Bernie Sanders wants to tax billionaires' pandemic gains

Senators Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Ed Markey introduced a new bill on Thursday that would implement a one-time 60% tax on billionaires to cover the health care costs of every American for a year. Yahoo Finance's Sibile Marcellus and Kristin Myers discuss.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Well, Senator Bernie Sanders, and one-time presidential candidate, he's proposed a one-time tax that could be hitting some of our favorite millionaires and billionaires pretty hard. So for more on that, we're joined by Yahoo Finance's Sibile Marcellus. Hey, Sibile.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: That's right. So the one-time tax Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing could cost some of the country's billionaires a pretty penny. So here's the deal, Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing that some of the country's billionaires face a 60% tax on their wealth gains during the coronavirus pandemic, so from March 18 through January 2021.

And we cover this everyday on Yahoo Finance. We know that there are some clear winners and some clear losers during the coronavirus pandemic. Just to name a few, Amazon and Walmart have done very well during the coronavirus pandemic. They have strong e-commerce businesses, as Americans have relied on those companies to bring goods to their homes.

Now, for example, Walmart, because this company's stock has been doing so well during the pandemic, that has, of course, increased the wealth of their top shareholders, including the Walton family, same deal with Amazon. Because the company has been doing so well, that has increased the wealth of CEO Jeff Bezos. So what Bernie Sanders wants to do is to tax them and use the money from the billionaires, whose wealth has gone up during the coronavirus pandemic-- use all that money from the tax revenue to pay all out-of-pocket expenses for every single American for one year.

Now, here's a breakdown of how much these billionaires would pay under this bill if it actually became law. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, he would pay $22.8 billion for the time period from March 18 through August 5. Now, for the same time period, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, he would pay $27.5 billion. And Jeff Bezos, he would pay $42.8 billion.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, thanks so much, Sibile. I can't see a Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk being happy with being hit with a bill of over $30 billion, but we'll have to see if that bill passes. Thanks so much, Sibile.