Disney, a filmmaker and philanthropist who has lengthy been an outspoken critic of huge generational wealth, took to the stage on Tuesday, or Tax Day, when one third of People normally scramble to file their taxes on the final minute. However for Disney, Tax Day 2023 was a chance to as soon as once more slam the tax code that she says preserves a disproportionate share of wealth within the higher echelons of the nation’s earnings courses, and to remind lawmakers that millionaires like herself could be pleased to pay extra.

“It’s time to enact a brand new tax code that drives the advantages of the economic system instantly into the pocket of working folks,” Disney mentioned at an occasion outdoors the Capitol Constructing Tuesday, including that the transition “requires those that benefited probably the most from America’s financial construction to recycle a good portion of that profit again into our society slightly than permitting them to amass fortunes so massive that they threaten our democracy.”

Disney: It’s time to enact a brand new tax code that drives the advantages of the economic system instantly into the pockets of working folks and requires those that benefitted probably the most from America’s financial construction to recycle a good portion of that profit again into our society.. pic.twitter.com/Oq3AoWwJRf

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 18, 2023

Disney, together with a number of different progressive millionaires, have been campaigning for Congress to implement a stricter wealth tax on high-net price people. The group known as the Patriotic Millionaires, and counts amongst its ranks Disney, actor Mark Ruffalo, and Males’s Wearhouse founder George Zimmer. The nonpartisan group is chaired by Morris Pearl, former managing director at BlackRock.

Disney laid out a three-point plan to “strengthen American democratic capitalism” by means of a revised tax code. First, she argued that each one earnings above $1 million must be taxed the identical, whether or not it’s earned through paychecks, capital good points, or whether it is inherited. Second, Disney proposed waiving earnings tax necessities for these incomes under a dwelling wage whereas climbing marginal tax charges for prime earners, claiming that her household’s patriarch, Walt Disney, was capable of “amass loads of wealth” regardless of paying a marginal tax price of 90% throughout his lifetime. Third, she known as for a brand new wealth tax that would “rein in wealth focus.”

Whereas Disney has lengthy urged Congress to tax her and different rich people extra, she’s not ashamed of being a millionaire herself. She was price $120 million in 2019, she instructed the Monetary Instances that 12 months, after having donated round $70 million of her private wealth over the previous 30 years. 

She has spoken broadly about wealth inequality lately and the chance of enabling excessive wealth, which she mentioned is “consuming our world alive” in January when the Patriotic Millionaires penned an open letter to attendees on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos requesting world leaders to start out imposing stricter taxes on the wealthy. 

Patriotic Millionaires have allied up to now with progressive lawmakers equivalent to Sen. Bernie Sanders on fiscal points, however the group is now proposing a way more sweeping imaginative and prescient for tax reform. Disney and Patriotic Millionaires’ Chair Pearl laid out their proposal in larger element in a CNN op-ed revealed Monday, the place they wrote that, “the ultra-rich stay in a completely separate world with regards to taxes,” including that the excessive ranges of inequality fueled by excessive wealth are pushing the economic system and democracy to “their breaking factors.”

The 2 millionaires wrote that the tax code ought to embody considerably extra tax brackets to replicate how the present tax regime treats the ultra-wealthy in another way from the simply rich. For these incomes over $100 million a 12 months, they proposed implementing a 90% price. High charges round 90% have been the norm within the U.S. till the 1964 Income Act, which introduced charges for high earners right down to 70%.

Pearl additionally spoke to the general public on Tuesday, emphasizing his group’s request for rich people like himself to be taxed extra. “Tax us. We wish to pay increased taxes,” he mentioned, addressing Congress.