# Billionaires, CEOs, "corporations", and capitalism- Are things really different, or is it propaganda? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 22, 2026, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073 "2026-10-22T18:34:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/221 "2026-10-30T15:38:48Z")
I’m not arguing against progressive taxation, but rather that the guy with a million bucks either deserves to have his wealth taken on behalf of the other guy, or that he’s obligated to pay for that other guy. Progressive taxation isn’t quite the same thing; it’s more about what level of taxation is onerous, rather than about what one deserves. And that gets at the root of my discomfort; the idea that somehow people above a certain wealth level don’t “deserve” it. It’s not a question of worthiness or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/222 "2026-10-30T15:44:47Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > You _need_ that kind of money, for certain definitions of “need”. The problem is that the admin or receptionist needs to share with an apartment with 4 roommates, cannot put their kid through school, god forbid somebody get sick, and so forth. > > Of course, plenty of people get by somehow, maybe you have two wage earners who together can afford to rent a tiny apartment. The problem is the disparity. Which is my point. And I don’t know how there cannot be a connection between the receptionist’s inability to afford a home (or whatever) with the doctor’s ability to afford one. They’re both operating in the same market. > [@bump](#): > > And here we go. This is exactly the sort of thing that I’m cautioning against upthread. > > 5x the median net worth is right around a million dollars. That’s absurd to think that they need to be taxed above and beyond whatever already progressive taxation takes. Didn’t say anything about net worth, and didn’t say anything about taxing above and beyond existing progressive taxation. Take a breath, read what I wrote. Dismantle the strawman. > [@Babale](#): > > Their income isn’t the rate at which they “collect wealth”, that would be their income minus expenditures. > > The doctor could be ‘collecting wealth’ at an infinitely higher rate if the receptionist can’t afford to save at all, or they could be collecting no wealth at all because they’re blowing it all away on gambling. Sure it’s ‘collecting wealth.’ I might also be exhausting my wealth at the same time, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to use wealth as a synonym for money. I have dollars in my bank account. They, along with other assets, represent my wealth. Making an income adds to my wealth, and buying things subtracts from it. Again, not trying to be argumentative, but this feels like a lot of knee-jerk defensiveness. I did not say that a doctor should not make $300k a year. I did not say anything about 5x the median net worth. My point is simply that, while the $300k/yr doctor is not living in the same world as the $100-millionaire or billionaire, they also are not living in the same world as the $50k/yr wage earner. And it seems that any discussion about economic disparity will be reliably diverted into a discussion re-assuring the upper middle class that everyone knows they are just like the average folk, and we know they have expenses too, and everyone believes that they deserve every penny they have. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/223 "2026-10-30T15:44:54Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > In discussions about wealth it is exhausting to constantly have to re-assure those who collect wealth at rates 5x or more than the median that they are in fact not wealthy. There’s a way to define it without even getting into specific numbers. My preference is to say that wealth starts when one is able to live a comfortable lifestyle of luxury without having to work and without worrying about running out of money. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/224 "2026-10-30T15:53:33Z")
Hopefully that’s a starting point for discussion and not where we start redistributing. That’s where me and my wife are. Unless some catastrophic worldwide economic crisis occurs, we’re set for life (we’re retired). That means we can vacation, eat out when we want, etc. We ain’t buying any Picassos. This is the result of 40+ years of hard work and saving. I accept that huge change is needed, and that we’ll have to pay our share. But how about we start at the Elon level and work our way down. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/225 "2026-10-30T15:53:34Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > The problem is that the admin or receptionist needs to share with an apartment with 4 roommates > > … > > maybe you have two wage earners who together can afford to rent a tiny apartment. All of which could be a moot point, if American cities would just rewrite their zoning ordinances to allow Single Room Occupancy residences. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/226 "2026-10-30T16:03:12Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Sure it’s ‘collecting wealth.’ I might also be exhausting my wealth at the same time, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to use wealth as a synonym for money. I have dollars in my bank account. They, along with other assets, represent my wealth. Making an income adds to my wealth, and buying things subtracts from it. That’s not how the term “wealth”, as in “wealth tax”, is used in the context of these discussions. If you just mean that the doctor has five times higher income than the receptionist, just say that; no one could possibly take issue with such a statement. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/227 "2026-10-30T16:04:09Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > Hopefully that’s a starting point for discussion and not where we start redistributing. That’s where me and my wife are. Unless some catastrophic worldwide economic crisis occurs, we’re set for life (we’re retired). > > That means we can vacation, eat out when we want, etc. We ain’t buying any Picassos. This is the result of 40+ years of hard work and saving. > > I accept that huge change is needed, and that we’ll have to pay our share. But how about we start at the Elon level and work our way down. Definitely. I can easily see the discussion sliding towards the position I see many of the Republicans I know in real life seem to believe that Democrats actually support. That is the position that wealth should be redistributed to the point where everyone has the same amount, which according to them is what “socialism” means. I think going anywhere even close to that is a terrible idea. IMHO the focus should be on getting the 0.1% to contribute their fair share, not on trying to make the 10-25% “equal” to the 75-100%. ETA: I also don’t mean to imply that everyone, in the moral sense, deserves all the wealth that they have. Some people do start with advantages that others don’t. But the solution to that is to try to provide everyone an equal opportunity to succeed, not some kind of guaranteed equal outcome, whatever that even means. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/228 "2026-10-30T16:25:28Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > everyone believes that they deserve every penny they have. Oh, I don’t believe that for a second. (That is, I don’t believe I deserve any of this.) One of my biggest financial shocks was learning how easy it is to make money if you have money. All you have to do is park it somewhere. The idea that this counts as some kind of hard-won effort worthy of praise is ludicrous. ---
**Author:** ![jjakucyk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3d9bf3/32.png) [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/229 "2026-10-30T16:28:44Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > …who expects to replace them as the prime movers of society? Do we need prime movers? > [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > They don’t have their billions sitting in a mason jar buried in the back yard; it exists in their corporate ownership and stock holdings and real-estate holdings. To pay the tax, you have to sell stock (or property or…) Theoretically selling those shares/property/etc dilutes their power and reallocates it to those investors who might do something better with it. Better than stock buybacks. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/230 "2026-10-30T16:43:22Z")
> [@jjakucyk](#): > > > [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > > > They don’t have their billions sitting in a mason jar buried in the back yard; it exists in their corporate ownership and stock holdings and real-estate holdings. To pay the tax, you have to sell stock (or property or…) > > Theoretically selling those shares/property/etc dilutes their power and reallocates it to those investors who might do something better with it. Better than stock buybacks. How so? Given my earlier comments, I’m playing devils advocate, but there are practical problems with this. Who is it that will be buying those shares? Not other billionaires, because they will be selling shares in their own companies to be paying their own wealth tax. Not hundred millionaires, because what incentive do they have to buy the stock? Best case scenario for them is that the stock goes up, they become billionaires, and then they have to sell that stock to pay their wealth tax, making it a wash at best. My guess is that in the real world, what we would eventually end up with is communism in the old fashioned sense of the term, AKA the government buying that stock and owning those businesses. IMHO the ideal solution is to create some kind of lever to “force” the oligarchs to run their businesses in a way that benefits society as a whole and their workers in particular rather than further enriching themselves. No, I don’t know what the best way to go about that is. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/231 "2026-10-30T16:54:12Z")
> [@bump](#): > > 5x the median net worth is right around a million dollars. You’re conflating net worth and income. The middle aged person whose net worth is $1mm is in a much different spot that someone earning $1mm/year. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/232 "2026-10-30T17:13:52Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > How so? Given my earlier comments, I’m playing devils advocate, but there are practical problems with this. Who is it that will be buying those shares? Not other billionaires, because they will be selling shares in their own companies to be paying their own wealth tax. Not hundred millionaires, because what incentive do they have to buy the stock? Best case scenario for them is that the stock goes up, they become billionaires, and then they have to sell that stock to pay their wealth tax, making it a wash at best. The “good” news is that you’d be gutting the financial sector (and through second order effects probably a lot of other sectors too), so a lot of valuation will simply evaporate before you need to worry about how to redistribute it! Hooray? > [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > My guess is that in the real world, what we would eventually end up with is communism in the old fashioned sense of the term, AKA the government buying that stock and owning those businesses. Either that, or what happened after Communism, where the officials gutting these companies and selling them for parts ensure that their well connected friends and family get most of the scraps. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/233 "2026-10-30T17:13:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > And here we go. This is exactly the sort of thing that I’m cautioning against upthread. > > 5x the median net worth is right around a million dollars. That’s absurd to think that they need to be taxed above and beyond whatever already progressive taxation takes. It’s not that much money in any real sense. It’s the recommended retirement savings amount, FWIW, not Scrooge McDuck type money. > > The problem isn’t that the person with a million dollars net worth has too much, it’s that the others don’t have enough. But that also doesn’t justify taking from the person with a million dollars to give it to anyone else. There are too many gotchas- what if that person making 30k was a dumbass who slacked in high school, does too many drugs, and can barely hold a job, while that millionaire is someone who did everything right, delayed gratification, saved money, etc…? Do they still deserve to have their money/wealth taken because the other guy has less? I’d say no. “A million dollars is a nightmare. Can´t retire. Not worth it to work. Oh, yes. One will drive you un poco loco. Poorest rich person in America. The world´s tallest dwarf. The weakest strongman at the circus.” – Paraphrased from Connor Roy’s conversation with Greg in HBO’s Succession “I’m stuck picking up my own kid like an asshole.” –Russ Hanneman, Silicon Valley > [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > All of which could be a moot point, if American cities would just rewrite their zoning ordinances to allow Single Room Occupancy residences. I remember telling a couple I was friends with about my new apartment in Manhattan when I moved there back in 2001. They were shocked by the rent and asked me how many rooms I lived in. It was a studio, so technically just the “one”. Having a couple of million dollars working in NYC is comfortable…ish. But it pales in comparison when I look over the river and see these pencil thin towers of $40 million condos that no one actually lives in. Like it’s hard to compare notes to people who live outside of big expensive cities, because all the dimensions of cost and size and space are out of whack. There’s also the matter than most people in that income bracket tend to earn their income from corporate jobs, which seem to be pretty unstable these days. So it’s like, yeah I’m doing well so long as some private equity firm doesn’t buy my company and lay everyone off. The point of view of the 90% of households who earn less than $250k? I think one of the problems is that we don’t really even think of people being “rich” unless they are in the top 0.1% > [@DPRK](#): > > And I have literally seen people under 30 meticulously planning their future career in, e.g., investment banking, rather than gearing up to volunteer for the World Food Programme That is a perfectly rational and pragmatic choice and a pretty common one within my college classmates. And that’s the problem. Rather than creating incentives to solve actual problems, I feel like the corporate system only incentivizes the problem of “how to make rich people slightly richer”. ---
**Author:** ![jjakucyk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3d9bf3/32.png) [@jjakucyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjakucyk)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/234 "2026-10-30T17:39:14Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > IMHO the ideal solution is to create some kind of lever to “force” the oligarchs to run their businesses in a way that benefits society as a whole and their workers in particular rather than further enriching themselves. No, I don’t know what the best way to go about that is. High taxes on corporate profits, so they will be incentivized to reinvest those funds into R&D, salaries, or expansion. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/235 "2026-10-30T17:41:29Z")
Think about universal Healthcare. What if your taxes went up by 5%, but you didn’t have to pay insurance premiums, or copays or coinsurance? What if you didn’t have to have your credit card to go to the doctor, and then get another bill later? Targeting the ultra wealthy can be done without taxing them into poverty. Didn’t New York City create a 5th home tax or something? Something about of you own five private homes you get an extra tax? That’s not a business rental property, but these ultra wealthy people that own houses or luxury condos in multiple cities. Couple that with legislation to break up the mega corporations and limit conglomerates and multi-industry corps or subsidiaries. Disney can be a content creator, but not a distributor and platform and news corporation and marketing company. And go after Musk for his actions in Ukraine. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/236 "2026-10-30T17:51:43Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Think about universal Healthcare. What if your taxes went up by 5%, but you didn’t have to pay insurance premiums, or copays or coinsurance? What if you didn’t have to have your credit card to go to the doctor, and then get another bill later? Universal Healthcare just means extending healthcare options to everyone who needs them and is a moral imperative, but also wouldn’t really impact people who already have health insurance; are you talking about _single payer_ healthcare? The fact is that _some_ of the higher cost of healthcare does stem from insurance companies, but it’s also true that very few European countries have a single payer system and yet they are able to get healthcare costs far below our own. Another major factor is the quality of care. Not necessarily quality **in ways that matter to outcome** , mind you; plenty of European countries are as good or better than us in those areas, other than cancer where the US is among the best in the world. But in terms of **comfort**? I believe that the last time I looked it up about 70% of US hospital beds were in their own room. That’s almost unheard of in Europe; that costs money. And that’s just one example (the risk of medical malpractice and the additional testing doctors order to avoid lawsuits is another example). > [@Irishman](#): > > Targeting the ultra wealthy can be done without taxing them into poverty. Didn’t New York City create a 5th home tax or something? Something about of you own five private homes you get an extra tax? That’s not a business rental property, but these ultra wealthy people that own houses or luxury condos in multiple cities. I don’t think anyone is objecting to taxing the ultra wealthy so that they pair their fair share. What I find objectionable are calls to end the existence of billionaires. I think that’s just silly. > [@Irishman](#): > > Couple that with legislation to break up the mega corporations and limit conglomerates and multi-industry corps or subsidiaries. > > Disney can be a content creator, but not a distributor and platform and news corporation and marketing company. Agreed, we should aggressively bust up monopolies. Amazon’s retail department and marketplace should not be one business. > [@Irishman](#): > > And go after Musk for his actions in Ukraine. 💯. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/237 "2026-10-30T18:31:03Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > What I find objectionable are calls to end the existence of billionaires. I think that’s just silly. You should take “billionaires” as a loose synecdoche that refers to an economic system that’s gone badly haywire in the direction of inequality. Admittedly it’s somewhat delusional to suppose that liquidating the wealth of 1000 billionaires would be adequate to resolve all of society’s problems. Nor is it exactly right to suggest that “billionaire” is the bright line of wealth that’s excessive enough to justify confiscatory taxation. It’s more of a progression of the type that progressive income taxes are supposed to address, but aren’t adequate to do so, partly because tax brackets have been eroded, and partly because wealth isn’t income. The broader point is that a person’s wealth ought to (very) roughly reflect what they contribute to society. Not what they inherited, nor their economic rents from being the first to build a railroad through a key mountain pass (keeping the analogy old-fasioned for simplicity). A person should get good compensation for that, but they shouldn’t be allowed to collect on it for perpetuity. While it’s not all about billionaires, the existence of billionaires does suggest that the system is extremely broken. It shouldn’t be possible for an individual’s paper wealth to be millions of times larger than the majority of other Americans. While some humans’ contributions are more valuable than others, and some by an admittedly significant factor, nobody is THAT more valuable than anyone else. The other big factor in addition to economic disparity is the power disparity. Elon Musk is now so powerful that not only is it impossible to keep him in check, his industries are also too big to fail without causing massive economic shockwaves. Likewise with some of the other tech titans. The economy simply shouldn’t be allowed to let any one person accumulate that much power. So while billionaires are not in themselves the whole problem, the existence of billionaires is a symptom of our economic system needing some serious recalibration. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/238 "2026-10-30T18:36:08Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > That’s not how the term “wealth”, as in “wealth tax”, is used in the context of these discussions. If you just mean that the doctor has five times higher income than the receptionist, just say that; no one could possibly take issue with such a statement. Not trying for a gotcha or to be difficult, but where is the line beyond wich income becomes wealth? If my net worth increases by $100 dollars, has my “wealth” not increased by $100, regardless of whether that increase came from investments increasing in value, interest paid to me from the bank, or income paid to me in exchange for labor? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/239 "2026-10-30T18:56:23Z")
Income and wealth are two different things. One is how much you make and one is how much you have. If you make a ton and spend a ton, you may not have any wealth. If you make much less but save well over your lifetime, you can accumulate a nestegg. California is trying to do a wealth tax, taxing billionaires based on how much they have, not how much they make every year. Real estate tax is similar to a wealth tax, because it’s based on the value of the house (loosely), not how much it increases or decreases every year. Income tax is based on how much you make that year. The two are quite seperate and it’s weird how some people in this thread are conflating them. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073/240 "2026-10-30T19:09:48Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > California is trying to do a wealth tax, taxing billionaires based on how much they have, not how much they make every year. I would have assumed people were hiding what they have, not only their income. For example, your mega-yacht may be owned by an offshore corporation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/billionaires-ceos-corporations-and-capitalism-are-things-really-different-or-is-it-propaganda/1034073.md?page=13)