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How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

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Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#131

Post by actually_a_dog »

TrackerFF wrote: post #111
dmje wrote: post #68

Unfashionable thought: pay your damn taxes. Loopholes are one thing and IMO should be closed but morality is another. The whole idea that you can make a billion dollar business without being hugely dependent on the infrastructure, education, history, societal background etc that has largely been paid for by...taxes...is utter fallacy. Maybe if massively profitable businesses spent a bit more time doing the right thin…

Honest to god, I'm kind of stunned by the people with tens to HUNDREDS of millions, liquid, that will go great lengths to avoid, even evade, taxes. You see people move to other countries for "tax purposes" alone. Or people that will create elaborate schemes. Of course, I understand that if you're in that wealth bracket, the actual tax/accounting acrobatics is abstracted from you. You probably hire some consultant to…

Well, I, for one, have no such sympathy. I file that under "pay your damn taxes."

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#132

Post by actually_a_dog »

tnr23 wrote: post #75
ggm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is HN. we welcome diversity of views. this view you espouse, is not actually a minority view, but still, its a divisive topic. I'm a high tax kinda guy. If we all had Norway taxes, we'd have Norway sovereign fund and EV and lifestyle (but maybe without SAD, because we're not all that far north)

Norway oil is way more relevant for your thesis than Norway taxes

The US has 6.7x more oil reserves than Norway: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-country/

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#133

Post by mcv »

dmje wrote: post #68

Unfashionable thought: pay your damn taxes. Loopholes are one thing and IMO should be closed but morality is another. The whole idea that you can make a billion dollar business without being hugely dependent on the infrastructure, education, history, societal background etc that has largely been paid for by...taxes...is utter fallacy. Maybe if massively profitable businesses spent a bit more time doing the right thin…

Still, if the tax loophole exists, it's hardly surprising that people use it. People should pay their taxes, but the government should also close these tax loopholes, or at least be a lot more strict about how they're used; I can imagine these opportunity zones exist to make it more attractive to set up shops and small businesses here in order to develop the area. It's not meant for app startups with billion dollar exits, so the rules should exclude those.

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#134

Post by golergka »

dmje wrote: post #68

Unfashionable thought: pay your damn taxes. Loopholes are one thing and IMO should be closed but morality is another. The whole idea that you can make a billion dollar business without being hugely dependent on the infrastructure, education, history, societal background etc that has largely been paid for by...taxes...is utter fallacy. Maybe if massively profitable businesses spent a bit more time doing the right thin…

> The whole idea that you can make a billion dollar business without being hugely dependent on the infrastructure, education, history, societal background etc that has largely been paid for by...taxes...is utter fallacy.

Taxation is not a transaction you enter voluntarily; it's enforced by violence, and all these rationalizations don't matter as you don't have any choice anyway. So, taxation is either extortion, robbery or theft (I'm not sure which definition matches it better), and tax evasion is simply a moral obligation for everyone who believes that people should not be subject to violence.

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#135

Post by coldtea »

popcorncowboy wrote: post #124
TrackerFF wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest to god, I'm kind of stunned by the people with tens to HUNDREDS of millions, liquid, that will go great lengths to avoid, even evade, taxes. You see people move to other countries for "tax purposes" alone. Or people that will create elaborate schemes. Of course, I understand that if you're in that wealth bracket, the actual tax/accounting acrobatics is abstracted from you. You probably hire some consultant to…

> what's the difference between sitting on say $500MM in cash, and $800MM? At least $15M a year over most 3 year horizons, or the insane compounding effect of $300M invested over the long haul. Your question makes sense from a "normal" perspective, but doesn't once you're UHNW [0]. > It's either way going to be more money than you'll ever be able to spend. Not even close. At UHNW levels there are whole classes of thi…

>At least $15M a year over most 3 year horizons, or the insane compounding effect of $300M invested over the long haul.

How about the insane compounding effect of a better funded society, through less multi-mill/billionaire tax avoidance?

>Your question makes sense from a "normal" perspective, but doesn't once you're UHNW

Or rather, it makes sense from a normal (non quotes) perspective, but not from the point of a power hungry sociopath.

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#136

Post by yywwbbn »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #132
tnr23 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Norway oil is way more relevant for your thesis than Norway taxes

The US has 6.7x more oil reserves than Norway: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-country/

So US has around 9x less per capita since only ~5 million people live in Norway?

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#137

Post by devoutsalsa »

dmje wrote: post #68

Unfashionable thought: pay your damn taxes. Loopholes are one thing and IMO should be closed but morality is another. The whole idea that you can make a billion dollar business without being hugely dependent on the infrastructure, education, history, societal background etc that has largely been paid for by...taxes...is utter fallacy. Maybe if massively profitable businesses spent a bit more time doing the right thin…

As an American, I'd be more excited about taxes if I had access to affordable education, affordable healthcare, a well maintained infrastructure, and general social safety net. Now that I'm living outside of the USA & still subject to USA taxation, I'm even less excited about it.

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#138

Post by mcv »

mschuster91 wrote: post #123
tlb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How to take money from society whose elected representative set up a specific program to hand out" Which I also refuse to take, myself, but for different reasons than refusing to steal.

Intent matters. Opportunity Zones are set up to incentivize actual businesses providing services to the local community, not to serve as vehicles for far-away rich arseholes to cheat money out of the taxman.

But if the rules don't enforce that, and allow far-away rich arseholes to use these zones to cheat money out of the taxman, then that's sloppy legislating. The loopholes need to be closed. Relying on the goodwill of people whose primary unifying characteristic is the hoarding of extreme amounts of money is a bad idea.

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#139

Post by TomSwirly »

popcorncowboy wrote: post #124
TrackerFF wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest to god, I'm kind of stunned by the people with tens to HUNDREDS of millions, liquid, that will go great lengths to avoid, even evade, taxes. You see people move to other countries for "tax purposes" alone. Or people that will create elaborate schemes. Of course, I understand that if you're in that wealth bracket, the actual tax/accounting acrobatics is abstracted from you. You probably hire some consultant to…

> what's the difference between sitting on say $500MM in cash, and $800MM? At least $15M a year over most 3 year horizons, or the insane compounding effect of $300M invested over the long haul. Your question makes sense from a "normal" perspective, but doesn't once you're UHNW [0]. > It's either way going to be more money than you'll ever be able to spend. Not even close. At UHNW levels there are whole classes of thi…

I agree.

"UHNW" people are crazy, evil and dangerous. There is no amount of stuff that will ever satisfy them. They will consume, and cheat on taxes, obsessively - until our natural world is destroyed.

It has come down to us vs. them. We didn't start this fight, but we are going to have to finish it.

Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax

#140

Post by actually_a_dog »

yywwbbn wrote: post #136
actually_a_dog wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has 6.7x more oil reserves than Norway: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-country/

So US has around 9x less per capita since only ~5 million people live in Norway?

Since people are misreading this comment, either deliberately or because I have not been clear enough, I am going to assume good faith and edit the comment to be more clear.

---

And 6.7x the amount of the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global exceeds the entire annual budget of the US government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spend...

Imagine if the US could just magically borrow from next year's budget, but at zero cost? That's the net effect of having an entire additional several trillion dollars laying around.

In hard numbers, that 6.7x works out to around $9.3 trillion, of which it's a pretty safe assumption that you can "borrow" around 3% of it annually, forever. That works out to around $280 billion.

It ain't chump change. We could easily end homelessness in the US with that amount, and have much more left over to do even more social good.

https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/social-justic...

After we take the 50-ish billion a year it would take to eradicate homelessness (keep in mind, we can sustain this in real terms approximately forever), let's move on to higher education. The Debt Free College act would reportedly cost the US $75 billion a year.

https://educationdata.org/how-much-would-free-college-cost

No problem. We've only spent half of what we can borrow in perpetuity from the future with this hypothetical sovereign wealth fund laying around.

Let's go for the triple crown and give everybody universal, employer-independent health coverage.

Oh, guess what? That was a trick. Implementing universal healthcare, simply replacing premiums by taxes, would save the US many more billions of dollars we could put to good use doing even more social good.

https://www.citizen.org/news/fact-check-medicare-for-all-wou...

Or maybe it would cost an additional $149 billion. Who cares? We're still under budget.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

And, so, now, we've reached a point where nobody in the US needs to ever worry about student loans, medical costs, or homelessness again. (Well, okay, not nobody -- we still need to figure out something for the people who have taken out student loans already, but I think we can probably handle that.) It's not quite the extensive welfare state that Norway has, but it's pretty damn close.

Guess what happens to the labor market under those conditions? If you said "it becomes much more like a free market," you guessed right! And who can argue against that, really?

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