Scott Kirby pulled in $32.3 million last year running United Airlines. That is roughly 334 times what the median employee at his own company earns. Then he sat down with the New York Times and declared that wealth inequality has become a danger to our society.
He wants a national wealth tax. He wants inheritance taxes that get close to 100 percent at some level. And he says he would pay them.
Kirby’s proposal is not a modest tweak to the existing estate tax. The federal estate tax already sits at a top rate of 40 percent with a $15 million exemption per person in 2026. Only a tiny fraction of estates pay it. What Kirby is floating is something closer to a death tax that effectively erases large inheritances, plus an annual levy on net worth that would require national enforcement so the wealthy cannot simply move.
California is already testing a version of this idea on the ballot. Early analysis suggests the actual revenue will fall well short of the sales pitch once the billionaires start voting with their feet. Kirby’s answer is simply to make the tax national so there is nowhere left to go.
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