Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 155 posts

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#101

Post by loeg »

BurningFrog wrote: post #81
tunesmith wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got interested in the utility of money a while back and how the "value" of money is roughly logarithmic as it goes up. I found a couple of thought experiments regarding a "logarithmic flat tax". Anyway, going by that I think it's about right - it might still be a little bit high, though. Depending on how you calculate it those plans can be configured so that he should have paid more in the 35-40% range. Basically,…

Do you mean "fair" in the sense that it tries to be equally painful for everyone?

That seems like a reasonable interpretation of fair.

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#102

Post by abalone »

tdehollain wrote: post #13

That's $593M taxes on $1.34B earnings on exercising stock options...44% tax rate is pretty harsh!

Worth noting: the gain on those share from here on out will be taxed at the capital gains rate, assuming he holds onto them for a year. In California I think that tops out at 33.3%.

Also, in the mid 20th century (a very high growth time for the US) personal income tax topped out around 90%. "Harsh" is definitely a matter of perspective.

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#103

Post by bmelton »

idbehold wrote: post #92
bmelton wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand the point. Are you asserting that the FBI is keeping muggers and highwaymen away from Elon Musk's money? Edit, to respond to your edit, which added "Also, who mentioned federal tax revenue or income tax? It wasn't me." The title of the article we are ostensibly discussing.

It's funny that you mention highways since they wouldn't exist w/o tax revenue.

You clearly aren't aware of the many and myriad forms of highways we've had in America, including private toll highways, and the National Road, which was funded by the federal government, but predates the federal income tax by more than 100 years.

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#104

Post by loeg »

njharman wrote: post #94
tdehollain wrote: post #13

That's $593M taxes on $1.34B earnings on exercising stock options...44% tax rate is pretty harsh!

Not that long ago we had 90% tax rate (70% effective) in USA. It's been plummeting since WWII https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_history_of_the_United...

That was a nominal but not realistic rate for the very wealthy / high income. IIRC, dividends were not taxed at that rate. More info from this commentor: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14168781

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#105

Post by Maarten88 »

throwaway999a wrote: post #36

It's very strange how people now seem to feel like they are entitled to see the tax returns of public or well-known figures. Tax returns are nobody else's business! Would you demand to see their medical records as well? The implicit subtext (especially with highly successful people like Musk) is that we do this to "make sure they pay their fair share". Here's the reality: the top 1% of US tax filers pay nearly half o…

> the top 1% of US tax filers pay nearly half of all US income taxes

The top 1% also own more than 50% [1], so if they would pay their "fair share" they'd still need to pay more. Much more if you think that the differences should become smaller.

[1] http://fortune.com/2015/10/14/1-percent-global-wealth-credit...

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#106

Post by natoliniak »

Cyph0n wrote: post #29
niroze wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Africans are white, especially ones settled and controlled by Brits at some point.

Not to mention North Africans (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya) and Egyptians. I'm a Tunisian-American, but I obviously select "white" in demographic questionnaires. I heard that the U.S. Census Bureau is planning to introduce a Arab/Middle Eastern category in the near future.

oh man, human "race" is such a complicated concept....as an example, Zidane who is Algerian descent by all means would be considered "white" in the USA...but then he is also an African who was born and grew up in Europe.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bc/XI...

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#107

Post by vaishaksuresh »

throwaway999a wrote: post #36

It's very strange how people now seem to feel like they are entitled to see the tax returns of public or well-known figures. Tax returns are nobody else's business! Would you demand to see their medical records as well? The implicit subtext (especially with highly successful people like Musk) is that we do this to "make sure they pay their fair share". Here's the reality: the top 1% of US tax filers pay nearly half o…

>public or well-known figures

you're equating two unrelated issues. Nobody needs or is entitled to a private company's CEO's tax returns. However, it is totally reasonable to see the tax returns of a politician who makes decisions on a daily basis that could very easily be tailored to line his pockets. It is not about tax returns, it is about transparency and accountability. Even in the CEO's case, if the board of his company wants to see his returns, I would not really fault them. It is pretty basic requirement that you have to be accountable to the people you work for. In case of the Trump (I am assuming he is the reason for your comment), he seems to be confused about the roles. People are not his employees or customers. They are his bosses. The former don't need to see his finances, the latter do.

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#108

Post by TheGirondin »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #55
WJW wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the US maybe. Income tax in the Netherlands (my country) in the top bracket is 52%. On the second hand, we have no capital gains tax so he might come out ahead when exercising options. On the third hand, we have a wealth tax of 1.2% on your entire capital above a certain floor (of about 20k) so he might not come out ahead in the end. It's always interesting to see the opinions of different cultures about how much…

Not bad, but doesn't that come with social services like free medical care and greatly subsidized education? Here in he US the middle income pays taxes and receives almost no directive social benefit, as most social programs are geared towards lower income and the rich can afford accountants and lawyers to keep their tax burden very light.

>rich can afford accountants and lawyers to keep their tax burden very light.

The top 5% in the US pay 55% of all Federal income taxes.

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#109

Post by abalone »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #86
ww520 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

44% tax rate is not too bad. Note that people with lots of money got their money by leveraging the system. A well run system is not cheap. The court system, the legal system, law enforcement, the education system, welfare, defense, etc all cost money. The higher percentage tax is only fair to pay back to the system that generates the big gain.

Especially if you take into consideration how much Musk has personally benefitted from a well funded government. >Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The Times. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-2015...

And that's just direct subsidies! Don't forget that rockets, autonomous driving[1] and solar power[2] were developed by the government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Renewable_Energy_Labo...

Re: Tesla's Musk Paid at Least $593M in Income Taxes in 2016

#110

Post by mason240 »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #86
ww520 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

44% tax rate is not too bad. Note that people with lots of money got their money by leveraging the system. A well run system is not cheap. The court system, the legal system, law enforcement, the education system, welfare, defense, etc all cost money. The higher percentage tax is only fair to pay back to the system that generates the big gain.

Especially if you take into consideration how much Musk has personally benefitted from a well funded government. >Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The Times. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-2015...

The idea that he personally used $593M, much less $4.9B worth of government services in 2016 is pretty silly.

He is far from being the sole owner of those companies.

Post reply on HN