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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Elon bought twitter with unrealized capital gains.
Surely they became "realized" in the process.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Surely they became "realized" in the process.
Nope, because he used a loan, so he was able to buy twitter and not pay taxes. He will have to pay taxes if and when he pays off the loan, maybe.
Twitter, the company, took out a loan as part of the financing to help Musk close. That is why Twitter desperately needs to return a profit. Because it now has to service that loan.
Those are different things.
EDIT: For reference it looked like he originally was going to back the loan with Tesla shares—so he wouldn't have to sell. It looks like he abandoned that idea and sold about $15.5B shares of Tesla to finance the deal. Maybe that's where the confusion is from? https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-f...
It is actually an interesting report. here's a TL;DR:
- The objectives and scope of the report: The report aims to address the questions of global tax evasion and the effects of recent policies, using new data and research conducted by the EU Tax Observatory and its partners. The report focuses on the issues of international tax evasion and competition by multinational companies and wealthy individuals, and their consequences for government revenue, inequality, and globalization.
- The main findings of the report: The report establishes six new findings on the dynamic of global tax evasion and international tax competition, such as the reduction of offshore tax evasion by wealthy individuals, the persistence of profit shifting by multinationals, the weakening of the global minimum tax, the emergence of new forms of tax competition, the low effective tax rates of billionaires, and the revenue potential of a global minimum tax on billionaires.
- The recommendations of the report: The report makes six recommendations to address the issues identified in the report, such as reforming the global minimum corporate tax, introducing a new global minimum tax for billionaires, taxing wealthy emigrants, implementing unilateral measures to collect tax deficits, creating a global asset registry, and strengthening anti-abuse rules.
- The role and vision of the EU Tax Observatory: The EU Tax Observatory is a research laboratory hosted at the Paris School of Economics that conducts research on taxation with a focus on international tax issues. Its goal is to generate new knowledge, formulate proposals, and contribute to a more informed democratic debate. It also aims to become an IPCC for taxation, providing rigorous and global analysis of different policy options.
Unrealized capital gains are not income. This article wants a wealth tax because they think this is "income" that is going untaxed.
My wealth was $x one year. And $x + $y the following year. If I work my ass off doing manual labor, $y gets taxed more than if I merely own equity that got me the same amount. And people wonder why the middle class is dying.
Tax rates ideally should be flat for all sources of income net of risk, loss, and inflation. To achieve this you either allow deductions for these, which are limited or non-existent in the US, or you lower the tax rates to offset the fact that you can't deduct these.
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Why is it unthinkable to make billionaires generate some income to pay taxes? I pay property taxes on the "unrealized capital gains" of my house, and somehow I make it work.
Perhaps you shouldn't have to pay unrealized gains on your house?
Unrealized capital gains are not income. This article wants a wealth tax because they think this is "income" that is going untaxed.
Only because of how we've chosen to define income.
Under such a system — unless I've badly misunderstood something — if a billionaire's assets decreased in value over the course of a year, they would still pay 2% on their assets. I can't think of any sense in which a decrease in the value of one's assets would be defined as income.
I have an opinion of the wisdom of a wealth tax, and I could be wrong. Regardless of my opinion, I think it's indisputable that a wealth tax and an income tax are different and that conflating the two makes a debate on the merits much more difficult.
This seems to ignore the fundamental reason that billionaires don't pay taxes. It's not that governments don't try to tax billionaires. It's that they're able to avoid claiming income when they make money. But following this reasoning, they would likely develop ways to avoid claiming wealth as well. Consider, for example, Warren Buffet's own example of his California properties which have a taxable value well below t…
Property tax is a fine example: sometimes properties aren't assessed in an ideal way (and to be fair some states also have very convoluted property tax schemes and credits) but overwhelmingly if you have very valuable property you pay more than someone with less valuable property.
Unrealized capital gains are not income. This article wants a wealth tax because they think this is "income" that is going untaxed.
One reason the author is probably suggesting this is that there are a wealth of schemes whereby income can be deferred and tax avoided by use/misuse of unrealized gains.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My wealth was $x one year. And $x + $y the following year. If I work my ass off doing manual labor, $y gets taxed more than if I merely own equity that got me the same amount. And people wonder why the middle class is dying.
In the US, the tax code is such that you pay taxes on capital when you've lost capital too, not just on the gains. This doesn't happen with normal wage income hence why it is treated differently. The lower tax rates on capital reflect the reality that you are paying taxes on the losses too. Tax rates ideally should be flat for all sources of income net of risk, loss, and inflation . To achieve this you either allow d…