WASHINGTON (Sept 18, 2025): Yesterday, Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell joined Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), Congressmen Steve Cohen (TN-9) and Don Beyer (VA-8), and Americans for Tax Fairness’s David Kass to speak about public support for the Billionaires Income Tax, which the group reintroduced at a press conference on Capitol Hill. 

Over 100 public interest groups that represent millions of Americans signed on in support of taxing billionaire wealth in a letter led by Fair Share America and Americans for Tax Fairness. You can find that letter here. 

“I spent ten weeks on a bus crisscrossing the country this summer—not to talk, but to listen to what people think about the state of our country,” said Crowell during yesterday’s presser (full remarks below). “People of all different backgrounds, Democrat, Republican and Independent, from Arizona to Alaska, know that the game is rigged by and for the ultra-rich. [They] are ready for bold solutions to make the rich pay their fair share, like the Billionaires Income Tax Act.” 

“The only time you hear billionaires claim they can’t scrounge together any cash is when somebody brings up taxes, and odds are a lot of these mega-wealthy individuals are crying poverty from their yachts and private islands. This is a carefully designed proposal that draws on accounting methods already used in the tax code and raises revenue without increasing any tax rates,” said Senator Wyden. 

“[B]illionaires finance their lifestyle and this huge loophole for unrealized gains, a lot of players basically have paid either zero or zero or almost no taxes for years on end,” said David Kass, Executive Director of Americans for Tax Fairness during the same presser. ATF also released a new analysis that shows that most of billionaires’ $7.6 trillion in hoarded wealth has never been taxed.

Remarks: Fair Share America Executive Director Kristen Crowell at Billionaires Income Tax Reintroduction

September 17, 2025

I’m Kristen Crowell, Executive Director of Fair Share America, an organization that is harnessing the power of people to make billionaires and corporations pay up. 

I spent ten weeks on a bus crisscrossing the country this summer—not to talk, but to listen to what people think about the state of our country. Here’s what I heard: 

People of all different backgrounds, Democrat, Republican and Independent, from Arizona to Alaska, know that the game is rigged by and for the ultra-rich.

These are regular people: Farmers, small business owners, nurses and veterans. These are folks who are working two or three jobs to make ends meet while they see the cost of groceries and health care go up — and watch those at the very top become even better off.

This deep inequality and unfairness is not sustainable for our economy or for our democracy.

People are ready for bold solutions to make the rich pay their fair share, like the Billionaires Income Tax Act:

Working families are taxed on every paycheck. Billionaires shouldn’t get out of paying their share just because their wealth is tied up in Wall Street assets.

This is about taxing wealth like we tax work.

It’s also about bringing back billions of dollars that have been stolen from taxpayers through Donald Trump’s Big Ugly Law.

In 2022, I led a ballot initiative campaign to pass the Fair Share Amendment or “Millionaires Tax” in Massachusetts. We won that fight and since then, the new law has raised billions more in revenue than was initially projected. And you know what? The wealthy didn’t flee the state, as our opponents would have people believe. And surprise, surprise it was wildly popular. That revenue now pays for public transit and improvements in public education.

We can make the ultra-rich pay their fair share and in doing so, make the investments in families and communities that help everyone build better, healthier, happier lives. 

For all of the fear and frustration I heard on the road this summer, there was also plenty of hope.  People haven’t given up. We’re organizing. We’re still fighting for something better. 

That’s why we must support big, bold solutions at this moment, like a Billionaires Income Tax.

I thank these Senators and Members of Congress for leading the way, and siding with families over billionaires.

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