Trump bashes Democrats' new billionaire-tax plan and suggests he might flee the US but will 'stick it out'

Donald Trump slammed Democrats' proposal to tax billionaires in order to pay for their social spending bill.
After Richard Neal, House Finance Chair, said that the proposal was not on the table, this is now.

Ron Wyden, Neal's Senate counterpart, stated that the tax was not "dead."

A daily selection of top stories, sorted by your reading preferences, is available to you. Loading Click Sign up to receive marketing emails and other offers from Insider.

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump attacked the Democrats' billionaire-tax proposal. He suggested that he might leave the US to avoid taxation. He said that he would be staying.

"I wonder if I will be allowed to run again for president if I move to another nation." He made the statement in a statement. "No, I guess that I'll just stick with it, but most other people won't."

Trump was referring specifically to the billionaire tax proposal, which was almost dead in the Senate just hours after it had been introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden from Oregon. It would impose a 23.8% capital gains tax rate on assets such as stocks and bonds in order to force roughly 700 billionaires to pay annual income taxes on their gains. This applies regardless of whether or not they sell their assets.

After criticizing the measure as punitive to successful people, Sen. Joe Manchin from West Virginia threatened to repeal it.

He said, "I don’t like the connotation we’re targeting different people", to reporters, while proposing a 15% "patriotic Tax" without going into detail.

Insider reported previously that the proposal could see Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, slapped with a $10 million annual bill. Musk criticized this plan on Twitter. He said, "Eventually they run out of other people’s money and then come after you."

Gabriel Zucman, an economist, found that the tax could generate $500 billion and $275 billion from the 10 wealthiest billionaires. Frank Clemente is the executive director at the left-leaning advocacy organization Americans for Tax Fairness. He said that wealth would be taxed in the same way as income from wages.

The House Finance Committee chair, Rep. Richard Neal struck down the proposal on Wednesday, saying that it was "very unlikely” that the tax would be used for funding Democrats' reduced social-spending bill. Wyden wasn't ready to give up on the proposal he wrote.

Wyden said that he was not saying it's dead, but that the White House supported the proposal.

This disagreement is representative of the negotiation Democrats are going through as they try to create a framework for their reduced bill. CNN reported that paid family and medical leave, free community college, and an extended five year child tax credit were already under threat. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, halted a key Democratic priority to reverse Trump's tax cuts.