Can we take a moment to dispel a very lazy argument against taxing billionaires that I frequently see on Twitter?

(Thread)

Someone will say: “Jeff Bezos has added $50 billion to his wealth during the pandemic while millions of Americans have fallen into poverty. Tax the rich.”

And without skipping a beat, the Lazy Argument people will pop up like: “All that new wealth is just increased stock price. It’s unrealized capital gains. We can’t tax money that doesn’t exist yet. You’re wrong!”

The Lazy Argument says “if Amazon’s stock goes from $2,000/share to $3,000/share, and Bezos becomes $50 billion richer, it’s not like he has $50 billion extra cash sitting in a bank account. That increased wealth is unrealized capital gains. It’s not liquid and can’t be taxed!”

This argument is as lazy as it is commonly used. It ignores the fact that Amazon, and many publicly traded companies, enjoy bloated stock prices that have ALREADY baked in and benefited from bad tax policy, anti-competitive behavior, and low labor costs.

Amazon’s stock price is unjustly inflated, in part, because it does not pay fair taxes, unfairly crushes its competition, and doesn’t pay a living wage. In other words, Jeff Bezos‘ collosal “unrealized capital gains” are built off the misery of hard-working low-wage Americans.

So ppl who say “you can’t tax unrealized capital gains!” are late to the party. The heist is already complete once we see the crazy stock price. The point is that we need better policies ON THE FRONT END that keep billionaires from taking advantage of bad policies to hoard wealth