This 4th of July, Idle Billionaires Should Patriotically Seek A Tax Hike on Themselves
Inheritors Are Designing Ugly Shirts and Crashing Expensive Cars–They Could Serve Their Country By Paying More in Taxes
When trying to fend off higher taxes on billionaires, politicians in their service often present the ultra rich as patriotic paragons: success stories, job creators, benefactors of society. And while some billionaires may fit some of that description–though it still doesn’t relieve them of their obligation to pay a fairer rate of tax–there are at least as many who don’t give anything back in return for all the riches we allow them to hoard. Prominent among them are the idle billionaire inheritors: folks who didn’t make the money, but have found plenty of creative ways to spend it.
The money they get to play with is about to increase even more thanks to a tax cut making its way through Congress heavily slanted towards the rich. As of this writing, it had just passed the Senate and was on its way to expected passage in the House.
This 4th of July, let’s take a look at some of these least patriotic billionaires who could best serve their country by demanding higher taxes on themselves. (Profiles are adapted from our recent report on billionaire nepo babies).
WYATT KOCH
The Koch Family
(Recent Family Wealth: $116 billion)
Wyatt Koch is the nephew of the politically prominent Koch brothers, Charles and David. They’re the conservative advocates who deployed their billion-dollar fortunes to create big parts of the right-wing intellectual and campaign infrastructure, including the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity.
Wyatt’s father, Bill, and a fourth brother, Fred, are the less famous brothers. In a family power struggle worthy of the TV drama “Succession”, Bill and Fred were bought out of Koch Industries in the early 1980s. Wyatt’s dad is now worth about $2 billion.
With his dad’s encouragement and presumably money, Wyatt started a business designing and manufacturing colorfully decorated men’s shirts. Reviews of Wyatt’s shirts range from “out there” and “egregiously bold”, to “terrible beyond your wildest imagination”, “seizure-inducing”, and “oh God, why?”. One of the designs features yellow moneybags set among fluttering greenbacks, which one commentator surmised was “copied and pasted from Scrooge McDuck’s inner monologue.”
But it doesn’t affect Wyatt financially if no one buys his shirts, because his father is a billionaire and someday he will inherit hundreds of millions of dollars. Meanwhile, Wyatt is contributing nothing to his nation except bad taste.
SAMUEL LOGAN
The Scripps Family
(Recent Family Wealth: $8.4 billion)
You don't get much more “old money” than Samuel Logan, the great-great grandson of 19th century media mogul Edward Willis Scripps. While most people his age were working in 9-to-5 jobs, Sam Logan spent his late 20s starring in the MTV reality show “Siesta Key” (think “Jersey Shore” if all the characters were worth over $100 million). And as most of his peers are struggling to purchase a first home, Sam Logan was able to sell his first home for $6.85 million (in bitcoin) and upgrade to a $13.5 million quarter-acre Miami Beach mansion.
Through their mother, Sam and his brother Max (famed for posting images on social media of his bundles of cash and expensive watches) reportedly each owned 10% of the Scripps property, meaning they are likely both currently billionaires; have billions stashed for them in trusts; or will eventually inherit billions from their mother.
In 2023 Sam Logan posted a photo of himself on what appears to be a crashed Black Rolls Royce Wraith (starting price $343,000) with the caption “Car shopping. Anyone want rolls?” For most people the destruction of an asset that expensive, worth only slightly less than the average American home, would be a devastating life event, but for Sam it appears no more consequential than dropping an ice cream cone on the sidewalk. Sam later explained the incident by saying he “accidentally went off roaring and took out some trees after the gym.”
TIMOTHY MELLON
The Mellon Family
(Recent Family Wealth: $14.1 billion)
Timothy Mellon, heir to a $14 billion family fortune, has warned of the evils of “big government,” claiming that a record number of Americans “have become slaves of a new Master, Uncle Sam” when they benefit from public services. Speaking apparently un-ironically as someone who benefits from billions of dollars simply for being born into the right family, he denounces millions of deserving Americans for wanting “freebies.”
Tim Mellon is a railroad investor. One of his railroads repeatedly violated environmental and safety laws, paying a $500,000 fine for concealing an oil spill and $400,000 in damages for firing a worker who raised environmental concerns.
He’s also a big campaign contributor. Timothy has made nearly $300 million in political contributions, $172 million just in the 2024 election cycle. Before being eclipsed by Elon Musk, he was Donald Trump’s biggest supporter, giving $140 million to a pro-Trump PAC by early 2024. Apparently, it’s fine to buy political influence if you can afford it, but for Timothy, when Black Americans vote for candidates that support popular social programs, that’s “slavery redux.”
It’s not against the law to be rich, clueless, wasteful and obnoxious, but it certainly doesn’t do much for our country. The most patriotic gesture these and other idle billionaires could make this 4th of July would be to start lobbying to raise their own taxes.