Tax Billionaires’ Wealth

Tax Billionaires’ Wealth – Free the 95%

Synopsis:

Ultra-wealthy use money to buy political power and bend democracy to serve their needs.
Solution, Step 1: Annual marginal wealth tax on billionaires, first $1B exempt, top rate 90%.
Solution, Step 2: Use revenue to eliminate federal income taxes for bottom 95%, fund universal healthcare, and free higher education.
Core aim: Reduce concentrated wealth so as to re-establish one person – one vote (one unit of influence), and a government that serves We the People.

Benjamin Franklin 1776:
“An enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness of mankind…”

Thomas Jefferson 1785:
“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”

Thomas Jefferson 1816:
“I hope we shall … crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and to bid defiance to the laws of their country.”

American billionaires haven’t just bought private jets—they’ve bought our democracy!

Democracy and Billionaires – You Can’t Have Both

Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, the ultra-wealthy have poured immense sums of money to influence our politicians, judges, and bend our democracy into serving their needs, a mere rounding error in their vast fortunes. This has accelerated the shift of political power to America’s richest 0.00026% and pushed inequality to its highest level in 50 years, worse than any other major industrialized democracy.

Meanwhile, ordinary Americans must focus on paying their rent, budgeting for groceries, and saving for college, unable to compete with billionaires for the attention of “our” representatives.

Democracy cannot survive when government answers to the wealthy instead of We the People.

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Attributed to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

A Solution: Tax Billionaires’ Wealth – Free the 95%

America can wrest control of our democracy from the billionaires with a two-step plan:

Step 1.
Institute an annual, marginal billionaire wealth tax, exempting the first $1 billion, so as to downsize their fortune and political power.

Step 2.
Use the revenue to eliminate income taxes for 95% of Americans and fund programs that improve the lives of everyday Americans.

Marginal Billionaire Wealth Tax
Estimated Year 1 Revenue (First $1B Exempt)

Tier	Wealth ($Billion)	Number	Tier Wealth ($B)	Marginal Tax Rate	Revenue ($B)
1	$1-2 B	363	$443 B	10%	$89 B
2	$2-10 B	428	$2,222 B	15%	$319 B
3	$10-50 B	83	$1,520 B	30%	$640 B
4	$50-100 B	6	$454 B	60%	$507 B
5	>$100 B	13	$2,052 B	90%	$677 B
Total		893	$6,691 B		$2.232 B

An estimate of the revenue generated by this wealth tax can be calculated using the net wealth of each of the 893 American billionaires on the 8/13/2025 Forbes billionaire list. First, subtract $1 billion from each billionaire’s net wealth, then apply the marginal tax rates of 10%, 15%, 30%, 60%, and 90% on each billionaire’s successive wealth tier; finally, sum all the individual billionaire’s tax payments.

This wealth tax will raise in excess of $2 trillion in its first year – more than twice the Pentagon’s budget and nearly a third of the entire federal budget! This largesse could be used to eliminate federal income taxes for the 250 million Americans earning less than $200,000, who collectively pay $700 billion, per the Tax Foundation.

Advantages of “Tax Billionaires’ Wealth – Free the 95%”

This plan strikes at the heart of America’s economic and political inequality—shifting the tax burden from working people to the ultra-wealthy, a demographic that can easily afford the incremental tax, while reducing the resources billionaires use to dominate our political and judicial systems.

Revenue from a billionaire wealth tax could also be used to:

- Eliminate the federal deficit and start paying down the debt
- Enact Medicare-for-all (~$1.6T)
- Fund universal child care and pre-K (~$600B)
- Make public colleges and vocational schools free (~$200B)
- Extend Social Security solvency by 75 years (~$200B)
- Fully-fund universal housing assistance (~$60B) and/or
- Invest in future-facing industries and education

Of course, billionaires who value wealth over country will renounce their citizenship and emigrate. While this will decrease tax revenue, it will also, as designed, neutralize their political power as non-citizens are barred from financing U.S. political campaigns.

Potential Objections to A Billionaires’ Wealth Tax

“It’s unconstitutional.”
Approximately 90 percent of Americans already pay an annual tax on their largest fiscal asset through the property tax. Equity demands that billionaires also pay an annual tax on their largest wealth assets. Although the Supreme Court may currently view a billionaire wealth tax as unconstitutional, its rulings have long reflected society’s changing standards. Social Security, the minimum wage, child labor laws, and civil rights protections all faced initial constitutional challenges but were later upheld. Given that economists, legal scholars, and 63% of Americans—including a majority of Republicans—support a billionaire wealth tax, it is reasonable to expect the Court will ultimately declare it constitutional.

“It’s a politically impossibility.”
History has shown that ideas once largely deemed “impossible” can become a new reality: America’s independence in 1776, the moon landing in 1969, and the election of a President who was a reality TV star in 2016, and an authoritarian in 2024.

“It will hurt the billionaires’ lifestyles.”
Not true! Their first $1 billion is exempt, and 67% of Americans agree that $1 billion is “far more than any person needs, even if they live a lavish lifestyle.”

“The revenue will shrink over time.”
Long-term financial projections are inherently uncertain: the number of billionaires may grow even as the fortunes of individual deca- and centa-billionaires shrink under a wealth tax. But the primary goal of the wealth tax isn’t revenue—it is to curb the extreme concentration of wealth that fuels outsized political influence.

“A wealth tax will reduce innovation.”
Most major breakthroughs come from small firms, startups, and small research teams, which produce more innovation per employee than large corporations. Even today’s tech giants generated their defining ideas early, long before anyone became a billionaire. Innovation precedes vast fortunes and continues afterward because it is driven by the innovator’s DNA, not tax rates.

Furthermore, if a billionaire claims they require vast capital to drive innovation, they can transfer their wealth into a charitable endowment. By investing that endowment into mission-driven startups, they can continue to fuel breakthroughs and grow their philanthropic impact without needing personal ownership of billions. Thus, innovation is preserved while excessive political influence is greatly diminished.

In short, the only losers from this wealth tax are a few hundred billionaires who have rigged our political, judicial, and democratic institutions to serve their own interests. While their balance sheets would lose a zero or two, their lifestyles would remain extraordinarily lavish.

Political Utility of “Tax Billionaires’ Wealth – Free the 95%”

Ken Martin, Chair of the Democratic Party, recently stated that voters now believe Republicans better represent the working class. “Tax Billionaires’ Wealth – Free the 95%” flips that script. It’s a clear, value-driven message that forces Republicans to defend the 0.00026% while the Democrats champion the 95%. It will fit on a bumper sticker and resonate across the political spectrum.

Democracy’s North Star: “Tax Billionaires’ Wealth – Free the 95%”

Government must serve all of us—not just those who can afford to buy influence. Shifting the tax burden to those who have benefited most from America’s educational, economic, and tax systems—is a return to fairness while reaffirming the principle that the government must serve We the People, not the privileged few.

Stand with the 95%.
Create an equitable tax system.
Stop billionaires from buying our politicians and judges.
Reestablish a “government of the people, by the people, (and) for the people”.

Hayward Zwerling
30 August 2025

Addendum:

Lest anyone believe I disfavor capitalism, I want to know that I adamantly believe that capitalism is the best way to structure a society’s economy; and history has mostly borne this out. However, I also believed unbridle capitalism, which allows goods to be priced in a way that ignore their true longterm cost to society is immoral; I believe we need a rational form of capitalism.

Other relevant essays:

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.

Eliminate Federal Taxes for the 99.9%

The Scale of Billionaires’ Campaign Donations is Overwhelming U.S. Politics, New York Times 3/9/26

“billionaire families gave (politicians)…. an amount roughly equal to what 100,000 typical political donors gave, combined”

“300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated … 19 percent of all contributions — in federal elections in 2024, either directly or through political action committees.”

“even in places where voters have handily approved new campaign finance rules, wealthy donors have found ways to circumvent the limits without breaking any laws.”

Additional methods for transforming America into a truly “constitutional republic”—a democracy composed of elected representatives: