SUB WALL https://www.wsj.com/us-news/judge-temporarily-blocks-mamdanis-pied-a-terre-tax-744b0003