How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by truckerbill » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:33 AM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #54

nobodyandproud wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us don’t lobby the government to write laws that carve out near-zero tax burdens. Which, with the growing wealth inequality, explains that why the tax burden on the middle income keeps stable or grows; while services and benefits keep shrinking.

Tax returns with AGI over $200k represent 5.7% of returns filed and account for 61.7% of taxes paid. [1] What ratio would you consider fair? [1] Data is from 2019, the latest available from the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-individual-stat...

The utility of money decreases the more you have (outside of lifestyle inflation). When basic needs of society (like housing) aren't being met, there shouldn't be a cap on what the wealthy pay imo.

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

#142

Post by TomSwirly » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:33 AM UTC

devoutsalsa wrote: post #137

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.

Take heart - I filed Dutch taxes in 2021 and not American, for the first time! It's somewhat more but every single day I see the results of my taxes.

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

#143

Post by TomSwirly » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:35 AM UTC

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #101

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…

I have an idea. I'll pay my damn taxes if you'll pay back your government-sponsored student loan. Deal?

You didn't really need to make that comment - the whole KKK thing speaks for itself.

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

#144

Post by orra » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:39 AM UTC

golergka wrote: post #134

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, robb…

> Taxation [is] enforced by violence... taxation is either extortion, robbery or theft

Perhaps, but less so than money. People wouldn't recognise other people as having millions or billions of wealth unless that was enforced through the violence of state capitalism, and a legal system protecting banks, creating cops and prisons.

Why would they? Millionaires aren't a natural concept; it's something our society allows.

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

#145

Post by mrtksn » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:42 AM UTC

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…

I agree completely but it seems to be a game theory thing. It works better if everyone is happy but you can leech the system and disproportionally benefit of it without doing your part for it as long as the system does not collapse due to your actions.

I guess the worlds has some space for people who can be rewarded enormously through the work of the long tail and everything collapses when the number of people who act in that way passes the acceptable threshold.

Like, it's O.K. to have a royal family and bunch of elites around them who engage only in high life stuff like poetry, paintings and politics but you can't have half of the population be painters, poets and the other half work the land and have no life so to feed the elite half.

I think there was article on HN some time ago about the tolerable percentage of knights in the society.

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

#146

Post by imgabe » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:43 AM UTC

truckerbill wrote: post #141

imgabe wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax returns with AGI over $200k represent 5.7% of returns filed and account for 61.7% of taxes paid. [1] What ratio would you consider fair? [1] Data is from 2019, the latest available from the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-individual-stat...

The utility of money decreases the more you have (outside of lifestyle inflation). When basic needs of society (like housing) aren't being met, there shouldn't be a cap on what the wealthy pay imo.

The "money" the very wealthy have is not cash sitting in a checking account but usually shares in some corporation. That absolutely has utility if you want to continue having a say in how your company is run. Besides, should the government come around and check for any property that it deems you're not sufficiently utilizing and confiscate it from you? It seems like that policy could be abused.

The government already controls a budget in the trillions of dollars - several orders of magnitude more than any private entity - and so far has not used it to meet basic needs like housing. What is the evidence that giving them additional money will solve the problem? It doesn't cost anything to relax zoning laws and let people build more housing.

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

#147

Post by ABCLAW » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:46 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #100

ramraj07 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay your tax first (a fair share at that) and then harp about unfair spending.

Have been. For years. I see dwindling QoL, infrastructure on stilts, power outages, anti-small-business bureacracy, woke government initiatives and dysfunctional law enforcement where I live. I give my local and state government a solid 2/10 score. I am a socialist where governments are efficient, liberatarian where governments are dysfunctional.

>I am a socialist where governments are efficient, liberatarian where governments are dysfunctional.

At first glance this position seems reasonable, but ultimately it's short sighted - the game is iterative. Penalizing the public coffer ultimately results in higher costs over the long run as high ROI investments are left on the planning table. The attitude itself is a large part of why the American government is paralyzed and cannot effectively address issues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

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

#148

Post by ABCLAW » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:53 AM UTC

golergka wrote: post #134

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, robb…

>So, taxation is either extortion, robbery or theft

If ultimate enforcement through violence is the only determinant of whether or not something is a crime, then the very laws that dissuade other crime, say the robbery or theft that you refer to, are themselves blackmail, extortion or some other variation of violent crime.

This circular reasoning does not hold up to scrutiny, which is why it is almost only used in respect of taxation in libertarian circles and nowhere else.

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

#149

Post by IanCal » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:57 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #71

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…

This isn't a loophole as much as a completely designed tax break. That's a different deal than some body squeaking around tax law; this was all about trying to change parts of the nature of capitalism's tendency to rerun money to capital more than to labor. If you think it's misguided, I do too. Though I think it's good to invest in under invested areas, I also think we need to counteract the effects of the Henry Geo…

> This isn't a loophole as much as a completely designed tax break.

I strongly doubt that the outcome here is the intent of the tax break, which seems to be "pump money into poor areas and we'll let you off the CGT on the amount you invested in the area".

She "re-invests" a thousand dollars by starting a company that is just a few people in some co-working spaces, and walks away a few years later with hundreds of millions extra.

If she'd started a major factory employing large numbers of people in the local area then sure, that seems like the intent.

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

#150

Post by csomar » Tue, May 10, 2022, 8:59 AM UTC

Layke1123 wrote: post #2

Is this really what people strive for in the USA. To avoid contributing anything back to the country that helped them achieve everything they've ever wanted?

It's a free market approach. The alternative is that the government collects money everywhere equally and then go and invest/pump money into these area. If the area is tax negative (requires more government money than it brings in), then might as well give it tax breaks; if that economic activity can break it off the cycle.

The very fact that some of these places exist for a long time; means that it's not worth it to invest in them even with the tax breaks.