Elizabeth Warren unveils proposal for Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act as richest Americans see gains during pandemic

The proposal, called the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act and released with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, would put a 2% annual tax on households and trusts between $50 million and $1 billion.

The lawmakers say the move would level the playing field and narrow the racial wealth gap. .

"This is a wealth tax that has been needed for a long time.

"Today the richest 1% own 75% of the nation's wealth and the richest 0.1% — that's zero-point-one percent —  own more than 18% of America's wealth," said Jayapal.

"Then just compare that to the entire bottom half of Americans owning just 1.5% of wealth." Jayapal also noted the racial wealth gap with White families having an average wealth that is 14 times that of Black families and eight times as much as Hispanic families.

Last month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said a wealth tax has "very difficult implementation problems." On several occasions, she and other Biden administration officials have instead discussed examining the corporate tax rate and loopholes. .

At the same time, passage of a wealth tax would prove difficult in the Senate.

The number of countries with wealth taxes has dropped over the past 30 years.

In 1990, 12 European countries had wealth taxes, but by 2018, that number was down to three.

Economists note there are multiple challenges associated with estimating the revenues a wealth tax would generate in part because of how assets are valued. .

A large amount of money affecting relatively few taxpayers, all of whom are at the very top of the wealth distribution," said Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center