The Zuckerberg Tax- by David S. Miller
Miller brings up an important point about a flaw in the US tax system, that is highly relevant in a time in which unequal distribution of wealth has been focused on in everything from President Obama's speeches to the Occupy movement. Facebook's upcoming IPO, and Mark Zuckerberg's expected liquidation of 5 billion dollars worth of stock, highlights an often forgotten point. With the U.S's current tax system, that 5 billion sold will be taxed, but the rest of Zuckerberg's holdings won't, and in this way the super wealthy can effectively avoid all taxes by keeping their shares, and simply borrowing money against them. Furthermore, the U.S tax system allowed it so that when Steve Jobs died and his 2 billion in Apple stocks were inherited by his wife, the only taxes she would need to pay upon selling would be on appreciation since his death. Miller proposes a "Zuckerberg" "mark-to-market", in which annually the shares of the super wealthy would be taxed(top tenth of the top 1 %), whether they were sold or not. This would be an effective way level the playing field between the extraordinarily wealthy, and everyone else, not affecting even most regularly wealthy people.
I think that this topic, and idea is really interesting, and its great to actually see a viable solution to this problem in America, rather than just more complaints. I think it would be interesting to research the U.S tax system more overall, as it has become really focused on this past year in legislation and the news.
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