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Modeling a Wealth Tax

paulgraham.com

151–160 of 1001 posts

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#151

I'm highly skeptical of the claim that such tax would discourage startup founders. Wealth tax proposals I've seen don't kick in until $50 million or $100 million. This means that there is a floor on how "poor" the government can make you via a wealth tax. This has two implications: 1. Most "successful" startup founders don't break that threshold of personal wealth. 2. For most startup founders, the startup is the onl…

> proposals I've seen don't kick in until $50 million or $100 million.

That's how the income tax started in the US.

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#152

Oh boy. HN eats pg alive. Are there any forums like HN that aren't backed/funded by a VC firm/incubator/whatever? I forget why everyone migrated from /., as a lot of memes and dumbspeak from there appeared on here over the years.

You may be interested in Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/about

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#153
post #68

What we need is inheritance tax. If you've made money, you can keep it. But you can't live for free just because some guy 100 years ago made money and you won the genetic lottery.

That's rarely the case as it is. The majority of wealthy families lose their money in just a few generations if they aren't actively working to maintain it. https://money.com/rich-families-lose-wealth/

Right now, they piss that money away on fast cars and lose . So we could divert that money to pay for infrastructure or cut income taxes or whatever, and aside from fast car dealerships, everyone should be happier.

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#154
post #103
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands maybe? Our "BOX 3" is effectively a 1.2% wealth tax (30% tax on a 4% assumed return). The startup ecosystem is pretty good I'd say.

Over 75k (equity so savings - debts). Example calculation here (993 eur tax from 125k savings) https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontentnl/... and 17k tax from 1.25M equity.

You are right of course, but since we are talking in the context of successful founders, I figured the relatively small exemption wasn't that important.

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#155
post #68

What we need is inheritance tax. If you've made money, you can keep it. But you can't live for free just because some guy 100 years ago made money and you won the genetic lottery.

That's rarely the case as it is. The majority of wealthy families lose their money in just a few generations if they aren't actively working to maintain it. https://money.com/rich-families-lose-wealth/

"in just a few generations". One generation with an inheritance tax.

With a land tax many wouldn't get rich in the first place, let's address the root cause.

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wealth tax proposals I've seen don't kick in until $50 million or $100 million. This means that there is a floor on how "poor" the government can make you via a wealth tax. That’s just the starting point. Once people begin to figure out how to avoid it or have been tapped then the qualifier will be lowered to 40m. And then eventually 30m and do on until anyone above average is paying it. And then anyone above media…

This is exactly what happened with the US federal income tax. It was originally only a small amount, and only on the wealthy. Now it's gradually been expanded to everyone.

Yep, there was no income tax till 1913.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_taxation_in_the_Uni...

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#157

I'm highly skeptical of the claim that such tax would discourage startup founders. Wealth tax proposals I've seen don't kick in until $50 million or $100 million. This means that there is a floor on how "poor" the government can make you via a wealth tax. This has two implications: 1. Most "successful" startup founders don't break that threshold of personal wealth. 2. For most startup founders, the startup is the onl…

Exactly — I've always thought that what drives multi-millionaires and billionaires isn't really the monetary value of the extra money that they make. To the extent they care about money at all anymore, surely it's only as a relative measure of success? I can't see many people that have already accrued personal wealth of $50M but choose to keep working suddenly being turned off because of a wealth tax.

> I can't see many people that have already accrued personal wealth of $50M but choose to keep working suddenly being turned off because of a wealth tax.

That's not the argument. If you accrue a wealth of $50M because you own half of your $100M company (or 100% of your $50M company), then a wealth tax will — over time — force you to give up ownership in your own company.

An income tax or a capital gains tax on the other hand, has the effect that you describe: if you already have $50M, then any tax on more money than could possibly have close to 0 negative impact on productivity.

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you have a bucket of money that isn't doing anything, then what value does it actually bring to the economy Wealthy people don't just leave their money under a mattress, they invest it in something. Even if they just left it in a bank, the bank is still going to lend that money out and invest it. Taxing wealth just encourages riskier investments, as higher risk is needed to achieve comparable post-tax return.

Startups are high-risk, high-return investments, so following your logic, investment in startups would increase after a wealth tax, right?

That effect would make startups more attractive. But it would be completely cancelled by a countervailing effect: the wealth tax strongly incentives liquid investments. Which of course heavily penalizes investing in startups as they're small, speculative privately-held, hard-to-value companies.

Currently investment is only taxed on a "realized basis". No tax bill is due until the investor realizes a cash profit, either by receiving a dividend or harvesting capital gains on sale of the asset. In contrast a wealth tax is assessed every year, regardless of whether the investor has actually earned any actual income.

Under current tax law, an investor is not penalized for continuing to hold a high-value asset. In contrast under a wealth tax regime, an investor would be forced to sell some portion of his portfolio every year just to pay his tax bill. That heavily favors large, liquid, public companies over startups. Selling a million dollars of Amazon shares is as easy as pressing a button. Selling a million dollars of a Series-A startup, especially at a fair price, is really hard.

This would especially impact early-stage employees, who usually hold a very high fraction of their net worth in their stock options. At least VC investors usually have other holdings that they could liquidate to pay their annual wealth tax.

Imagine you own 20% of a company with a $50 million valuation. On paper, you're a deca-millionaire. But in reality you could easily have an overdrawn checking account. How do you get your hands on $100k in cash to pay your tax bill? There's no real market to sell your shares, and very likely you can't even do so without board approval. You could borrow the money, but if the company fails, you're now left with huge debt and worthless equity.

In all likelihood a wealth tax would pretty much destroy the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem. Or at least remake it into something totally unrecognizable.

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#159
post #49

What we need is inheritance tax. If you've made money, you can keep it. But you can't live for free just because some guy 100 years ago made money and you won the genetic lottery.

Isnt there a loophole that you transfer all the money to a foundation and then your children control the foundation effectively getting the money but on the books they did not inherit the money.

There are 1001 loopholes. They should all be closed just like they are for earned income...

Re: Modeling a Wealth Tax

#160
post #67
post #9

Someone forgot to model growth in the value of the asset, and/or putting the wealth to use. A wealth tax is, to an approximation, the equivalent of the "management fee" that an ETF charges, but with the revenues going to the government. If you have a bucket of money that isn't doing anything, then what value does it actually bring to the economy? Penalizing static value seems almost reasonable.

I don’t think Paul forgot, it’s why he phrased it in terms of stock not dollars. If you start a company and hold on to ownership for 60+ years, you could be forced to sell X% to cover the wealth tax over the years

I don't think he forgot; he's being intentionally misleading.

What about dividends? Starting another company? Working as a CEO or board member?

The article has a terrible foundation because he's intentionally misleading the reader.

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