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Abigail Disney, Brian Cox and Valerie Rockefeller among signatories of open letter condemning inequality
More than 250 billionaires and millionaires are demanding that the political elite meeting for the World Economic Forum in Davos introduce wealth taxes to help pay for better public services around the world.
“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” the wealthy people said in an open letter to world leaders. “This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”
The rich signatories from 17 countries include Disney heir Abigail Disney; Brian Cox who played fictional billionaire Logan Roy in Succession; actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg; and Valerie Rockefeller , an heir to the US dynasty.
Can they not just surrender the money of their own volition? You could even cut out the middleman.
I don’t think there’s a mechanism in place for transfer of money to the government like that beyond, say, buying bonds or something, which the government is required to repay. They aren’t really set up to take large donations of that nature, taxes are already intended to handle that. And an individual isn’t going to be able to legally build a highway, or a school district of their own accord without governmental assistance.
And I think it’s good that this is the case. It prevents America from devolving into a hundred nations led by individual warlords, we would very easily slip into something resembling Japan’s Sengoku period.
This is a common statement type of thing. Especially for conservatives when responding to someone wealthy saying taxes should be raised. You see they are in relative competition with each other. If they give up their money they will lower their relative status but if money is removed equally across their level then the playing field is still level.
I would presume these folks are already pretty charitable, it must be how they were known as potential signatories to join.