IBM Vice Chair Gary Cohn: There’s No Billionaire in This Country that Has Income that Is Not Paying at Least 20% Tax

BRENNAN: “That is — that sounds like the exact opposite of what President Biden described in the State of the Union, because he took aim at billionaires. He said they pay a lower tax rate than teachers. He proposed minimum taxes of 25 percent on billionaires. How do you respond to that?”
COHN: “Well, again, I think you’ve got to take one little step back here. A billionaire is a measure of net worth. It’s not a description of their taxable income. You could be a billionaire and have no taxable income. You could not have a billion dollars and have a high taxable income. So, when you look at the way people are — “
BRENNAN: “Because it could be you’re just sitting on assets.”
COHN: “You’re just sitting on assets.”
BRENNAN: “Right.”
COHN: “And you could be sitting on illiquid assets, you could be sitting on liquid assets. We do a very good job in this country of taxing income. That’s what the Constitution talks about. the Constitution talks about taxing your income. There is no income in this country unless you buy a tax-free bond that doesn’t get taxed at a minimum of 20 percent, whether it’s interest or dividends or capital gains. So, there’s no billionaire in this country that has income that is not paying at least 20 percent.”