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Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

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Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#201
post #161

>Let's assume the asset appreciates at an annual rate of 8 percent Quite a lot of value creation going on. Good on them!

Indeed, someone with $10B who increased that to $10.8B over a year earned 80M. That's like $40K/hr if they take no sick days or time off to go yachting. Their labour must be super important.

8% of 10B is 800M, which comes to $91K every hour of the year. The average American makes $29.81 per working hour.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/average-hour...

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#202
post #109

It always puzzled me how tax-adverse some wealthy people are. I'm not talking about the wealthy people that have 100% of their wealth tied up to company (stock) that they operate - but the wealthy people that are just asset-rich, with zero operational duties. Their wealth is handled by wealth managers, they probably don't even know what they own. But minimizing taxes and hoarding wealth is priority number 1.

I don't think it's that unfathomable when you look at how governments spend the money. E.g. a public Czech university spent 80k euros to change their logo from this: https://cdn.xsd.cz/resize/21404adf37a83977870fe87fe0eb4ea6_r... to this: https://www.em.muni.cz/cache-thumbs/logo_muni_web-1580x790-2... Why does a public university, one of the most popular in the country, need a new logo? And if it needs a new logo, wh…

>why don't they assign it as a project to the students

Damn straight, and they should do the same thing with their website. And while we are at it, they could use the students to design and engineer their buildings and do their accounting and lawyering and administration.

Hell, while we are at it, why not get them to do the teaching as well?

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#203
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

moving the funds into the trust would be a taxable event, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Trust owns the asset from the start. "original ownership"

That’s fine. Impute rent to the trust and have it owe taxes that way.

We need the political will, the legal problems are solvable.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#205
post #202
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's that unfathomable when you look at how governments spend the money. E.g. a public Czech university spent 80k euros to change their logo from this: https://cdn.xsd.cz/resize/21404adf37a83977870fe87fe0eb4ea6_r... to this: https://www.em.muni.cz/cache-thumbs/logo_muni_web-1580x790-2... Why does a public university, one of the most popular in the country, need a new logo? And if it needs a new logo, wh…

>why don't they assign it as a project to the students Damn straight, and they should do the same thing with their website. And while we are at it, they could use the students to design and engineer their buildings and do their accounting and lawyering and administration. Hell, while we are at it, why not get them to do the teaching as well?

> Hell, while we are at it, why not get them to do the teaching as well?

They already do. They’re called TAs and grad students.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#206
post #109

It always puzzled me how tax-adverse some wealthy people are. I'm not talking about the wealthy people that have 100% of their wealth tied up to company (stock) that they operate - but the wealthy people that are just asset-rich, with zero operational duties. Their wealth is handled by wealth managers, they probably don't even know what they own. But minimizing taxes and hoarding wealth is priority number 1.

I don't think it's that unfathomable when you look at how governments spend the money. E.g. a public Czech university spent 80k euros to change their logo from this: https://cdn.xsd.cz/resize/21404adf37a83977870fe87fe0eb4ea6_r... to this: https://www.em.muni.cz/cache-thumbs/logo_muni_web-1580x790-2... Why does a public university, one of the most popular in the country, need a new logo? And if it needs a new logo, wh…

[deleted]

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can pay taxes on one dollar. It's the principle. In my country our threshold is significantly lower by the way - it's around a million, so bog standard houses get hit by it. I think that inheritance taxes are wholly equivalent to wealth taxes, e.g. "you have a thing, I like that thing, give me that thing", and therefore morally wrong. I could agree with them on the basis that the money were minimal and solely used…

No house costing a million is just a bog standard house. It's a mansion; if not in size then at least in value.

In Hawaii my house is 870k for a three bedroom built in the 50s on a medium plot. I still agree with your argument other than that.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#209
post #109

It always puzzled me how tax-adverse some wealthy people are. I'm not talking about the wealthy people that have 100% of their wealth tied up to company (stock) that they operate - but the wealthy people that are just asset-rich, with zero operational duties. Their wealth is handled by wealth managers, they probably don't even know what they own. But minimizing taxes and hoarding wealth is priority number 1.

I don't think it's that unfathomable when you look at how governments spend the money. E.g. a public Czech university spent 80k euros to change their logo from this: https://cdn.xsd.cz/resize/21404adf37a83977870fe87fe0eb4ea6_r... to this: https://www.em.muni.cz/cache-thumbs/logo_muni_web-1580x790-2... Why does a public university, one of the most popular in the country, need a new logo? And if it needs a new logo, wh…

This doesn't seem to be a large spend on branding and everyone that does spend on that thinks rightly or wrongly that they are going to get their money back and more due to attracting additional customers.

Also this is pure after the fact justification with no meaning. Most people who are rich became and remained so by maximizing their monetary position and needs to excuse nor reason to actually continue doing so. They do so because it perceptibly makes them more rich and more successful even if ultimately is just points on a score board with no real meaning for their life.

Nobody minimizes their taxes in order to ensure their money is better spent. They spend the excess on themselves like everyone else. On bigger and better castles to demonstrate their wealth, on planes, on another bigger boat.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#210
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s buying politicians and distorting society so they pay less. If you had the time and resources, wouldn't you try to affect change in government? It's not fundamentally any different than showing up to your city council meeting to get housing developments approved/blocked, for instance. Moreover, most people don't think of themselves as bad people, so they probably legitimately think they're doing the Right Thin…

> If you had the time and resources, wouldn't you try to affect change in government? This is going to be hard for the politically inclined to understand, but no, it's simply not the case that everyone everywhere is preoccupied with finding/creating legal ways to push their will/preferences onto other people.

This is going to be hard for the ideologically blind to understand, but not every rich person everywhere keeps politicians in their back pockets. Some don't even have their own PAC!
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