171–180 of 305 posts
There's an opportunity zone adjacent to Palo Alto that extends into Menlo Park. It has a Four Seasons hotel in it. There are other areas nearby that could use the investment incentive a lot more IMO. Who decided on these zones? Seems totally arbitrary.
... and let others pay for the upkeep of the country that enabled your success :).
Earlier 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.
The problem is a fundamental disadvantage in available manpower. Billionaires employ literal armies worth of extremely well paid lawyers, accountants and other professionals continuously working on finding and exploiting loopholes involving multiple jurisdictions, whereas most of the public services sector is barely keeping up. (Yes I'm aware that especially at the federal scale, the ultra rich sometimes outright buy…
Having someone later come along and try to devine what the “true intent” was and levy punishments for behavior clearly allowed by the law but against an imputed intent sounds worse for society based on laws than the avoidance of some taxes via a poorly written law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what's the difference between sitting on say $500MM in cash, and $800MM? At least $15M a year over most 3 year horizons, or the insane compounding effect of $300M invested over the long haul. Your question makes sense from a "normal" perspective, but doesn't once you're UHNW [0]. > It's either way going to be more money than you'll ever be able to spend. Not even close. At UHNW levels there are whole classes of thi…
> 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…
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 desert!)
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…
... 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.
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 was going to say that this article should be titled “how to steal from society”, so I’ll join you in downvote-city, comrade.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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…
No, this was a small group successfully lobbying to reduce their share of the costs of running society. AKA special interests.
> Until we have that base level of security for all, we need things like massive redistribution, which includes carrots like opportunity zones, as well as sticks like taxes on land and monopolies.
If you're going to redistribute wealth, do it in a broad, simple way (UBI/negative income tax). Not through millions of tiny special interest gifts like 'opportunity zones'.