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Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

brookings.edu

321–330 of 332 posts

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#321
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is value in this context though? Seems for Google the value is actual money and for a startup it is a potential future earning? Yet the startup developer in San Francisco is still (presumably) paid 200k or more? If that startup fails, was the developer overvalued?

No, it just means the startup's investors made a bad bet

If you use scaling up as an argument for paying a higher salary, wouldn’t scaling down do the same but in the opposite direction?

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#323
post #56

This book argues actually its western countries like UK, US, and FR that benefit as rulers buy London, Paris or NYC flats in the names of offshore companies. https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Without-Borders-Power-Centr... Personally I think the correct response is to tax things rich people like in those countries. Specifically housing, high end cars etc. Putting beneficial owners on real estate makes total sense.

This is changing. UK law will soon require property bought through companies to reveal the names and details of significant shareholders.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#324

Hacker News: "People Deserve Privacy" Also Hacker News: "Look how outrageous it is that these other people want privacy!"

Hacker News is a site used by millions. You might as well complain that humans aren't all the same.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#325
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you are making more than $400,000, the new tax proposals would not affect you. What is your definition of "middle class"? Someone making $400k is most certainly in the top 1%. What tax changes have occurred so far in the past few decades that are significantly affecting you? I would genuinely like to know

There's quite a few of us here making more more than 400k/year but less than Billion dollar money. My effective tax rate between state and federal is something like 55% before including sales taxes. These Billionaires find ways to pay basically nothing in tax because their wealth comes from capital gains and not from RSU + salary compensation which are taxed as normal salary. The bulk of the burden of new tax increas…

And my effective tax rate on the total my employer pays is 52% (excluding VAT), and I earn at least 6 times less than you. I’m in Europe so public services include more than the US, but paying 55% on $400k isn’t something to complain about. You’re very rich, you get taxed as such.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#326
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As noted this is not really true in most locations, but I still would not feel bad about the person earning $400k. They live in a desirable location. They can move if they wish.

They live in a productive location. When they leave it their productivity collapses. I understand it’s emotionally satisfying to see them deprived, but the government also ends up with less revenue when they apply their skills to lower impact projects.

This is a specious argument. You can't measure expenditures that go solely to retaining the exclusive use of desirable land as productivity.

Large engineering firms have offices in various Midwestern states that are just as productive as SV, NY, what have you.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#327
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and in 2021 I think it’s pretty clear that owning a residence means you have a reasonably liquid asset. But more to the actual point. To the extent a concept of “paper wealth” exists it should be confined to things that are genuinely unable to be converted into real money at all. For example stock options in a seed stage company are genuinely illiquid and may never be worth anything ever to anyone. People liv…

The whole concept of paper wealth is literally around what you could hypothetically have, though. That's the whole point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_wealth If you're sitting in a house and it has appreciated in value because it's 2005 and you are in Sunnyvale then you've acquired paper wealth. You didn't upgrade your home, you didn't make it nicer. It's the same home you bought for $300k. It's just now magic…

> the increased value of their home basically doesn't affect their life

Yes it does. They don’t have to move. The people who aren’t rich and haven’t been able to own real estate have to leave the area when property values skyrocket.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#328
post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They live in a productive location. When they leave it their productivity collapses. I understand it’s emotionally satisfying to see them deprived, but the government also ends up with less revenue when they apply their skills to lower impact projects.

This is a specious argument. You can't measure expenditures that go solely to retaining the exclusive use of desirable land as productivity. Large engineering firms have offices in various Midwestern states that are just as productive as SV, NY, what have you.

High-wage-high-cost and medium-wage-medium-cost arrangements are on balance pretty similar for the employee. Dramatically higher taxes on the former will push people to the latter. Which, as you note, they can do without even changing employers. There might be some lens through which this is good. Decentralization, or inequality. But tax revenue from this cohort will go down, not up, because there’s so much less income to tax in the first place.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#329
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The situation that individuals with these accounts may be committing crimes What happened to innocent until guilty? Hell I've got an account in an offshore jurisdiction. I guess I need to go do some introspection about my "crime of tax evasion"...

"Innocent until proven guilty" is really "innocent until there's sufficient evidence to strongly suspect you are guilty". There aren't very many innocent reasons to have accounts in tax havens.

>There aren't very many innocent reasons to have accounts in tax havens.

I see. And the innocent ones? Just acceptable collateral damage in your guilty by association campaign?

The irony is that likely you and everyone else probably has a fair chunk of their net wealth flowing through these types of structures via their pension/insurance.

Pension funds don't just hop onto Robinhood app and buy a 100MM basket of shares. It gets structured through places like these. Same for large chunks of the cross jurisdiction M&A activity.

Unfortunately it's all confidential so the people that know can't talk, and everyone else has knowledge/opinion made up entirely out of clickbait and stuff like this...someone patching together a "how the elites screw you" article based on patchy partial leaks. The notion of patching together something that is global based on one leak from one bank in one jurisdiction is comical in itself. It's like looking at the left rear tyre of a car and speculating that cars are probably all scams because you can't see what makes it move forward.

The information asymetry is insane and 99.99% of the world is on the wrong side of it.

Alas...rage on hn

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#330
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax avoidance should be punished, that's all. Oh, and in my country, it is punished, it's just that the team which must find about the culprit are totally under staffed, what-a-surprise.

> Tax avoidance should be punished, that's all. Tax avoidance and tax evasion are distinct things. Tax avoidance is (deliberately) legal. Why do you think it should be punished?

OK I conflated the two. But law and justice are not the same thing.
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