Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

thestar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 141 posts

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#31

Post by nickpp »

LinuxBender wrote: post #28
Retric wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except property tax is a wealth tax. So we have a wealth tax, it’s just highly regressive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax_in_the_United_Sta...

Property tax is interesting but probably in a different category as you are sharing space/property with a local government. I hope we have a historian here that knows the background and rationale on property tax. It is interesting that it is tied to the value of the property and not simply based on the size of the lot.

Not a historian but I suspect that property taxes were originally meant to pay for things like infrastructure, garbage, police, firefighters, schools, etc. Pretty much community costs incurred by the development of the area including and around your property.

Of course, without actual transparence and accountability and considering the state of said infrastructure, schools, etc, it is hard to know where these taxes actually go nowadays.

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#32

Post by zx2391 »

Corrupt police men in Indian sprawls know this for a long time. You cannot extract lots from a few rich drivers (in addition, you may face personal consequences as well).

The best spots are where you have a many middle class to lower class drivers, who need to be somewhere quickly, and will pay up. Smaller amounts, but continuously.

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#33

Post by refurb »

poidos wrote: post #3
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #2

Headline says: > Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes Article says: > $13.6 billion in federal income taxes

“… on $401 billion of their wealth.”

How much tax did you pay on your total wealth last year?

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#34

Post by spywaregorilla »

Aqueous wrote: post #14

I'm a little baffled why there have been all these articles of this category recently. It's not news that you don't pay taxes on invested assets you hold and don't sell. That's how it works for everyone who invests their savings. This isn't a 'tax-avoidance' tactic - it's just what owning something is. Are we really advocating for a world where you are taxed just for appreciation? Maybe we are but at least be honest…

I feel like what people really want is a wealth weighted income tax, so your tax rate on income is based on how wealthy you are, not how much you made in a single year.

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#35

Post by zz865 »

Aqueous wrote: post #14

I'm a little baffled why there have been all these articles of this category recently. It's not news that you don't pay taxes on invested assets you hold and don't sell. That's how it works for everyone who invests their savings. This isn't a 'tax-avoidance' tactic - it's just what owning something is. Are we really advocating for a world where you are taxed just for appreciation? Maybe we are but at least be honest…

I agree with you in general, but the index fund thing is a problem. Index funds/etf pay no CG taxes even when the stocks in the index change, where traditionally a mutual fund would pay taxes as they sell the old stocks and replace with new constituents.

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#36

Post by lastofthemojito »

Aqueous wrote: post #14

I'm a little baffled why there have been all these articles of this category recently. It's not news that you don't pay taxes on invested assets you hold and don't sell. That's how it works for everyone who invests their savings. This isn't a 'tax-avoidance' tactic - it's just what owning something is. Are we really advocating for a world where you are taxed just for appreciation? Maybe we are but at least be honest…

Previous discussion of this ProPublica story rightly pointed out that there was too much focus on billionaires (legally) not paying taxes while their assets are appreciating (but not yet sold), and not enough focus on the fact that often taxes aren't even eventually paid (a grey area mix of legal/illegal).

From the original ProPublica article [0]:

>It’s clear, though, from aggregate IRS data, tax research and what little trickles into the public arena about estate planning of the wealthy that they can readily escape turning over almost half of the value of their estates. Many of the richest create foundations for philanthropic giving, which provide large charitable tax deductions during their lifetimes and bypass the estate tax when they die.

>Wealth managers offer clients a range of opaque and complicated trusts that allow the wealthiest Americans to give large sums to their heirs without paying estate taxes. The IRS data obtained by ProPublica gives some insight into the ultrawealthy’s estate planning, showing hundreds of these trusts.

Other folks pointed out other examples of charitable self-dealing, where a wealthy person may give their money to a foundation, and then travel the world on behalf of the foundation, or have the foundation pay for family-owned businesses to do work under contract, etc. Some pointed out that there are laws against this sort of thing, other folks pointed out that enforcement of those laws is rare and difficult.

So, should we step up efforts to try to enforce today's rules that haven't seemed workable in the past? Or do you want to do the easy thing and have a wealth tax on things like securities?

0: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#37

Post by cascom »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #34
Aqueous wrote: post #14

I'm a little baffled why there have been all these articles of this category recently. It's not news that you don't pay taxes on invested assets you hold and don't sell. That's how it works for everyone who invests their savings. This isn't a 'tax-avoidance' tactic - it's just what owning something is. Are we really advocating for a world where you are taxed just for appreciation? Maybe we are but at least be honest…

I feel like what people really want is a wealth weighted income tax, so your tax rate on income is based on how wealthy you are, not how much you made in a single year.

Well said - but unfortunately that’s not what what anyone is talking about.

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#38

Post by mprev »

nickpp wrote: post #27
Aqueous wrote: post #14

I'm a little baffled why there have been all these articles of this category recently. It's not news that you don't pay taxes on invested assets you hold and don't sell. That's how it works for everyone who invests their savings. This isn't a 'tax-avoidance' tactic - it's just what owning something is. Are we really advocating for a world where you are taxed just for appreciation? Maybe we are but at least be honest…

During COVID governments spent and spent. Now the check must be paid. By us, as always. Since income is already taxed at about 50% pretty much everywhere in the developed world, it is time to tax the existing wealth. These articles are meant to prepare the public for it. They influence but also measure the public support for a wealth tax. It could be an all wealth or only a unrealized capital gains tax, similar to pr…

Are you suggesting that governments are colluding with journalists to deliver a particular narrative?

Or are you saying that journalists and their editors believe there's a need for wealth taxes and so they're pushing that line?

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#39

Post by nickpp »

QuixoticQuibit wrote: post #29
Aqueous wrote: post #14

I'm a little baffled why there have been all these articles of this category recently. It's not news that you don't pay taxes on invested assets you hold and don't sell. That's how it works for everyone who invests their savings. This isn't a 'tax-avoidance' tactic - it's just what owning something is. Are we really advocating for a world where you are taxed just for appreciation? Maybe we are but at least be honest…

The recently proposed wealth taxes (e.g., Elizabeth Warren’s proposal) that work the way you’ve described would only start on wealth above $50 million. So your framing of such a tax as a way to steal from your working-class retirement funds is incredibly disingenuous. Unless, of course, you have 8+ figures of wealth. In which case I hope one day you’re made to pay your fair share to society.

Once a new tax is imposed, its limits and brackets are probably the easiest things to change about it. Moreover, if they aren’t inflation-adjusted, the Fed will make sure we’ll all get there pretty soon, just by printing money like they are doing these days.

Anybody who has any legally earned wealth has already paid his fair share to the society by simply creating the corresponding value. Usually value creators get a few percent of the created value, the rest being enjoyed by the society, by the rest us.

Re: Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes

#40

Post by adrian_b »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #7
johnrbent wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So less than 3.4% on average. How much do you pay?

I pay 0% federal income taxes on my wealth; the same as everyone else.

By stressing "federal income taxes" I assume that you mean that there are local taxes on wealth.

I do not know how it is in USA, but in most countries there are taxes on wealth, typically at least on houses, cars and land.

Wherever I have seen the amount of those taxes, they were already too high in my opinion.

Moreover, the inheritance taxes are also a kind of tax on wealth and they are also quite high in many places.

In my opinion taxes on wealth should be reduced, not increased, because I have seen cases when someone happened to be jobless for some time, thus having no income. While without the burden of taxes on wealth they could have lived decently for a longer time, waiting for an opportunity, the necessity of paying the taxes could force them to sell their property at loss and risk becoming homeless. I do not think that is right.

On the other hand, when someone owns much more wealth than would be needed to ensure a decent life until dying of old age, then I would accept that it is right to tax the excess wealth.

However, I have seen too many cases when the introduction of taxes on wealth was justified as "tax for the rich", but in the actual law the taxation thresholds were so low that the taxes affected mostly the lower end of the middle class, not the really rich.

Post reply on HN