Democrats move to finalize new 'billionaire' tax proposal, targeting 700 wealthiest Americans as key

US. I'll be interested to see what the change was that broke the objections.

contributions. One billionaire's checkbook has a louder voice than a hundred million American voices.

Wealth taxes are very tricky constitutionally.

including closing loopholes, then it should pass muster.

It can be included as one of the reconciliation types ("revenue" - that type having been used previously in 2017 to do the GOP's tax cuts for the wealthy reconciliation package), and can be standalone or in combination with the current reconciliation that has focused on a different type ("spending" ).

Each of the 3 types (including a 3rd - "debt ceiling" ) can only be used once in a fiscal year because it basically provides instructions for that fiscal year's budget (with all the regular budgetary stuff appended in there), and directs what spending (via appropriations bills) will need to occur to fulfill that budget.

What the poster above you meant is a wealth tax constitutional. There is a lot of debate on the constitutionality of a wealth tax, and it will likely be struck down. The 16th amendment which allowed for income taxes, only applies to income.

but I am guessing that "wealth tax" is nothing more than a "media" / "messaging" term. Essentially a slogan, like "millionaires and billionaires".

If you read the OP article (and I have access to the WaPo version that the OP source link basically reproduces), it's mainly how they want to change the tax codes to narrow certain write-offs & exemptions for those making above a certain income.

For example, there was discussion about the inheritance transfers (and how that is mostly exempt) and also discussion of using the "appreciation" of certain assets like real estate, to get a fairer value for tax assessment (although there was a balance option of allowing for deductions for losses).

And with respect to taxes, one might not necessarily limit it to the 16th Amendment. I.e., you can go all the way back before any Amendments were passed, let alone the 16th -

Someone must have thought it was necessary

as a result of cases that assumed that Congressional taxing authority had to rely on "apportionment" (by population), based on the earlier clause that declared that that non-whites (non-European-descended slaves and indigenous peoples) were "3/5ths" of a person (for tax purposes). I.e., the slave-holding states would end up bearing a burden if they considered certain human beings actual "whole persons" for population and "property tax" purposes, when it came to application of Article I, Sect. 8.



With the 14th Amendment suddenly restoring the removed 2/5 of certain impacted people to make them "whole", the apportionment issue again reared it's "ugly head", with the government needing a way to directly target a new class of people (the various "barons" who were proliferating during the latter part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th) who were being excluded from taxation due to a now-magnified "apportionment" assumption ("requirement" ).

The 16th Amendment became the attempt to toss out the "apportionment" piece, among other things, for certain taxes, and define "direct tax" vs "indirect tax" when it came to taxation.



Some of the legal arguments out there point to the extremes of either forcing the "must use the apportionment clause" for any type of Congressional tax, including certain income taxes vs completely ignoring apportionment (as a now-deprecated artifact of history), when it comes to Congress' broad taxing authority.

There is an interesting paper on this here (PDF) - https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/RI_Wealth-Tax-Constitutionality-Brief-202102-2.pdf

As I noted in my earlier response, the term "wealth tax" seems more jargon because it can be effectuated by changing the existing tax code. The "problem" is how complex the tax code is at this point, and whether someone is up to really getting into the weeds of carving out certain exemptions and making changes to basically accomplish what would amount to unveiling "hidden" sources of income.

And inevitably, every time we reach this point, someone will toss out the simplistic - "Well then just do a flat tax!!!1!!11!!!!!" and away we go.

I.e., "wealth is a nebulous thing that is sitting there disconnected from (in terms of taxation focus), but inherently linked to actual (but unrealized) "income". And that is because some of it has been considered/accepted as being an "asset" that can be used to borrow against.

So as a simplistic example, if I own a few original Rembrandts worth millions, I could conceivably be loaned money against the "market value" (or some other derived value) of those paintings. But having ownership of them incurs no tax liability as property (until/unless they are sold, triggering capital gains), and that is where the 16th Amendment is silent.

Thus... some argue that given Congress' "broad taxing authority", anything not spelled out in the 16th Amendment, could fall back to Article I. Sect. 8, but not with the "strict" interpretation of "requiring apportionment" as denoted in Article I. Sect. 2, but some "middling" interpretation of that clause because the original apportionment clause is now deprecated, but may still have limited validity in certain circumstances.

And of course this would be something that would be argued in the courts. In fact, this article mentioned some of the comments that CJ John Roberts made in his opinion with respect to Congress' taxing authority when it came to the ACA (and it apparently even touched on his thoughts about the famous "Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Company" case that prompted the 16th Amendment).

One might attempt to argue that micromanaging the types of things that "should" require "apportionment", is ridiculous in certain circumstances, as was referenced regarding past SCOTUS rulings on the "carriage tax" not needing "apportionment" to enact (and could thus be lumped in as an "indirect tax" ).

...the billionaires are going to be pissed...

...how will they ever become trillionaires?

...I'm worried...

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