Earlier quoted context omitted.
Norway oil is way more relevant for your thesis than Norway taxes
So does Texas and Alaska, and even California?
Doesn't Alaska provide a small basic income for its citizens funded by oil revenue?
How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
201–210 of 305 posts
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#202Unfashionable 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 live in a former socialist country, and I hate the "we will tax the rich" (as in higher tax percentages) paroles I hear from our current left-leaning (even communist) parties here. Why? (and I have mentioned this before, many times, even here) Poor people already pay almost zero taxes. Rich people avoid paying taxes at all. And me, someone with an above average but below "rich" (engineers) paycheck get fucked by th…
> I don't want higher taxes for the rich, I just want the rich to pay the same tax rate as I do in the first place.
But they don't, because of tax loopholes like these. If you want the rich to pay their fair tax, we definitely should "tax the rich". A couple of years ago, Warren Buffett pointed out that his secretary paid a higher tax rate than he did. Also because capital gains are taxed at a far lower rate than income.
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#203Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#204Is 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?
Capital gains tax is a parasitical tax that punishes people for being responsible with their after-tax money. It also creates massive, massive loopholes that can be abused. The fairest solution is to scrap CGT and associated capital loss write-offs. This allows the middle class to thrive by investing in productive enterprises and not getting taxed yet again to do so. It's the worst kind of tax that punishes success b…
> This allows the middle class to thrive by investing in productive enterprises and not getting taxed yet again to do so.
The same money isn't taxed again. Only the gains on top of that.
Some sort of tax on wealth or the proceeds of that wealth is necessary, otherwise you end up with a society where only the middle class pays tax while the people who benefit the most from society, the rich, live tax-free. It's either this or a simple wealth tax.
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
It adds insult to injury that a billionaire real estate mogul made EXACTLY this argument when selling his tax policy and business conduct (I’m just being a good businessman, and I’ll fix the rigged system by getting rid of loopholes!), then turned around and got rid of special deductions for normal folks and created a massive special interest handout for real estate moguls.
To the surprise of absolutely nobody.
Apparently to the surprise of many! Some people really are terminally gullible.
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I agree and disagree. I agree that it’s sloppy legislation and to that end the group to blame is the government (and ultimately the people). But I disagree that if the rules don’t get enforced that it’s seemingly “ok” for people to exploit it. They should have common decency and ethical guidelines here. Probably why I’m not one of them.
I didn't say it was ok to exploit it. I say it's unavoidable that people will exploit it.
I do wish we could run society purely on goodwill and people's intrinsic morality, but we've got a society that pushes people to crave more and more wealth, and those two don't go together.
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#207... and let others pay for the upkeep of the country that enabled your success :).
If we keep putting special-interest clauses in our tax codes like these 'business opportunity zones' without expecting everyone who is capable to come in and exploit them to the maximum extent possible, that is really on us.
Of course! However, that argument is a bit moot when you consider the overlap that exists between political power and economic power, and more crucially this: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=PJy8vTu66tE
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#208Unfashionable 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…
> Unfashionable thought: pay your damn taxes.
>~ braces for inevitable downvotes ~
If you get downvoted it will be because you stated an opinion that is in no way controversial among these demographics and then pretended like you were making some noble stand based on principals when in reality you were just the first person to come along and say what half of everyone was thinking and you weren't really risking much blowback.
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
well, what's the ROI (or fiscal multiplier in econ speak) of spending 300M on housing vouchers but not building more houses? or founding more border patrols instead of local police? or funding local police, which then spends it on legal fees to fight against releasing body cam footage? also note, that I'm not saying the people who optimize away their taxes spend it better (yachts! country clubs in the middle of the d…
There's a reason that every stupidly wealthy person who wants to throw their resources toward some goal either funds or starts a charity for the specific mission.
Re: How to have a billion dollar exit with zero capital gains tax
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 re…
> 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 No, because in these cases it's violence enacted in self-defense (often by proxy), and therefore not an aggression. Defending yourself is not aggression. Going after somebody or their property is.
>No, because in these cases it's violence enacted in self-defense
The use of coercive force is justifiable by the state or it isn't. If you now create justifications for why the use of violence in pursuit of self defense is valid, then you've conceded that the use of violence can be justified.
Which then means the "it's enforced by violence, and all these rationalizations don't matter as you don't have any choice anyway" no longer holds.
There are justifications for the use of violence, therefore we need some ulterior basis other than ultimate enforcement being premised upon the use of state violence in order to explain why 1) taxation is a crime, and further more that 2) that crime morally must be avoided.
You point towards the idea that Taxation is not a transaction you enter voluntarily, but the same can be said of your aggression theory; I didn't consent to any NAP with you, and the NAP is ultimately enforced by violence. I have no desire to abide by the NAP when it doesn't suit me as I never agreed to it.
Ultimately, whether it's the NAP, property rights or taxation, enforcement of pro-social behavior will require some scope, authority or justification which addresses more than just a single individual's consent. "I don't like taxes" is not sufficient an argument to state that you are morally obliged to commit tax evasion.