I decided to "pay off personal taxes" >Here's where we get into the dicey business of what "personal worth" is, and how that translates to taxable income. >Answer: It usually doesn't, because rich people are master frauds and charlatans who exploit loopholes in tax code to avoid paying their fair share. >Jeff Bezos is worth $156 billion? You're using the top tax bracket of 37% and paying out $57.72 billion of that. Y…
This is just another piece written by someone who does not understand how income tax works and is unable to appreciate that this problem is actually complicated. If Jeff Bezos net worth increases by 1 billion over a year, he hasn't realized any of the actual gains and that profit it purely on paper. If he chose to live on 1M$/year then he only has to pay 370k$ in taxes that's how it works for you and me and that's ho…
You Are Jeff Bezos
31–40 of 95 posts
Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's pretty a humorous method of stating what many progressives have been saying for some time: Being a billionaire is inherently immoral. That you simply cannot accumulate that much wealth without underpaying or overcharging others. I think the creator is aware that stock holdings are not legally bound to the income tax rate. That's not the point of the simulation. The point is that the rich have vehicles fo…
>"Being a billionaire is inherently immoral." No it isn't, and that's no a self-evident assertion. Jeff Bezos is a billionaire because the company he created and led for the past 20 years is an insanely productive business. People want to own shares in his company and that is why his holdings are worth so much. >"without underpaying or overcharging others" This is an impossible standard to meet. In a system as massiv…
I would argue that's the baseline disagreement right there. "No it isn't, and that's not a self-evident assertion" - I would say those on the further left think it is.
The premise being "Is there an amount of wealth one person or family can have, that is so exorbitant in comparison to the average citizen that it is unjustifiable on its face?" - and the easily marketable answer is "billionaire".
Do you think there is no moral limit to the amount of wealth one person can have in society, while millions around him suffer?
Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great observation. I'd really like to hope it's satire. >You eliminate homelessness in the United States. Every person living in the US now has the guarantee of a roof over their head. >This costs you $20 billion, or a trivial 12.8% of your starting net worth. You still have $136,000,540,000. I really really wish it was that easy.
It isn't that much more complicated than that — politics-wise, sure, but all you really need is housing and money to solve homelessness.
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Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just another piece written by someone who does not understand how income tax works and is unable to appreciate that this problem is actually complicated. If Jeff Bezos net worth increases by 1 billion over a year, he hasn't realized any of the actual gains and that profit it purely on paper. If he chose to live on 1M$/year then he only has to pay 370k$ in taxes that's how it works for you and me and that's ho…
> Does it mean that we should tax wealth? Absolutely not. I'm not so sure. Maybe we should. Wealth hording is a real issue. I'm at least open to the idea. I agree with the rest of your comment.
In an ideal world, maybe. Problem is that measuring wealth is a very tough game.
Let's imagine you start a company. Things are going really well and you raise tons of venture money at higher and higher valuations. In your most recent raise, you raised $1 billion at a $10B valuation and as founder of the company and owner of 20%, you are now worth (on paper), $2 billion. But this is all based on venture valuations, not what's in your bank account.
Now say we tax wealth... how do we decide what you are worth? Maybe it's $2 billion, but you have common, not preferred shares. And in any case, you may not be able to sell shares to pay those taxes because it's not a public company.
In any case, billionaires will find ways to say they are worth less. They'll buy paintings and then argue that they overpaid. They'll buy cars and yachts and claim depreciations in value. They'll invest in Romanian forests and other hard to value assets. It'll never work in practice. That's why almost no one taxes wealth and almost everyone taxes capital gains instead.
Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just another piece written by someone who does not understand how income tax works and is unable to appreciate that this problem is actually complicated. If Jeff Bezos net worth increases by 1 billion over a year, he hasn't realized any of the actual gains and that profit it purely on paper. If he chose to live on 1M$/year then he only has to pay 370k$ in taxes that's how it works for you and me and that's ho…
> Does it mean that we should tax wealth? Absolutely not. If he takes out a loan guaranteed by his wealth, how should that be taxed?
I don't claim to have all the answers, I'm just a software developer. For what it's worth, Jeff Bezos should pay taxes that match his lifestyle I 100% agree, but saying "he has 136B$ in the bank and we should tax that amount" is making several leaps in logic that I can't get behind.
Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He's supposed to pay tax on income not on wealth. Yes. That’s the trap most of these arguments for taxing the rich fall into under the current system. Having money and making money are taxed differently. If you own a house and all of your neighbors sell theirs at a 30% markup, should you pay taxes on making $300,000 (for a 1mil house) this year? Maybe … seems kinda unfair though. You didn’t participate in those tra…
> If you own a house and all of your neighbors sell theirs at a 30% markup, should you pay taxes on making $300,000 (for a 1mil house) this year? In most places (not California) your property will likely be assessed higher and your taxes will be commensurately higher next year. Your house's increased value isn't treated like realized income, but its effect on your taxes isn't 0 either.
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Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#37Seeing the comments here debating the semantics of taxes, now seems like a good time to mention Poe's Law. [0]
I personally took home the message that the "game" was satire and meant to contextualize Bezos' wealth. Saying that the cost of hiring 100k teachers for 4 years is a fraction of his wealth is a lot more (for the lack of a better term) impactful than saying Bezos is worth $xyz Billion. Of course, that does not mean that Jeff can write a check for $22.4B and we can address the issues with the public school system in the United States. It does, however, help drive home the point that some individuals in our society have such immense wealth that they could theoretically transform society.
I do not intend to comment on the nature of said wealth, but the game still makes good food for thought.
Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just another piece written by someone who does not understand how income tax works and is unable to appreciate that this problem is actually complicated. If Jeff Bezos net worth increases by 1 billion over a year, he hasn't realized any of the actual gains and that profit it purely on paper. If he chose to live on 1M$/year then he only has to pay 370k$ in taxes that's how it works for you and me and that's ho…
The wealthy borrow against their assets at stupid low interest rates, and those loans are not subject to income tax. Got a billion dollars in stock? Borrow as much as you need to pay for that yacht.
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Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is just another piece written by someone who does not understand how income tax works and is unable to appreciate that this problem is actually complicated. If Jeff Bezos net worth increases by 1 billion over a year, he hasn't realized any of the actual gains and that profit it purely on paper. If he chose to live on 1M$/year then he only has to pay 370k$ in taxes that's how it works for you and me and that's ho…
The wealthy borrow against their assets at stupid low interest rates, and those loans are not subject to income tax. Got a billion dollars in stock? Borrow as much as you need to pay for that yacht.
eventually you have to sell the stock to pay off the loan(s), triggering a tax event. If you wait until death, you get walloped by the estate tax, which is even higher than income tax.
Re: You Are Jeff Bezos
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does it mean that we should tax wealth? Absolutely not. I'm not so sure. Maybe we should. Wealth hording is a real issue. I'm at least open to the idea. I agree with the rest of your comment.
Taxing wealth acts as an incentive to spread the shares around the company instead of hoarding them. Don't want your wealth taxed? Let the workers enjoy the fruits of their labor. The same goes for ~90% brackets. Don't want your salary to be taxed at such a high rate? Put that money into R&D or worker's paychecks.
The (capitalist) counter argument is that forcing people to spread wealth acts as an incentive not to innovate