Disney heiress calls out the ultra-wealthy and proposes a tax code revamp

Disney, a filmmaker and philanthropist who has long been an outspoken critic of massive generational wealth, took to the stage on Tuesday, or Tax Day, when one third of Americans usually scramble to file their taxes at the last minute. But for Disney, Tax Day 2023 was an opportunity to once again slam the tax code that she says preserves a disproportionate share of wealth in the upper echelons of the country’s income classes, and to remind lawmakers that millionaires like herself would be happy to pay more.

“It’s time to enact a new tax code that drives the benefits of the economy directly into the pocket of working people,” Disney said at an event outside the Capitol Building Tuesday, adding that the transition “requires those who benefited the most from America’s economic structure to recycle a significant portion of that benefit back into our society rather than allowing them to amass fortunes so large that they threaten our democracy.”

Disney: It’s time to enact a new tax code that drives the benefits of the economy directly into the pockets of working people and requires those who benefitted the most from America’s economic structure to recycle a significant portion of that benefit back into our society.. pic.twitter.com/Oq3AoWwJRf

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 18, 2023

Disney, along with several other progressive millionaires, were campaigning for Congress to implement a stricter wealth tax on high-net worth individuals. The group is called the Patriotic Millionaires, and counts among its ranks Disney, actor Mark Ruffalo, and Men’s Wearhouse founder George Zimmer. The nonpartisan organization is chaired by Morris Pearl, former managing director at BlackRock.

Disney laid out a three-point plan to “strengthen American democratic capitalism” through a revised tax code. First, she argued that all income above $1 million should be taxed the same, whether it is earned via paychecks, capital gains, or if it is inherited. Second, Disney proposed waiving income tax requirements for those earning below a living wage while hiking marginal tax rates for high earners, claiming that her family’s patriarch, Walt Disney, was able to “amass plenty of wealth” despite paying a marginal tax rate of 90% during his lifetime. Third, she called for a new wealth tax that could “rein in wealth concentration.”

While Disney has long urged Congress to tax her and other wealthy individuals more, she’s not ashamed of being a millionaire herself. She was worth $120 million in 2019, she told the Financial Times that year, after having donated around $70 million of her personal wealth over the past 30 years. 

She has spoken widely about wealth inequality in recent years and the risk of enabling extreme wealth, which she said is “eating our world alive” in January when the Patriotic Millionaires penned an open letter to attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos requesting global leaders to start imposing stricter taxes on the rich. 

Patriotic Millionaires have allied in the past with progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders on fiscal issues, but the group is now proposing a much more sweeping vision for tax reform. Disney and Patriotic Millionaires’ Chair Pearl laid out their proposal in greater detail in a CNN op-ed published Monday, where they wrote that, “the ultra-rich live in an entirely separate world when it comes to taxes,” adding that the high levels of inequality fueled by extreme wealth are pushing the economy and democracy to “their breaking points.”

The two millionaires wrote that the tax code should include significantly more tax brackets to reflect how the current tax regime treats the ultra-wealthy differently from the just wealthy. For those earning over $100 million a year, they proposed implementing a 90% rate. Top rates around 90% were the norm in the U.S. until the 1964 Revenue Act, which brought rates for top earners down to 70%.

Pearl also spoke to the public on Tuesday, emphasizing his organization’s request for wealthy individuals like himself to be taxed more. “Tax us. We want to pay higher taxes,” he said, addressing Congress.