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lob·by: seek to influence (a politician or public official) on an issue.

How isn't this lobbying?

They don't even have to do the work.

They can donate to progressives in primaries to offset the donations from other billionaires....

It's just they know they get the same PR for just saying this, so it's all they do.

All those impediments it's easy to understand why they don't. I mean that list is just so...BIG.

• Takes time and effort or you need to create an organization that handles it for you, maybe they should hold elections? Oh, wait, now we've created privately owned/financed shadow governments...

• People will always bitch and moan about it either being the wrong thing, not enough, only for the press etc etc so doing it won't help them in the slightest. Whereas being taxed will at least take heat off in the form of the specific campaigning that has been ongoing for many years now.

• It won't be as well utilized as if the government gets it to distribute. Now this is a contentious statement of course but a private individual no matter how rich can't give their money the legs the government can which already has the costly structure to dispense it in place. For a specific purpose a specific organisation might vastly outperform the government of course but if you generally want it to benefit the population of your nation then taxes is the best system we have to ensure it benefits all as much as possible. And the most fair in that we can vote for how it should be used.

Edit:

This said I still believe it's firmly for selfish reasons they want to be taxed more:

• Reduce the mentioned heat on them
• Better wealth distribution help create more of the circumstances that got them this wealth, i.e. it's a sound long term investment.
• Most of them have kids and they see how fucked they will be if societal and environmental problems aren't solved
• Most have wealth tied up in assets that will lose value if things get more skewed, if noone can afford a house they will lose value until they are "affordable", as a basic example.

They're just covering their asses when the masses have started to develop taste for the rich.

I mean I get what you're saying, but these people asking to get taxed more "obviously" aren't the people lobbying government to not get taxed. I'd bet it's the CEOs and "lower level" assholes that want every benefit imaginable so they can appear to be doing a Good Job™ and collect their massive bonuses. :(

and it's not like their governments wouldn't accept extra money, either. i know the u.s. government accepts 'donations' to the general budget or specifically to reduce the federal (public) debt.

massive death taxes

That’s one very good way to ensure one of our most popular governmental programs, Social Security, remains quite solvent.

Because capitalism.
The less glib answer, though a bit of an over simplification, is that the current trend of neoliberalism discourages self limitation and collective collaboration. If regulation is not put in place and enforced by forces (government, social contract, etc) then people are incentivize to push and make use of any advantage available. Not doing it risks being displaced by those who do. Competition becomes toxic and self perpetuating

Well, yeah. Plausible deniability, my good Demonsword.

I mean, there's a LOT of billionaires at this point. Are the ones saying this at Davos all (or largely) ones that are doing that lobbying?

They could also commit to giving 10% of their personal income or 2.5% of the value of their ne worth (whichever is greater) to the most effective charities now, while they're waiting for the taxes to come.

Chris Anderson (of TED) has suggested this and had the math run, and worked out if every ultra wealthy person on record in the world did this it would generate enough money solve basically all pressing concerns to do with poverty and climate many times over (so we don't even need all of them).

It's never going to happen though, because Chris hasn't accounted for the fact that most people who acquire wealth to this degree are some degree of sociopathic or at the very least believe somehow they're entitled to be as wealthy as they are. So we need government regulation. Problem is we need it everywhere all at once, or these people just move their wealth around which can still severely damage the economy. But some countries, especially smaller ones, need to be brave. Europe taxes their wealthy reasonably well, and it's clear it makes living in those nations better. More need to lead by example.

Great, thnx for sharing!

When the heads started rolling generally there was mass starvation. "Unfortunately" most of us are still too comfortable and unmotivated to force change that way. At least in the countries where most of these people are.

I remember this from a few days ago....

All the main "billionaires" are people who are heirs to billions but don't have it yet.

It's easy to say you don't need billions when it's hypothetical. It's a lot different when you have the money

This would only give more power to the remaining billionaires, who won't disperse money on their own. This is why it must be a systemic change and not a volunteer action.