The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, with Familiar (Rich) Winners

Re:The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, with Fam... by rayiner on Sunday May 14, 2023 @10:14AM (#35938156)

> When people talk about wealth gap, they mean the ultra-rich, the multi-millionaires. For someone with a net worth of $20 million, a one time half-a-million does not make such a difference.

These people are being snookered by the upper middle class. At $12 million, the estate tax exemption excludes all but the top 1% of wealthy. There’s over a million households in that group.

The top 10% own 70% of the wealth. The top 1% holds over 30%. But billionaires hold only about 3%. To meaningfully address wealth inequality, it’s not enough just to heavily tax Bill Gates. You have to heavily tax people like his father, a law firm partner. You need to heavily tax many of the folks here on HN.

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Re:The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, with Fam... by sokoloff on Sunday May 14, 2023 @10:24AM (#35938233)

> At $12 million, the estate tax exemption excludes all but the top 1% of wealthy. There’s over a million households in that group.

Far fewer than 1% of estates pay an estate tax, but rather closer to a tenth of that. It's nowhere near a million households currently subject to it. https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-many-peopl...

You might use that fact to support the second half of your argument, of course.

[ Parent | on HN ]