This marxist argument collapses once you stop treating income as public property.
First, taxes are the only price in society that rises simply because you earn more.
Food doesn’t cost more because you’re richer.
Gas doesn’t.
Rent doesn’t.
A haircut doesn’t suddenly double because your net worth did.
Only the state charges you more for the same services based on income.
Second, percentage is a rhetorical trick. Governments don’t spend percentages, they spend dollars. Roads, courts, armies, and bureaucracies cost fixed amounts. Billionaires already fund a disproportionate share of that bill while using less of the services per capita. They don’t have more kids in public school, they don’t clog emergency rooms, and they don’t live off transfer programs.
Third, comparing net worth to taxes paid is either ignorant or dishonest. Net worth isn’t income. You can’t tax unrealized value without destroying the asset itself. If you think owning something is the same as having cash, you don’t understand basic economics.
Fourth, when people say “they should pay the same percentage,” what they mean is “I want equal sacrifice, not equal treatment.” That’s not fairness. That’s envy dressed up as morality.
And finally, the premise underneath it all:
“No one owes you anything because they have more.”
We don’t live in a society where need creates a claim on someone else’s life, labor, or property. The moment you accept that premise, there is no limiting principle. There’s only a bigger mob and a higher percentage.
What they call “fair” is just theft with a calculator.