A tax-weighted voting system — where your ballot counts for more the higher your income tax bill — went from fringe thought experiment to mainstream controversy after former TD Bank executive Eric Thor posted the idea on X and Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke publicly called it ‘a good system.’ Under Thor’s model, top earners paying $500,000 or more in annual income taxes would receive five votes; anyone paying no income tax would receive none. The backlash was immediate — but the real story is who, specifically, gets erased.
The Proposal and the Men Behind It
Eric Thor’s blueprint is blunt: voting power scales directly with personal income tax paid. Zero income tax paid equals zero votes. Pay $500,000 or more in income taxes annually and you walk into the booth with five. The middle tiers fill in between. Thor framed it as rewarding ‘financial contribution to society’ — the kind of language that sounds neutral until you look at exactly who sits at zero.
The proposal might have stayed in a corner of financial-twitter had Tobi Lütke — CEO of Shopify, one of the most influential figures in tech — not stepped in to endorse it. Lütke’s co-sign transformed an executive’s hot take into a genuine political flashpoint. It also arrived at a moment when a separate idea — ‘family voting,’ where parents cast additional ballots on behalf of minor children — was already circulating in conservative policy circles, feeding a wider anxiety about who, in 2025, the establishment believes should really be governing. Much like the debate around corporate influence in Latin American elections, the friction here is old: money versus citizenship.
Who Gets Zeroed Out — and Why That Matters
Thor’s model assumes income tax is the only tax that counts. It isn’t. Payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare), sales taxes, gas taxes, and property taxes passed down through rent collectively represent a substantial share of what lower-income households send to the government every year. Stripping those people of votes while keeping their tax obligations is, structurally, taxation without representation — the exact grievance that has historically destabilized governments.
The zero-vote tier is not a fringe population. It would include retirees living on Social Security or fixed pensions whose taxable income falls below federal thresholds. It would include millions of hourly workers in retail, agriculture, and the gig economy whose liability is wiped out by the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It would include stay-at-home parents, full-time caregivers, disabled Americans on assistance, and college students with no taxable income — none of whom have opted out of society, and all of whom live under the laws, police authority, and military decisions that elections determine.
Supporters of the proposal argue it aligns political power with economic contribution. But the counter isn’t sentimental: a system where five-vote holders predictably elect politicians who cut top tax brackets and reduce public funding creates a self-reinforcing loop. Fewer public services push more people toward the zero tier. The wealthy retain electoral dominance. The gap doesn’t close — it calcifies by design.
Why Tech’s Endorsement Is the Real Story
The most revealing part of this episode isn’t the proposal itself — extreme electoral ideas surface and die regularly. What’s notable is that a sitting CEO of a publicly traded tech company, whose platform powers hundreds of thousands of small businesses, looked at a plan to disenfranchise low-wage workers, retirees, and caregivers and said ‘good system’ without apparent hesitation.
That reflects something broader: a segment of the tech-financial class that has grown confident enough in its own political relevance to say the quiet part loudly. Lütke’s endorsement didn’t come with caveats or a call for ‘further study.’ It came with an emoji and a thumbs-up, on a platform owned by another billionaire, in a media environment where those statements reach millions instantly. The proposal may not become law. But the comfort with which it was floated — by men with institutional credibility and massive platforms — tells you more about the current political temperature than any policy paper could.
