Mark Cuban Calls For Billionaires' Tax On Soaring US Stock Buybacks As Georgetown Professor Warns About Path To Decline And Defeat

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U.S. stock buybacks are on track to hit a record $1.1 trillion in 2025, sparking sharp debate among experts like Mark Cuban and Georgetown professor Rush Doshi over their economic impact and taxation.

Record Stock Buybacks Fuel Corporate Wealth But Also Raise Concerns

Doshi, assistant professor at Georgetown University and former Joe Biden NSC China advisor, highlighted the historic surge in U.S. stock buybacks, projecting $1.1 trillion in 2025 — a new all-time high, citing Birinyi Associates data going back to 1982.

He contrasted this with China's investment-driven approach, warning, "This is the path to deindustrialization, decline, and defeat. American competitors in China don't do buybacks. They invest."

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Stock buybacks, also known as share repurchases, occur when companies buy their own shares to reduce outstanding stock, boost earnings per share and often raise stock prices.

While buybacks can reward shareholders with increased ownership stakes and potential returns, critics argue they divert cash from critical investments like research and development.

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Mark Cuban Calls For Billionaires’ Tax To Encourage Reinvestment

Cuban responded to Doshi's concerns by advocating for a higher tax on stock buybacks, framing it as a billionaire's tax.

The popular investor took to X, formerly Twitter, and said that increased buyback taxes would push companies to reinvest profits into growth or pay dividends — with qualified dividends often tax-free for many Americans.

"Charging a higher buyback tax not only increases tax revenues, if the company does pay a dividend, married households making under $94k pay no taxes on it. If I own it. I pay full taxes," Cuban wrote.

He noted this idea has been favored by some Democrats and argued it could generate more equitable revenue from the biggest public companies.

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In a follow-up post, Cuban said, “I would make an exception if the repurchased shares were distributed equally to all employee[s] based on their cash earnings.”

He stated that this method would democratize wealth inside companies, helping workers at all levels build financial security, not just top executives and shareholders.

S&P 500 Buybacks Surge To Record $750B By June 2025

By June 5, S&P 500 firms had approved a staggering $750 billion in stock buybacks for the year, surpassing the roughly $600 billion seen by the same point in 2023 and 2024, according to aggregated figures from LPL Financial.

The bulk of these authorizations came from three dominant sectors: communication services at $210 billion, financials at $200 billion and technology at $196 billion.

While these numbers represent planned repurchases rather than completed ones, Turnquist noted that the market conditions for executing buybacks are "nearly wide open."

Actual repurchase activity has also been robust. In the first quarter of 2025, S&P 500 companies bought back $283 billion worth of shares—up 23.6% from the previous quarter, 26.9% from a year earlier and a striking 38.4% higher than in 2023.

Tech giants Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) collectively spent nearly $73 billion on buybacks until June 2025.

Similarly, during that period, Major banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC), contributed another $18 billion combined.

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This article Mark Cuban Calls For Billionaires' Tax On Soaring US Stock Buybacks As Georgetown Professor Warns About Path To Decline And Defeat originally appeared on Benzinga.com

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