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Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

forbes.com

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Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#761

Post by imtringued »

settrans wrote: post #261
bedhead wrote: post #240

I’ve long argued for massive estate tax rates on large estates in order to incentivize behavior like this. I have no problem at all with Bezos being worth $200 billion (or whatever it is now), but it’s this dynastic wealth that I find borderline sickening. Why in the hell should the Rockefeller’s of today be billionaires??? Also, these giant charitable foundations/family offices are similarly off-putting, as they are…

An Open Letter from Economists on the Estate Tax To whom it may concern: Spend your money on riotous living – no tax; leave your money to your children – the tax collector gets paid first. That is the message sent by the estate tax. It is a bad message and the estate tax is a bad tax. The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth. It discourages saving a…

I agree. The problem with the estate tax is that it does a poor job at what it tries to accomplish. There are better methods of wealth redistribution.

The primary way inheritances concentrate wealth is through the "firstborn son rule" where the first son simply receives all of the wealth. If you were to split the wealth among the children it would disappear within a few generations. So simplify the whole ordeal by codifying that no single person may inherit more than 50% of the wealth of the deceased. If son and daughter receive half the wealth of their parents they are unlikely to collaborate for the sake of maintaining generational wealth. Even if the son kills the daughter he will only receive 75% of the wealth of his father.

No liquidation is necessary and therefore it is easy to implement. Paying taxes on inheriting a family business is far more difficult than simply splitting ownership among the living who are still working in that business.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#762

Post by imtringued »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #395
settrans wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An Open Letter from Economists on the Estate Tax To whom it may concern: Spend your money on riotous living – no tax; leave your money to your children – the tax collector gets paid first. That is the message sent by the estate tax. It is a bad message and the estate tax is a bad tax. The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth. It discourages saving a…

> The basic argument against the estate tax is moral. It taxes virtue – living frugally and accumulating wealth Only insofar as you believe taxation to be a moral commentary. If one thinks taxation is punishment for a decision, then I can see why one might see it this way. I don't agree, though. Taxation is reinvestment into the society that makes the usage of that tool–money–possible in the first place. I think it's…

>Does that require millions or billions of dollars to be hoarded, unused, passed from hand to hand, contributing to a skewed money supply that forces the fed to print more, play with interest rates etc to try to keep the system stable?

I think you got cause and effect mixed up. Every dollar that the fed is printing is being hoarded because the fed decided to only give dollars to people that hoard money.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#763

Post by lamida »

acqq wrote: post #738
notsureaboutpg wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muslims also have a similar tier system of giving charity, but because Islam mandates charity from its followers at a fixed rate (a flat income tax for charity), it places the "communal funds" very low in the totem pole. Actually the Prophet Muhammad said a similar thing to what Feeney has said here about wanting to give charity while alive rather than after his death: > A man came to the Prophet and asked, "O Allah'…

I guess Jewish "tzedakah" and Arabian "zakat" have anyway both the same linguistic root, both being Semitic languages and everything related happening in the same small part of the world (if the word itself has some other origins).

There is specific arabic word for it "Sadaqah" which means charity. Zakat is actually one of the Islamic pillar about charity to purifies. There is specific percentage or amount for different zakat. Zakat is the form of charity.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#764

Post by neuronic »

refurb wrote: post #615
tasty_freeze wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two reasons to support a hefty inheritance tax on wealth over $X million. First, it raises revenue to help fill the deficit. More importantly, it is friction against generational wealth. Bill Gates (and his father) have for decades supported inheritance tax and gave this as the explicit reason.

I find the support for inheritance taxes surprising. HN loves the social democracies, but most of them don't have inheritance taxes, with many abolishing them in the past few decades - Australia, NZ, Canada, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Slovakia, Portugal.

Social democracies aren't perfect, they are just clearly better for the average citizen than whatever type of failed state the US is. By all metrics except Tomahawks per capita.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#765

Post by imtringued »

strbean wrote: post #508
lucaspm98 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtuous is subjective, but there is the age old goal of leaving the next generation better off than yours. It seems like a personal choice of whether to spend money responsibly, spend frivolously, give it away, or pass it on to whoever you want at any time to do any of those options. I'm not sure where I stand on a wealth tax, but I would always be hesitant to tax money that in theory was already taxed when earned.…

> but there is the age old goal of leaving the next generation better off than yours Hopefully we can strike a balance between leaving only your direct descendants better off and leaving everyone in the next generation better off. > I would always be hesitant to tax money that in theory was already taxed when earned This is incompatible with having an income tax and any other tax . Although, income tax isn't exactly…

>Hopefully we can strike a balance between leaving only your direct descendants better off and leaving everyone in the next generation better off.

You're thinking that taxing the wealth of a billionaire is guaranteed upon death. Therefore from your perspective there are two options: taxing the wealth or not taxing the wealth. Except taxation is the exception, not the rule.

If you know your wealth will disappear then you will try to get rid of it before it can disappear. With the estate tax there is a strong incentive to just hand over your wealth to your children before you die or by spending it all on donations so the government can't take it.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#767

Post by cyberdrunk »

kabacha wrote: post #720
bedhead wrote: post #240

I’ve long argued for massive estate tax rates on large estates in order to incentivize behavior like this. I have no problem at all with Bezos being worth $200 billion (or whatever it is now), but it’s this dynastic wealth that I find borderline sickening. Why in the hell should the Rockefeller’s of today be billionaires??? Also, these giant charitable foundations/family offices are similarly off-putting, as they are…

> I have no problem at all with Bezos being worth $200 billion Really? You have no problem one person owning so much money? That's around 30$ for _every_ person on the planet, can you even wrap your head around that? There's no reason why a single person should ever own this sort of wealth, none at all.

I wouldn't say that there's no reason, but it's just very unhealthy for democracy.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#768

Post by habosa »

yboris wrote: post #76

I humbly encourage everyone to make giving a larger part of your life. Consider giving at least 10% of your income to cost-effective charities -- because cost-effective charities can do thousands of times more good than merely regular charities. So your $1,000 donation can do as much good as $1 million, if given well. Join others: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/

Agree whole-heartedly that everyone should give more. If you find a way to give automatically (ideally from your paycheck, not your credit card) you never even feel it.

It's important to recognize that some causes are not as cost-effective as others, but are still worthy. I'll use my own donations as an example:

  1. Against Malaria Foundation - widely recognized as one of the charities that can do the most for a dollar. Malaria nets cost about $2-3 and it's estimated every ~$2500 given to them saves a life from Malaria.
  2. Larkin Street Youth Services - helping homeless youth in San Francisco (where I lived). A very expensive city and they provide not just housing but education, job services, medical care, etc.  Helping just one full-service client can cost $40,000 a year.
I don't think giving to both of these causes makes me inconsistent. After all, no number of malaria nets in Africa can take a person off the street in San Francisco. And I want both outcomes. I believe nobody should die of malaria, and nobody should be homeless. So I give to both.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#769

Post by andi999 »

cm2187 wrote: post #749
andi999 wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe there is also less need/causes to donate to if living in a high redistribution country (and yes proximity is important for a lot of people at least emotionally).

You should check out France to find out if high redistribution eliminates poverty (hint: it doesn’t).

So wont private donations. I believe some forms of poverty are unavoidable if you want to have a free society (i am not saying I endorse either side). The country I live in has the rule you are not allowed to treat mentally ill people against their will (if they are considered harmless). There seems to be some evidence that quite a number end up homeless. So what can you do? Not realising being sick is one of the symptoms of some of these (treatable) diseases.

Adding more money wont solve anything.

Re: Chuck Feeney Is Now Officially Broke

#770

Post by Talanes »

gambiting wrote: post #753
richardw wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the cost for some. If you’re rich enough you pay far less tax because you have access to an army of people whose job it is to help you do that. They leave us suckers to pay. That’s not right. I think more of people who pay their fair share. Feels like a moral issue for me.

>>They leave us suckers to pay. Except that's not true at all. Vast majority of taxes come from the richest. They might pay less percentage wise than me and you, but they pay the most in absolute terms. >>I think more of people who pay their fair share. I think more of people who pay more tax, not of those who pay more percentage wise. Ie - someone who makes a million dollars and pays 100k in tax seems to be contribu…

>Do they use the roads and hospitals and prisons and the police 25x as much?

By use do you mean "physically interact with" or "reap the social benefits of?" Because for one of those it's a clear yes.

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