John,

Did you know that our tax code taxes income from work, but it doesn’t tax income from wealth, like corporate stock gains, unless the assets are sold? That’s right, billionaires aren’t taxed when they sit on the couch and watch their stocks go up in value. But working families pay their fair share with each and every paycheck.

In fact, if you paid a penny in taxes last year ahead of the April 18th tax filing deadline, you probably paid more than some billionaires paid.

We know this from ProPublica, which was given IRS data showing that billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Michael Bloomberg paid zero federal income taxes some years even as the gains they generated from their wealth grew by billions of dollars.[1] Over a recent nine-year period, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid an average effective federal income tax rate of only 8.2% when the growth in the value of their stock holdings is included in their income.[2]

Meanwhile, the average federal income tax rate for all taxpayers is about 13%.[3]

That’s a moral outrage! Fortunately, President Biden and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), chair of the tax-writing committee, have proposed major plans to tax billionaires’ wealth gains, which ATF has led the fight for since last fall!

We need your help. Write to your senators and representative today and tell them to pass a version of a billionaires income tax so billionaires begin paying their fair share in taxes like the rest of us do.

A billionaires income tax would end the scandal of billionaires paying little to no federal income taxes by taxing the growth in the value of stocks and other assets every year like income from wages. That means if Jeff Bezos’ wealth grows by $50 billion, he’ll have to pay taxes on all $50 billion, not just the $82,000 salary he gets from Amazon.[4]

Right now, billionaires are buying superyachts and going to space while working families struggle to afford gas, groceries, rent, and healthcare.

A billionaires income tax could raise as much as $550 billion over ten years. That’s money we could use to lower healthcare and other costs for working families, fight the climate crisis, expand the Child Tax Credit, and more.[5]

Billionaires got $1.7 trillion, or 57%, richer during the first two years of the pandemic. That’s enough to renew the expanded Child Tax Credit for ten years to reduce the number of children in poverty by 40%, or to cancel all student loan debt.[6] It’s time for billionaires to do their part.

Click here to write to your members of Congress and urge them to pass a billionaires income tax like the ones proposed by President Biden and Senator Ron Wyden so we can lower costs for millions of working people and families.

Thank you for fighting for a tax code that rewards work, not just wealth.

Frank Clemente
Executive Director
Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund

[1] “Summary of ProPublica’s Report on Billionaire Tax Dodgers,” Americans for Tax Fairness, June 23, 2021
[2] “What Is the Average Federal Individual Income Tax Rate on the Wealthiest Americans?,” The White House, Sep. 23, 2021
[3] “Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2022 Update,” Tax Foundation, Jan. 20, 2022
[4] “5 Mind-Blowing Facts About Jeff Bezos’ Wealth,” Yahoo, July 27, 2021
[5] “6 Ways to Spend Revenue from the Billionaires Income Tax,” Americans for Tax Fairness, March 16, 2022
[6] "After 2 Years of COVID, U.S. Billionaires are $1.7 Trillion, or 57%, Richer," Americans for Tax Fairness, March 11, 2022