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Who died and left the US $7B?

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

#361

Post by bluGill »

triceratops wrote: post #350
bluGill wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most upper class work. They work different jobs, but they are generally not sitting around retired. They might or might not get a paycheck, but they are working. (if you own a restaurant you will probably pay yourself minimum wage when you do work - dishwashers start at double that - talk to your accountant but this is often the best legal way to handle your hours that are trackable) Steve Job's was famous for taking…

But they don't have to work.

Most middle class don't have to work either - they are just not willing to accept the lifestyle that forces. Even poor people could find enough savings by 30 to not work if they really want to live that lifestyle. (I don't blame anyone for not wanting to live like that)

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

#362

Post by bluGill »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #339
bluGill wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes are not and never will be because no two people have the same priorities. Even if my favorite charity is only 10% as efficient as the government in doing what I want, a donation to that charity does what the charity does. A donation to the government goes to military, welfare (social security, medicare...), roads, scientific research, and a long long list. If I want to put extra money into say Lymphoma research…

But if you and a million other people, all with differing priorities, all agree to pay taxes…

Most of the right wing who is against taxes still agree to pay taxes on something. They disagree what taxes should go for and how much, but they generally agree some are needed.

Society is about the compromise. However that compromise makes nobody happy.

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

#363

Post by jandrewrogers »

Salgat wrote: post #297
_bin_ wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't get why people say a tax on unrealized gains is not feasible. All it means is that a percent of your investment becomes "realized" every year and you sell a portion of your investment to cover it. So if you have a billion dollars in stocks and you have to realize 10% of it in a year, you sell enough stock to cover the $20 million and the other $80 million becomes realized and never taxed again (only future ga…

The vast majority of assets held by the ultra-wealthy are non-liquid. Thinking that these assets are "stock" that you can just "sell" is fundamentally misunderstanding the nature of the problem. You can't force realization for tax purposes because in most cases there is no feasible way to realize notional gains. Reality doesn't care if it is inconvenient for the government that assets with unrealized gains have no realizable value. The problem of asset value that is non-realizable is endemic in finance.

Additionally, in the minority of cases where it is plausible to force realization, doing so would destroy the notional value of the asset in many cases. The government will have to issue a tax credit, undoing any tax revenue they hoped to gain, but the business is now destroyed so there is no future tax revenue either.

Trying to prematurely force realization of asset value is either impossible or destructive in the vast majority of cases.

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

#364

Post by jacobolus »

lazide wrote: post #330
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The state of nature is no tax The state of nature is no property. Billionaires can't exist without a government enforcing their property rights. Why shouldn't they pay the entity that made it possible for them to accumulate their vast wealth?

Eh, the oldest form of government is a Kingdom. If a government won’t enforce others rights to property, eventually someone is going to form a government where everyone’s things are theirs eh? Since what other option do they have if they want to own something.

That's fine. Such people can renounce their citizenship and pay the required exit tax, convert all their assets to gold bars or whatever, and go move somewhere in the world without a functioning state, where they can hire a private militia, build their own basic infrastructure, etc.

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

#365

Post by bluGill »

arcticbull wrote: post #323
bluGill wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent does not go up because your landlord has to compete with a landlord one town over where the tax didn't go up and so if your rent goes up you will just move.

That requires getting a different job, my friend. Vendor lock-in with housing is real.

In Singapore and a few other places. However in the US housing is not a government monopoly (sometimes low income housing is). You can always find a landlord in a different town. No need for a new job as you still live in the same metropolitan area.

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

#366

Post by Negitivefrags »

eli wrote: post #355
_bin_ wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are just generic anti-tax arguments. Yes, if you pay your taxes you will have less money. And maybe you would have used some of that money to do good things. Oh well. I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting you shouldn't be allowed to borrow against assets. That isn't even the problem. The problem is that you can go your whole life without paying taxes on gains of those assets, then pass them on to your he…

The main concern with this is how do you actually get the records of what the cost basis was from someone who is dead?

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

#367

Post by triceratops »

bluGill wrote: post #361
triceratops wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't have to work.

Most middle class don't have to work either - they are just not willing to accept the lifestyle that forces. Even poor people could find enough savings by 30 to not work if they really want to live that lifestyle. (I don't blame anyone for not wanting to live like that)

> they are just not willing to accept the lifestyle that forces

Jeez the pedantry around here.

Let me spell it out: Upper class people don't have to work to maintain their existing lifestyle. Steve Jobs could have continued wearing black turtlenecks and paying fines for parking his Mercedes in handicapped spots for the rest of his life, without doing a lick of work. That he didn't is a credit to his work ethic and passion for the work.

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

#368

Post by a_c_s »

_bin_ wrote: post #227
fallingknife wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the obvious one - borrow against the asset to pay the tax.

I mentally bucketed that in "try to find money": if you're not selling equity, debt is one way to do that. But the caveat - less money for R&D, expansion, and employees - still applies.

Not really, nobody goes "ooh, the stock price is up 5% this year, we can hire 5% more employees!"

Most stock wealth isn't doing anything for the company. If the stock price of Apple went down by 90% tomorrow for no reason, the main effect on Apple would be... almost nothing.

The employees who get equity compensation would be mad but they don't use their stock value to fund R&D or expansion or salaries.

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

#369

Post by bluGill »

jncfhnb wrote: post #331
bluGill wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The state of nature is it is your property so long as you can protect it. There are lots of different ways to do that. Many animals have concepts of owned territory which they protect in various ways.

And you principally protect your property by… wait for it… paying taxes to the state to uphold law and order

That is not the state of nature though. There are "primitive" societies that don't organize their village that way. Social pressures and you working alone are enough to protect your property when the total population to worry about is around 100 people.

We use taxes because nature doesn't scale to towns of 1000, much less nations of millions. But that is not the state of nature.

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

#370

Post by Wytwwww »

_bin_ wrote: post #213
geysersam wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, can't just sneak a premise that the state has default a right to collect a piece of arbitrary appreciation on an asset (as all assets are used for speculation) when the owner hasn't actually gotten cash from that, and that any government that doesn't tax that is just cutting someone a break on something rightfully owed. The state of nature is no tax, and as it's…

> The state of nature is no tax, and as it's unpleasant

Being able to accumulate capital, at least without having to resort to extreme violence is also about as "unnatural" as it gets..

No taxes = No government = No excess (above subsistence level) accumulation of assets

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