United CEO backs national wealth tax, inheritance levies

United Airlines (UAL) CEO Scott Kirby, who earned a little over $32M last year, has backed the idea of a national wealth tax and said he would be willing to pay it.

"Wealth inequality has become a danger to our society, and we need to address that," he said in an interview with The New York Times.

"We should have a national wealth tax — it won't work by state because people will just move," Kirby noted. "And I think we should have inheritance taxes that get close to 100% at some level. I would pay them."

Kirby joins other business leaders who have voiced support for raising taxes on wealthy individuals in the past, including Warren Buffett and George Soros.

While it's unlikely that the U.S. will introduce a wealth tax at the federal level, a few states are working towards imposing such levies.

For example, Californians will vote on a wealth tax (Proposition 40) in next month's election. If approved, a one-time 5% tax would be imposed on billionaires living in the state to help fund healthcare and education.

But in a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Stanford University economists cautioned that California may end up collecting far less taxes than previously estimated.

Prop 40 may ultimately generate only about $30B in revenue, compared to the $100B that the measure's authors estimated, as a result of billionaires moving out of the state.

"This accounts for the publicly confirmed taxpayer migration that has already eliminated nearly 30% of the wealth tax base," Stanford economists noted.