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Who died and left the US $7B?

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Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#251

Post by pintxo »

_bin_ wrote: post #219
metacritic12 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious fix is to not step up basis on death. The estate tax already means that the estate of a person who dies may need to sell / divide / split stuff to pay the government. There already is no fundamental protection for an asset passing unscathed from a parent to a child. I don't see how not stepping up basis qualitatively changes this. And your argument of "you want a child to be able to inherit a family busin…

There's also no fundamental reason for the state to institute any form of estate tax; on the contrary, I specified it goes against our usual federal regime of taxing value as it's moved rather than value at rest. If anything, I'd question why you believe there's some inherent reason or right to have any form of estate tax, let alone to the point one forces liquidation of assets. One form of taxation can be more or le…

I don’t get you intro argument. An estate tax is like the poster child of value moved: from the parents to the children. In contrast to a wealth tax.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#252

Post by lazide »

arcticbull wrote: post #248
lazide wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No landlord in the US itemizes, or even lets you see the property tax they are paying anywhere they can control. You can dig it up if you know where to look though, usually, from public sources. Same with the landlords financing costs. And it varies between much lower than you would expect, to much higher - and doesn’t generally change the amount they can charge in rent between the two scenarios. Though of course, la…

Could you answer my question about itemized vs unitemized sales taxes in the US vs UK and whether you think it relevant?

Of course it’s relevant to the business models, specific prices charged, marketing, and general economics.

In a way that means the details matter and you’ll get different end prices, even for the same nominal tax rate, depending on how it is applied.

For instance, when sales taxes are not shown at point of choice (on the shelves) they tend to not impact consumer behavior (US), where when they are (most of Europe), they do.

Which is also why in the US, retailers tend to fight efforts to include sales taxes into on-the-shelf prices. Because they know it will impact sales.

Just like in jurisdictions where renters pay/see property taxes, that impacts their choices, where in places they don’t, it doesn’t. At least in any specific, individual way.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#253

Post by Rebelgecko »

geysersam wrote: post #183
metacritic12 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The obvious fix is to not step up basis on death. The estate tax already means that the estate of a person who dies may need to sell / divide / split stuff to pay the government. There already is no fundamental protection for an asset passing unscathed from a parent to a child. I don't see how not stepping up basis qualitatively changes this. And your argument of "you want a child to be able to inherit a family busin…

It's a funny argument the one about the family farm. In this case it's not even about inheritance tax. It's a sob story about a guy who couldn't inherit the farm because his dad owed the state money because they had let him not pay tax on his capital gains for a long time. Sorry for not tearing up.

When should he have paid his capital gains tax? Had the farm changed hands back and forth?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#254

Post by Rebelgecko »

_bin_ wrote: post #223
opo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is something people love to rage about ... Yes, people get angry about this, but no one has provided any statistics showing this is actually a common loophole. The basic idea in the reddit post is that there were lenders giving multi-decade loans at a tiny interest rate (only payable upon death with also sharing a % share of the gains). Maybe there are lenders who have lots of capital and also don't understand…

I'm very much on your side of the argument but it's common practice. It's not like you can walk into a bank tomorrow and ask for that sort of thing, but for a HNW customer who makes use of lots of private banking services it's routine. I'm not Bezos or part of his family office so I can't say for sure. My guess would be a mixture of capital demands elsewhere (Blue Origin?) and a desire to diversify. Start-up founders…

Is it still that common? I'm not super duper high net worth so maybe I'm missing out on the good deals, but my bank offers these loans interest of SOFR+2-4% depending on your net worth. When the SOFR rate is <1% like during COVID, it's a pretty good deal. When the SOFR rate is more like 5% (which I think is more typical?), it's not such a good deal.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#256

Post by jjav »

_bin_ wrote: post #232
Log_out_ wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, we can. the whole premise of a democracy is that every law is a solid majority away from being turned over.one of the reasons big money is inherent anti-democratic.

Okay, I don't actually believe in that form of democracy. Not all things that are legal are good, therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do. I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule. And no, that is not the premise of every system that incorporates democracy as an element, it's the premise of an absolute democracy.

> therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do

Which inevitably leads to the question: who should get the power to do that and why they, specifically?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#257

Post by M95D »

schneems wrote: post #118
somethoughts wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly a lot of the larger philanthropic organizations are just as administration heavy as the US government and suffer from the same mission creep and the same obfuscated, bureaucratic decision making process, etc. Not to mention the leadership is often richly compensated (i.e. $1M in salary) and non-elected. In fact we should probably celebrate gifts to the US government more than we do.

> we should probably celebrate gifts to the US government more than we do. I had the idea that we should put a donation box on tax forms. The 100 top donators get on the “US 100” list (like Forbes) but it’s based ONLY on how much you donate, not how much you claim to be worth. It’s one thing to claim to be rich to a Forbes reporter, it’s another to have the (tax) receipts to back it up.

Only the ones at the top of the list would be interested in donating and keep donating. If a rich person calculates that he could only reach the 57th place by donating a large part of his money, then he would have no incentive to donate. 57th place means nothing.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#258

Post by jjav »

fallingknife wrote: post #190
arcticbull wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you familiar with the concept of noblesse oblige? Further does this include all taxes or just income taxes which are only a portion of revenues used to make less well off people look like moochers. For instance, in the US, there’s social security and Medicare taxes -- and payroll tax, the social security and Medicare tax contributed on behalf of employees by employers. Renters also pay their landlords property ta…

Renters do not pay property tax in the US. That liability is entirely on the owner.

> Renters do not pay property tax in the US.

There's a simple way to visualize why is not true:

You're renting a property for $1000/mo. Whatever the owner is paying for property taxes, you don't know.

Then, property taxes go up by $200/mo. Do you think your rent won't go up by at least $200/mo as a direct consequence of the tax increase? Because it will. Because the renter is of course paying for all costs, including those taxes.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#259

Post by dietr1ch »

_bin_ wrote: post #162
Jedd wrote: post #94

A fascinating reddit post was mentioned here about a month ago - about the mildly famous (if a little macabre) 'Buy, Borrow, Die' cycle used by the obscenely-wealthy to - multi-generationally - avoid tax obligations. https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyBorrowDieExplained/comments/1f26... HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408772

This is something people love to rage about, yet it's not one with an obvious fix. The counterpoint is that this leaves money invested, which means others invest in other things, and still entails interest payments. It exists in part because you don't want someone who inherited his parents' house and wants to move in to go broke trying to pay taxes, or have to re-mortgage it, with an even stronger case with family fa…

> These all suck, and the government generally collects money on assets as they move not assets at rest.

But staying at rest has been used as a way to sidestep taxes for so long.

I'd rather have all investments be taxed every K years as they were sold and bought back. Ideally with selling dates spread throughout the K days to avoid huge spikes.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#260

Post by kombookcha »

pembrook wrote: post #208
FabHK wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word “Presumably” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. That Econ101 justification is harder and harder to keep up as you learn more about both economics and the real world. For detailed counter arguments, see Branko Milanović Global inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization , James Kwak Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality , Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsythe When McKinsey Comes to T…

[flagged]

Damn, that guy is citing sources, must mean he's wrong and there is no need for you to examine any of the vibes-based assumptions you are making about the real world then.
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