Real estate billionaire Jeff Greene sat in his oceanside mansion in Palm Beach on Thursday as President Biden unveiled a proposal to raise taxes on the ultra-rich—a central element of his State of the Union address.
The plan would impose a 25 percent minimum income on anyone worth at least $100 million. Greene, with an estimated $7.5 billion net worth, would easily make the cut.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the real estate tycoon doesn’t support Biden’s proposal. “I don’t agree with the idea of just singling out people because of how much they have or don’t have,” he fumed to The Daily Beast.
“The progressive income tax, I understand,” he continued, though he argued that tax rates in some parts of the country have already grown out of control.
“You have to leave incentives for people who are the ones who are going to create the jobs for all those people trying to climb the ladder.”Greene also contended that wealth can be difficult to measure. Some billionaires, like Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos, have net worths composed mostly of publicly traded stock, which is easy to value. In his world—real estate—that kind of analysis is often subjective.
“People speculate about my net worth. I don’t think I can tell you what my net worth is. I have a bunch of assets that are artwork and real estate,” he said. “I mean, do I know every day what it’s worth?”
Read more here from The Daily Beast.
