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The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

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Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#251

Post by vel0city »

scotty79 wrote: post #248
vel0city wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it was up to me I'd tax spending not income. Regardless of what you are spending on Under this system the poor who spend the majority of their income just to survive pay the highest effective tax rate while the wealthier who save most of their income have the smallest effective tax rate. That sounds like a fair and equitable system to you?

And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor. You can see it trivially by noticing that the poor have all their money from the work that they do for the rich. Taxing spending would be way more equitable than whatever we are now doing. We are already doing some taxation of spending. VAT, sales tax, social security fees. All of those are paid by buyers of goods, services and labor. If we did the same for investme…

> And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor

You're just totally ignoring the effect of effective tax rates.

Sure, the billionaire spent way more money than the poor person. But who spent a higher percentage of their income? And who had vastly more opportunity to spend that in a place outside of that sales tax jurisdiction? Are the poor people flying to other countries to buy their luxury goods?

To you, is society fairer for poor person and the billionaire to pay the same nominal amount or the same tax rate? Is it even fair/good for the poor and the wealthy to pay the same for either of these values?

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#252

Post by vel0city »

scotty79 wrote: post #249
vel0city wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just moving the point a little along the scale though. So now instead of the super poor paying a higher rate, now it's the slightly less poor. And the slightly less poor as you keep moving that transfer cutoff point. You're still going to have some point where the wealthier are paying a significantly lower rate than those who make a good bit less than them.

At appropriate level of transfers the cutoff point is at millionaires you no longer can call poor in good conscience. And people below cutoff point thanks to transfer effectively pay negative tax.

I absolutely agree on this point, and that curve adjustment would just continue into people we'd definitely agree are wealthy. But in the end those millionaires are paying a higher tax rate than those wealthier than them. Is that fair?

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#253

Post by presentation »

Shaanie wrote: post #149
hackernewds wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

transfer the basis to whom? better not inherit anything

If I buy something for $10 and it's worth $10,000 when you inherit it, you should (obviously?) be taxed on the increase in value from $10 -> $10,000 if/when you sell. The purchase price shouldn't be "reset" to $10k. It'sutterly insane to me that the step-up basis exists in the US, it's such an obvious loophole that can fairly easily be closed without many adverse effects. In my country (Sweden) if you don't know the…

Yup, here in Japan inheritors have to pay 10-55% (progressive based on the amount) of the value of all inherited property globally within 10 months.

As an American, knowing that I could have gotten away without this tax had I decided not to live in Japan long-term, and knowing that I will have considerable inheritance when my parents pass is a bit of a downer; but logically speaking, the step-up basis loophole is BS and it probably ought to be this way, or some variant of it, everywhere.

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#254

Post by scotty79 »

vel0city wrote: post #251
scotty79 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor. You can see it trivially by noticing that the poor have all their money from the work that they do for the rich. Taxing spending would be way more equitable than whatever we are now doing. We are already doing some taxation of spending. VAT, sales tax, social security fees. All of those are paid by buyers of goods, services and labor. If we did the same for investme…

> And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor You're just totally ignoring the effect of effective tax rates. Sure, the billionaire spent way more money than the poor person. But who spent a higher percentage of their income? And who had vastly more opportunity to spend that in a place outside of that sales tax jurisdiction? Are the poor people flying to other countries to buy their luxury goods? To you, is so…

> But who spent a higher percentage of their income?

Everybody knows. That's because we tax income. And income, unlike spending is easier to muddle. You can always fabricate a loss or at least a temporary loss to avoid paying taxes on your income. It's harder to hide spending.

> And who had vastly more opportunity to spend that in a place outside of that sales tax jurisdiction?

It's just as easy today to move your profits to another country if you are rich.

If you tax spending, you can just tax money transfers to other countries as spending. Rich can fly wherever they like but they still had to pay taxes on the plane they bought, fuel they put in and all the money they spent on their trip.They could buy crypto, but guess what, on crypto purchase, also a spending tax. They can even move to live in another country till they die, but still their money transfered outside of their home country into their new one, taxed on exit.

You brought the money into the country because you are in the business of exports? Great, here's a tax credit. You may deduct it from the tax you pay on your excursions abroad.

The problem is not what is the moral thing to tax. The problem is how to do it efficiently with no loopholes without affecting desirable behaviors negatively and promoting undesirable ones.

Taxing spending would also help with vast empires that cosist of inherited money. Income was already done, century ago so there's nothing to tax. If you try to tax wealth, so many people would equate it to theft. But if you tax spending ...

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#255

Post by remram »

mherrmann wrote: post #205
WA wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop counting taxes of super-rich in absolute terms. It simply doesn't matter. We need percentage-based taxes to get the real picture. Because those numbers seems a rounding error given their wealth.

I think it does matter. Let's assume Musk paid $12B. How much have you paid? Isn't it then actually reasonable to say that he contributed more than you to the country, even if his tax percentage is lower than yours?

That's such a weird comment. You're phrasing it like if Musk didn't get this money, no one would, and taxes wouldn't be paid at all. So weird.

If I scam you out of $100 and give $40 to charity, what have I "contributed"?

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#256

Post by KingOfCoders »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #221
KingOfCoders wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best things when you are rich, you can buy when everyone wants to sell, and sell when everyone wants to buy. At one level of money you are not impacted by a market downturn or crisis. Many very rich people in Germany became very rich during or after WW2 - but they already were rich. Normal people just get poor in a crisis or market downturn.

You don't need to be rich to do that, just wise enough to keep savings and live below your means.

You can't buy cheap houses when everyone wants to sell and there are loans. But if you are rich, you buy when everyone sells.

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#257

Post by scotty79 »

vel0city wrote: post #252
scotty79 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At appropriate level of transfers the cutoff point is at millionaires you no longer can call poor in good conscience. And people below cutoff point thanks to transfer effectively pay negative tax.

I absolutely agree on this point, and that curve adjustment would just continue into people we'd definitely agree are wealthy. But in the end those millionaires are paying a higher tax rate than those wealthier than them. Is that fair?

It's fairer than what we have today. Nothing is absolutely fair.

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#258

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #98
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA still has an estate tax.

> USA still has an estate tax You're correct. Fixed. Would note that it's famously flouted, though usually not in entirety [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-01-30/only-idio...

That Bloomberg article is provocatively named.

You need to have assets about US$13M per person to be subject to the estate tax. So if "only idiots pay" the tax, they are rich idiots.

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#259

Post by KingOfCoders »

bushbaba wrote: post #234
KingOfCoders wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the best things when you are rich, you can buy when everyone wants to sell, and sell when everyone wants to buy. At one level of money you are not impacted by a market downturn or crisis. Many very rich people in Germany became very rich during or after WW2 - but they already were rich. Normal people just get poor in a crisis or market downturn.

And many very rich people in Germany got very very rich in ww2 by stealing Jewish assets and businesses.

  A. Yes. Plus selling to the Wehrmacht ("war is a racket"), often with forced labour - or both, first stealing from Jews then selling to the Wehrmacht (like the current owners of BMW, ancestors sold to the Wehrmacht, profited from forced laber and additionally stole from Jews [1]). In communist East Germany Jews even couldn't get back their assets after the war, because Jews where "capitalists".

  B. The vast majority of Germans profited from stealing from Jews (see book "Hitlers Volksstaat"), e.g. Germany was out of money before Kristallnacht and Jews had to pay 1 billion Reichsmark after the progroms, which helped the German state. Also jewish furniture etc. was auctioned off to all Germans - people too often only talk about arts and houses.
[1] The Quandts already were rich selling to the Prussian army, then during hyper-inflation of the economic crisis bought struggling companies, then "bought" companies from Jews who were forced to sell, then used forced labour in their companies, sold to the Wehrmacht, after WW2 got everything back and the debt they accumulated to buy all of that had evaporated because of the war. Today they own large chunks of BMW for example.

Re: The richest people borrow against their stock (2021)

#260

Post by [deleted] »

WA wrote: post #179
refurb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos has paid $1.5B and Musk over $12B in taxes according to Google.

Please stop counting taxes of super-rich in absolute terms. It simply doesn't matter. We need percentage-based taxes to get the real picture. Because those numbers seems a rounding error given their wealth.

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