Facebook co-founder: 50% tax on the rich and 500 for the poor every month

According to a report from Beijing on the 6th, according to CNBC, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes believes that in order to eliminate income inequality, the government should issue cash subsidies to the lowest-income people. The money should come from the rich. Even big tech companies like Facebook charge higher taxes.

Hughes, 34, is one of the co-founders of Facebook. In 2004, he co-founded the company with Mark Zuckerberg and three other Harvard students, and spoke for the company for the first three years. He later left Facebook to complete a Harvard degree and worked as a media strategist on the Obama campaign in 2008.

He said in a podcast interview with Techcrunch: "This shows that our economy is fundamentally unfair. Since the Great Depression, income inequality in our country has never been more serious. Although we have seen in the news that the unemployment rate is 3.9% The stock market has also reached a record high, but the reality is that in the past 40 years, the median income of our country has not changed. At the same time, stories like me have created an illusion of economic opportunity. ” Working at Facebook 3 The initial stock obtained in 1970 made him worth $ 500 million, but Hughes believes that this "lucky breakthrough" is exactly where America's problems lie.

Unlike Zuckerberg, who has always advocated "universal basic income," Hughes sees this system as "infeasible" in the United States today, because giving cash to every American is an "unaffordable" proposal. .

Hughes believes that the solution is to adjust US tax laws to shift money from rich people like him to those in need, including the unemployed and American workers struggling to make ends meet.

He said that the most urgent thing we can do is change the way to reduce the tax rate for businesses and 1% of the rich. Instead, give a $ 500 monthly tax credit to U.S. working people with annual income less than $ 50,000 to create a "Lower Income Limit".

Hughes said the plan would cost about $ 290 billion annually. He proposed that the government raise this funding by levying a 50% income tax and capital gains tax on people earning more than $ 250,000 a year. Under the latest tax reform, individuals with an annual income of more than $ 200,000 currently have an income tax rate of 35%.

Hughes said that by giving low-income workers $ 500 a month, they can guarantee that their annual income will not be less than $ 6,000. "For many working people in our country, this is a lot of money."

Hughes also proposed further reforms of US tax laws to generate sufficient funds to guarantee minimum income for American workers. For example, "You can tax data and distribute checks to everyone." That is, the government can tax data collected by customers, such as Facebook, from customers that are often sold to third parties, such as marketing companies. And advertisers.

"We all create a lot of data, not only your Facebook posts, your phone knows your physical condition, your Fitbit knows your heart rate, your calendar knows where you are going," Hughes said.

Hughes said that these companies can make billions of dollars in profits, in part thanks to data collection. "It can be said that our collective data is driving these profits, and we should all share a little bit of benefit."

"You can ask these companies to pay a small tax to a sovereign wealth fund and distribute it as a data dividend. Check each citizen as a recognition of the value they create."