Don’t Tax the Rich. Cut Them Off.
Billionaires are easy to hate. And there are several efforts underway to get them to pay their “fair share.” In this episode, Max argues that focusing on taxing billionaires is the wrong discussion and distracts from attaining the tax policy we truly need. Instead of focusing on the individual billionaires, focus on preventing individuals from becoming billionaires. The real story is corporate taxes.
Show Notes
Resources
- Legal Information Institute: Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA)
- Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver on Its Promises
- Tax Policy Center: What is the TCJA repatriation tax and how does it work?
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: U.S. Corporations’ Repatriation of Offshore Profits: Evidence from 2018
- The White House: White House Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Releases End of Year Deregulatory Stats: Showing the Trump Administration Has Best Deregulation Year in History
- The Washington Times: Impact of Trump’s 646 deregulatory actions diluted by tariffs, executive orders
- Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Who Is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?
- Elizabeth Warren: Warren Pushes Giant Corporations to Give Billions in Tariff Refunds Back to Consumers
- npr: Companies are getting tariff refunds of up to $2 billion from the Trump administration
- CNN: Corporate America got billions of dollars in tariff refunds. Where’s your cut?
- Congressional Budget Office: Monthly Budget Review: February 2026
- Wall Street Journal: Tariff Revenue Exceeded Corporate Taxes as 2025 Ended
- npr: Proposed California wealth tax sparks debate: Will billionaires leave the state?
- The New York Times: Founders Wade Into the Wealth Tax Debate
- Democratic Socialists of America
- Democracy: A Journal of Ideas: Why Corporations Must Pay More
UNFTR Resources
- Video: Why Taxing Billionaires Won’t Save Us.
- Episode: Updated Tax Evasion Figures.
- Video: On The Record 8-17-26 (The AI Bubble is About to Burst | Corporate Control of Trump.)
- 5 Non-Negotiables
Image Source
- Elvert Barnes from Silver Spring MD, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Changes were made.
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