Democratic lawmakers in the United States of America are looking for ways to tax the wealthy, whose fortunes continue to grow.

The United States added 1.73 million new families to the list of the wealthy last year, bringing the total of millionaires at the end of 2020 to 21.95 million, according to the Credit Suisse report on global wealth.

In a report published by the American Wall Street Journal, author Robert Hershey said that millionaires constitute for the first time 1% of the adult population around the world.

Credit Suisse announced that the rise in the number of the world's rich people last year reflects the contradiction between the improvement of the financial and real assets of families and the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic.

The bank, which includes home value in its net capital account, expects another 6.1 million American millionaires to emerge by 2025, but will this trend be a primary target for politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren, whose fortune was $12 million in 2019, according to Forbes magazine? (Forbes), or might it inspire more wealth tax opponents?

wealth tax

Warren proposes an annual wealth tax of 2% for those with wealth over $50 million, as well as a 4% surcharge for billionaires, and those who fear the minimum tax can be lowered can point to an alternative minimum tax.

When it was introduced by Congress in 1969, the alternative minimum tax was designed to catch 155 high-income people who paid little or no tax, and by 2017 the alternative minimum tax included 5.2 million middle-class people, mainly due to It was not indicative of inflation.

Credit Suisse expects another 6.1 million American millionaires to emerge by 2025 (Shutterstock)

But perhaps the ubiquitous presence of the rich is reviving a largely forgotten way of showing off money. In ancient Greece, wealthy Athenians gained social status by sponsoring warships or erecting statues of their own.

And when Congress imposed income tax after ratifying the 16th Constitutional Amendment in 1913—which stipulates that the tax range from 1% on income over $300,000 to 6% on income over $500,000—the rich boasted of being part of the elite. Demanding the payment of 3% of its income.

The writer says that the terms "millionaires and billionaires" are not separate from each other in the eyes of politicians, as are the terms "giant corporations" and "hardworking Americans", but it is clear that the words chosen obscure the huge difference.

In other words, if you invest $1 billion with a 1% return, you could make about $10 million a year, while investing $1 million will give you about $200 a week, which is enough to invite the family to dinner at a restaurant or to a baseball game.