211–220 of 498 posts
> I think everyone needs to read the bill and calm down. "Gains on private assets -- including harder-to-value assets like real estate, art and private companies -- would escape the annual levy, and only be taxable when sold. "
So this wouldn't have even applied to Epic Games?
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.
The words "CITATION NEEDED"— in bold 72 point-font flashing letters—spring to mind.
Do you have any data, or other evidence, to back that claim up?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it fails to sate the emotional rationalization that sits behind so much of the rhetoric that has been used to justify such measures. The wealthy are evil, duplicitous, exploitative, and in the best cases, merely lucky... regardless of what a wealthy person actually did or didn't do to come to their wealth... and the not wealthy are blameless, innocent, unlucky victims that are unable to change their lot in li…
You are not wrong. The only thing I would add to that is the wealthy invariably means simply "much richer than me". In particular it is obscene to see that the people who most hate billionaires and agitate for their punishment are, for the most part, millionaires. The whole movement is rooted in envy, transparently disguised as virtue.
> It doesn’t apply to shares held by hedge funds like KKR, nor to corporate investors like Tencent and Sony. If that's the case, then what prevents billionaires like him from creating "Tim Sweeney angel fund LLC" and have that entity retain control of Epic? Then since this entity is private, couldn't it defer that tax at the time it sells the entity? With the whole deferred tax scheme that applies to assets not trade…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, one workaround would be to treat securitization of shares (eg for a loan) as a taxable event. This is a common (and currently legal) tax avoidance strategy. agreed. that should 100% be a taxable event and it's totally absurd that it's not. and i'm sure there's a lot of... lobbying that will never allow that kind of law to pass.
I kinda disagree. Yes it's a loophole to get around tax, but taking a loan against assets you own should not be taxable. It's the same pathway that people use to take a loan against their property and other assets, and having to pay tax on that is absurd Similarly, stocks (or things like gold) that one owns have some worth, and using it as collateral for taking a loan against it is a completely valid thing to do
Any assets, above $100M, used to collateralize a loan are taxed as if they are realized capital gains at the time that you collateralize the loan.
I don't think the loan itself should be taxed, but if you use assets to collateralize a loan, those assets should be taxed as if they're realized income—since by taking the loan you are now "realizing" the value of those appreciating assets.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, one workaround would be to treat securitization of shares (eg for a loan) as a taxable event. This is a common (and currently legal) tax avoidance strategy. agreed. that should 100% be a taxable event and it's totally absurd that it's not. and i'm sure there's a lot of... lobbying that will never allow that kind of law to pass.
It does seem like a loophole, such funds when used as income should be taxed. Probably more complicated in practice but it does seem like a strategy that runs counter to the intent of taxation laws. And I'd bet if it was a strategy employed effectively by the 99% it would be vigorously labelled as tax evasion and dealt with accordingly
That loan still has to be paid off with separate, regularly taxed, income.
Also this is a strategy used all the time by the 99%. It's called a second mortgage. This proposal would mean that taking out a loan against the equity in a home would become a taxable event.
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 astro…
Taxing incomes and not wealth is fundamentally unfair to people without wealth.
Technically you two own the same thing, but you'll get fucked by taxes and he wont.
Why would you be taxed on something you you already paid tax for to buy?
Renting out the house? Sure, get taxed. Selling the house? Sure, get taxed on the price difference. You're growing weed there? Sure, got taxed on profits from that. Otherwise, you never own anything.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, one workaround would be to treat securitization of shares (eg for a loan) as a taxable event. This is a common (and currently legal) tax avoidance strategy. agreed. that should 100% be a taxable event and it's totally absurd that it's not. and i'm sure there's a lot of... lobbying that will never allow that kind of law to pass.
I kinda disagree. Yes it's a loophole to get around tax, but taking a loan against assets you own should not be taxable. It's the same pathway that people use to take a loan against their property and other assets, and having to pay tax on that is absurd Similarly, stocks (or things like gold) that one owns have some worth, and using it as collateral for taking a loan against it is a completely valid thing to do
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, one workaround would be to treat securitization of shares (eg for a loan) as a taxable event. This is a common (and currently legal) tax avoidance strategy. agreed. that should 100% be a taxable event and it's totally absurd that it's not. and i'm sure there's a lot of... lobbying that will never allow that kind of law to pass.
I kinda disagree. Yes it's a loophole to get around tax, but taking a loan against assets you own should not be taxable. It's the same pathway that people use to take a loan against their property and other assets, and having to pay tax on that is absurd Similarly, stocks (or things like gold) that one owns have some worth, and using it as collateral for taking a loan against it is a completely valid thing to do
you bought house for $600K cash (for simplicity). Some years later the house appreciated to $1.5M, and you take out a $1M loan against it - you are obviously realizing a $400K of the value of the house as otherwise those additional $400K can only come from thin air. So those $400K of the realized value of the house (not the loan) need to be taxed with the house adjusted cost basis becoming $1M. If you sell the house later for $1.5M the remaining $500K would get taxed as the difference between sale proceeds and the adjusted cost basis.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt SpaceX or Tesla would exist if they were controlled by a committee. Doing great things usually requires control by a single person who is able to say "screw it, we're going for X".
This is simply nonsense. All companies once they reach a certain size (including Tesla, SpaceX) have a Senior Leadership Team which decides on the critical decisions affecting the company. This personality obsession is really only perpetuated by people who haven't worked in business and don't realise just how much of a team effort it is.
A senior leadership team without a key decision maker is fundamentally lost and seeks only self preservation through short term goals.
Here's another example: every government on Earth. All have a single key decision maker at the top. In democracies they can be kicked out, but they have total control while they're in power.