A new report from Americans for Tax Fairness found that America’s richest families accumulated $8.5 trillion in untaxed capital gains in 2022

America’s wealthiest families held an astounding $8.5 trillion in untaxed profits in 2022. According to a report from the nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness, which analyzed Federal Reserve data, “one in every six dollars (18 percent of the nation’s unrealized gains is held by these roughly 64,000 ultra-wealthy households, who make up less than 0.05 percent of the population.” The report comes as the Supreme Court gears up to decide a case that could preemptively block any efforts to tax the wealth of billionaires.

The data looks at “quiet” income generated by “centi-millionaires,” Americans holding at least $100 million in wealth, and billionaires through unrealized capital gains. Those gains accumulate, untaxed, as assets and investments like stocks, real estate, bonds, and other investments increase in value. If those assets are not sold — or “realized” — they are not taxed, yet America’s wealthiest families can leverage that on-paper value increase to secure favorable loans with low-interest rates in lieu of using taxable income to finance their lifestyle.

“Of the $139 trillion in America’s national wealth, almost three-quarters (73 percent) is held by the richest 10 percent of households, over one-third (35 percent) by the richest 1 percent, and an astounding 11 percent — $15.2 trillion — is held by the handful of fortunate households that make up the billionaire and centi-millionaire class,” the report says. “The wealthiest 1 percent of households hold 44 percent of national unrealized gains ($21.2 trillion), with billionaires and centi-millionaires alone controlling 18 percent ($8.5 trillion).”

    • Shadywack@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s kind of difficult to pull off solo, and for obvious reasons any serious group that’s organizing or planning anything will have some fierce consequences or hurdles to deal with. At least if it’s openly talked about, and it happens to be the solution we need, better to have the idea out in the open than to sit here and say “Yes please, leopards keep eating my face, yes please, let the rich keep taking what little we have away more and more”.

      At least if we start standing up and letting them know where the true power is, we can also instill some fear, and it’s the humane thing to do before they end up seeing their neck stump from their own head sitting in a basket. All they have to do is set aside SOME of their disgusting greed and allow the rest of us to perceive hope for the future before it truly has to resort to violence.

      I don’t expect that though, as we have many examples throughout history where people resorted to violence after absolutely nothing else works.