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Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

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Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#101
This is legitimately one of the dumbest, most boneheaded tax schemes I've ever seen the left devise. I'm all for taxing the rich, but not like this.

First, this creates a perverse incentive for founders to stifle the growth (or more specifically, in private companies: valuation) of their companies in order to avoid a high-tax event. This may actually be something the Board would approve, in some companies, because this high-tax event would involve the dilution of founder control; companies grant founders tons of shares for a reason, its because they're assumedly doing something to deserve it, and if the Board wanted those shares in someone else's hands they would have done that in the first place.

Second, this is again especially true for private companies but also applies to public ones: it adversely impacts American companies and American founders. We are a global society. If a strong, American company is forced to sell a significant portion of their shares, either on the public market or through private investors, in order to pay a large tax bill, who is going to buy those shares? Investors, generally, which includes entities both domestic AND FOREIGN. These taxable events will move significant wealth out of American hands and into foreign investment entities who are not subject to the same laws.

Third, many people don't realize that the total valuation of the stock market outweighs the total value of all US Dollars in circulation by ~30x (~$50T vs ~$1.5T). Tim could not be more right when he says that he's not really a billionaire, and Musk is not an almost-trillionaire. Stock wealth ISN'T REAL, and I don't just mean that in nebulous, floaty terms, I mean it in very physical, real, "If Democrats try to make stock market wealth real, they will destroy the economy, full stop, there are literally not enough US Dollars to represent the wealth of the US Stock market in real terms." Because taxes are paid in US Dollars, not in TSLA shares, these taxable events will reify a MASSIVE portion of fake-wealth currently tied up in the stock market, which is already significantly inflated due to the Fed's QE over the past decade.

Fourth, this is basically a "Delaware C-Corp" situation; the only reason this tax bill would generate so much income for the US Government is because it is new; billionaires haven't prepared for it. So, it'll make a ton of money, ONE TIME. Looking into the future, its unsustainable; it creates a massive incentive to offshore personal founder wealth, and possibly even citizenship and corporate headquartering. With COVID accelerating remote work, there's a ridiculously real possibility of companies, in the near near future, being founded outside the US, but still accessing as much US talent as they need. The USG can tax the middle class people who work for the company within their borders, but the rich founders? They're on an island. Ayn Rand was an idiot, but she wasn't wrong about everything; rich people will do anything to escape a tax bill.

But the dumbest thing, above all else, is how fucking self-servingly idiotic this bill is. I know our policymakers all share one brain cell, and Biden has been using it a lot recently, but this is beyond reproach. The democrats need money to pay for social programs. That isn't wealth redistribution; its a handout. That money will come from taxing American businesspeople, forcing them to sell shares, which will then be bought by other corporations and investment entities, and the wealth gap will just keep getting bigger and bigger; on the one side are average Americans who can't breach into the INSANE wealth inside corporate America, but are at least kept going on food stamps and free childcare. On the other side, people still insanely rich, just a little bit less so, and their companies are now owned by Tencent and the CCP.

The better path forward for some kind of wealth redistribution bill is something which creates incentives for companies to distribute significantly more corporate shares to more employees. I don't know what that looks like, specifically, but: Every single employee of every single company should see a portion of their compensation be represented as shares in the company, even if its just a handful, from the Waitresses serving tables at the Cheesecake Factory to the CEO who plans strategy. Ultimately this benefits the company, at least in some way, because it aligns financial success at every level, it benefits employees because its an additional vector for compensation which is anti-inflationary at a macroeconomic level (unlike a minimum wage increase, which is absolutely still necessary, but I don't feel is enough), it benefits tax revenue because many lower-wage roles will liquidate these shares very quickly (if possible) (a taxable event), and it benefits US political policy because it keeps ownership of many American corporations in the hands of Americans, rather than foreign investment entities.

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#102

The current tax situation is like property taxes in California before Prop 19: nobody sells, so ownership and control never changes. This facilitates wealth transfer from generation to generation (in the equity case, though the use of trusts) and perpetuates wealth inequality.

Generational wealth transfer is a good thing. It's the main reason most people work hard in life - to provide a better life for their offspring. Wealth inequality is a good thing too. People who work harder necessarily live better lives. If you want to start stealing their hard work to give to the lazy, you're going to find that the hard-working flee the country à la the USSR.

I simply disagree that an economic incentive is necessary or useful for people with extreme wealth. Already rich people who are primarily motivated by the accumulation of wealth are unlikely to have some unique skill that society needs in our active labour force. If our tax structure made them more likely to retire early, our workforce would not be starved of useful skill.

Genuinely smart people with genuinely valuable skill (like Musk or Jobs) would work equally hard whether their offspring were set to inherit 10 million or 10 billion dollars.

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you’ve never founded a successful company

This comment adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. Is there some specific critique you have of what OP has said ?

It’s like saying “I think all music rock stars could improve their music by doing X.”

That statement could be interesting if you’re a rockstar. If not, then not so much.

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that giant companies eventually collapse under the weight of their own greed and complacency doesn’t mean they don’t engage in anticompetitive behavior while they’re at the top.

It means they were not successful at crushing their competitors.

My point is huge companies can engage can have negative effects on competition even if they eventually fall.

How many businesses has Amazon whipped out in the retail space by leaning on the profits from the cloud division?

Just the other day we saw documents from the DOJ’s lawsuit against Google for anticompetitive behavior. In the those documents we saw internal communication about a desire for Google to use their dominance in the browser space to create the web into a walled garden [0].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28974798

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#105
post #4

I'm actually in favor of this. I've long held that there should be public liquidity in all companies over a certain valuation and the company should not be allowed to bar you from selling the stock (though it could retain right to beat any pending offers) It's asinine that companies are allowed to treat equity pay as pay, and IRS can tax it as realized (AMT), but the worker does not in fact have any instrument with w…

Why do you think this requires public liquidity?

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#106
Some observations:

1. Whatever happened to increasing tax rates, like pretty much every other country? Why these weird gimmicks?

2. A much greater cause of elite wealth accumulation is running deficits. Deficits are when you want to spend on social welfare but don't have the courage to pay for it with taxes. So you make both sides happy and increase spending while running up deficits. The reason we've seen this astronomical increase in top incomes is because of massive deficit spending.

3. Any tax bill targeting billionaires is going to fail since they can give up US citizenship and offshore whatever they want. If you are serious about soaking the rich, you need controls on capital flight. But that goes against the neoliberal project of globalization. Commitment to that project is going to make any soak-the-rich effort not work. It will end up hitting the upper middle class that can't offshore -- they are the real targets.

4. Envy-based politics don't work. There is a dangerous game being played here. You want to inculcate solidarity and national purpose, but again that goes against the liberal project that only tells us who we are supposed to hate based on their race and/or class.

5. If you have a low interest rate policy, then you are going to make a lot of billionaires much richer via capital appreciation. That's not the fault of the billionaires. If you want to reduce that, then raise interest rates. All these billionaires will become much poorer. Because this is all just paper wealth.

6. The Original Sin of the left is trying to mess with prices instead of incomes. Tax incomes, not repricing of wealth.

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#107
post #21
post #4

I'm actually in favor of this. I've long held that there should be public liquidity in all companies over a certain valuation and the company should not be allowed to bar you from selling the stock (though it could retain right to beat any pending offers) It's asinine that companies are allowed to treat equity pay as pay, and IRS can tax it as realized (AMT), but the worker does not in fact have any instrument with w…

He could also himself shares with super-voting power, like what Facebook and Google have done.

Is it possible to do that after taking outside investment? I always assumed share classes like that had to be set up at the beginning.

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the company can pay out salary for him to pay those taxes. Then he can continue to be owner without selling shares. Changes in law often result in changes to how companies operate, they're not forced to stick with status quo.

Most of these billionaires are founders of companies that were worth many billions of dollars before they ever turned a profit. There is no option just to pay out the cash to cover the gains tax.

I don't really see a problem. There would just be a new equilibrium. Pay salary->increased burn->lower valuation. The valuations are mostly detached from reality currently, it would bring it more in line.

Re: Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies

#109
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean old middle class, and poor homeowners, can stay in the house they raised a family in? The only reason my high school educated 80 years old mother in declining health can stay in a home, and county, she feels somewhat safe is because of prop 13. Her biannual property taxes are still a big deal when they arrive. I've said this before, but I'm beginning to think if you didn't live through the craziness before P…

Prop 13 disincentivizes building housing. Stop calling people evil just because your grandmother isn't the center of their policy concerns.

> Prop 13 disincentivizes building housing.

I didn't think we reached the point where people are arguing that things that make housing more valuable disincentivize building more homes - but here we are.

It is zoning restrictions, EIR, etc., that disincentivize housing.

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