For most people, passive income is a bit of extra pocket change that requires minimal effort to earn to supplement a main source of income. For Steve Ballmer, it’s $1 billion.
See this is the problem here. We have these insane examples of wealth that should really have been fixed with a 100% tax rate over something reasonable. But since we didn’t do that we have the other extremes, calling for tearing down other streams of income or demanding you should work the rest of your life for a wage vs investments. Neither of these positions offer much value here. Really we should be pushing for voters to turn out and create a reasonable tax rate. Take WA for example and how they created a 7% tax on over 250k annual for capital gains. Could that be more? Maybe. Could it be a sliding scale up? Sadly no due to the state constitution atm. As an engineer there I might be in a position that pays that, which I’m OK with, but no way I could buy a house here or live comfortably without working if there’s no investment income allowed. And I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life working for shitty tech companies.
See this is the problem here. We have these insane examples of wealth that should really have been fixed with a 100% tax rate over something reasonable. But since we didn’t do that we have the other extremes, calling for tearing down other streams of income or demanding you should work the rest of your life for a wage vs investments. Neither of these positions offer much value here. Really we should be pushing for voters to turn out and create a reasonable tax rate. Take WA for example and how they created a 7% tax on over 250k annual for capital gains. Could that be more? Maybe. Could it be a sliding scale up? Sadly no due to the state constitution atm. As an engineer there I might be in a position that pays that, which I’m OK with, but no way I could buy a house here or live comfortably without working if there’s no investment income allowed. And I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life working for shitty tech companies.