We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001% • Hacker News Board

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#371

Post by karmajunkie » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

fennecfoxen wrote: post #357

whiddershins wrote: post #92

Every time someone tries to make a tax targeting the ultra rich, it ends up hurting the moderately wealthy instead. Every. Single. Time. The worse tax situation is always the person who makes 500k in a good year, or sells a house they held for 25 years which went up a bunch in value. I suspect this is a significant factor in social mobility. Our tax system is punitive to people who try to leave the working class.

> Every time someone tries to make a tax targeting the ultra rich, it ends up hurting the moderately wealthy instead. Governments around the tax the middle class, because that's where the money is. Our current spending campaign will result in substantial tax increases for the middle class; the only real questions are when, and how much (less if it's sooner, more if it's later).

> because that's where the money is.

Except that its not. Did you actually read the article?

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#372

Post by fennecfoxen » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 6:45 PM UTC

tengbretson wrote: post #94

pmoriarty wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to this is to eliminate wealth disparity.

Why stop at eliminating wealth disparity when you can eliminate wealth?

This has been demonstrated feasible! We can all be similarly poor together.

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#373

Post by bernawil » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

ping_pong wrote: post #361

teachingassist wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically zero support for it. Wealth taxes are extremely well-supported, despite the media as an industry [and politicians] being owned by people strongly motivated to campaign against it all costs, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-inequality-p...

Wealth taxes don't work. It was tried in Europe in many countries and they ended up rolling them back.

That's interesting, can you expand?

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#374

Post by thrwn_frthr_awy » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 6:47 PM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #217

HPsquared wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a person moves house, the proceeds from the sale of the old house are used to buy the new house. If someone has lived in an area for a long time, wants to move across the street to an otherwise identical house with the same value, why should they be taxed for that move but not for simply living in the first house?

This is exactly what happens. If you buy house #2 within 90 days, you can do a 1031 (I think?) property exchange. Then you don’t pay taxes on the first sale.

For a 1031 exchange you can only exchange an investment property for another investment property. You cannot use it for your primary residence. You have 45 days after close of escrow on your sale to identify up to three properties to purchase. You then have 180 days from close of first property to close one of the three listed.

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#375

Post by syshum » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

mola wrote: post #200

syshum wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>but they are based on weighing personal freedom above all else and this is largely the primary difference between American Culture /Politics and the rest of the world, specifically European nations European nations have always been more collectivist in nature, where the US was founded on Individualism, and Individual Freedom. There are signs that the US is losing this desire, and it saddens me because unlike you I…

Perhaps they are losing this desire because it doesn't provide the well being it promises? Because personal freedom has become a meme abused by ultra rich to disable any effort to fix systemic problems in the US?

Except that is not true at all by any objective measure. [1]

The Ultra Rich do not use Personal freedom to disable efforts, it uses Government Regulation to disable efforts, the Rich LOVE big government why do you think many billionaires vote Democrat, it enables them to control the economy to ensure the poor are kept poor and dependent on government. In the end we should look to Smash the State, Eat the Rich, and expand personal freedom [2]

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J5s6aZCPSg

[2]https://c4ss.org/content/30085

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#376

Post by neolog » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

ping_pong wrote: post #361

teachingassist wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically zero support for it. Wealth taxes are extremely well-supported, despite the media as an industry [and politicians] being owned by people strongly motivated to campaign against it all costs, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-inequality-p...

Wealth taxes don't work. It was tried in Europe in many countries and they ended up rolling them back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Past_repeals

There are two studies cited. One on the repeals is by "Institut de l'Entreprise" which seems to be a wealthy people's think tank [1] and the other is about why the wealth tax wasn't introduced in the UK [2]. I'm not convinced by the evidence here.

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_de_l%27Entreprise

[2] http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/42582/1/Why_was_a_wealth_tax_for_th...

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#377

Post by snovv_crash » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

ping_pong wrote: post #361

teachingassist wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically zero support for it. Wealth taxes are extremely well-supported, despite the media as an industry [and politicians] being owned by people strongly motivated to campaign against it all costs, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-inequality-p...

Wealth taxes don't work. It was tried in Europe in many countries and they ended up rolling them back.

And yet that haven for the rich, Switzerland, has a wealth tax. Explain please?

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#378

Post by willseth » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #333

ineptech wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're describing an obstacle to change, you're describing the mechanism of change avoidance. Compare: "Gosh, every time we try to tax the wolves, it ends up hurting the sheep as well. Why can't our 100% wolf, 0% sheep Congress get this right? I guess it's just a hard problem!" The solution is not to give up, the solution is to actually tax the rich more. Also, your examples are awful: paying taxes on t…

If a person makes $500k in a good year, they will get hit with higher taxes, but they're probably going to invest a lot in order to hedge against not so good years. Taxing their capital gains is a double whammy.

If the tax is on the gains it's still a single whammy.

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#379

Post by syshum » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #260

syshum wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>but they are based on weighing personal freedom above all else and this is largely the primary difference between American Culture /Politics and the rest of the world, specifically European nations European nations have always been more collectivist in nature, where the US was founded on Individualism, and Individual Freedom. There are signs that the US is losing this desire, and it saddens me because unlike you I…

> think the world needs a nation that continues to put personal freedom above everything else. And you think that the US does that? Exercising personal freedom necessitates having the material and mental resources to buy stuff, to be able to move from place to place, to change jobs, etc. It seems to me that a plausible proxy measure for personal freedom is social mobility, the likelihood that you will be better off t…

The US has pretty good Social Mobility as well, it is complete myth that the "rich" in the US is stagnate, most of the Billionaires in the US are 1st Generation Billionaires, this highlights there are income and social mobility.

As a personal anecdote, I am many times better of income and wealth wise than my parents even though we have the same education level and seemingly the same income opportunities, yet I have made better choices with my finances (learning from their [bad] example). My sibling is the same. One of my parents has zero retirement savings and will live off SocSec (likely with the assistance of me and my sibling). My other parent has slightly more savings but not by much and has lots of debt, both are within 5 years of SocSec retirement Age

Re: We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

#380

Post by willseth » Tue, Jun 08, 2021, 7:03 PM UTC

varelse wrote: post #352

swiley wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something people forget is the high amount of churn among millionaires in the US. It's the billionaires you're trying to go after, 500k should be ignored.

$500K? Hell, ignore net worths below $50M and pile drive into everything above that. But you will then find out just how many sub millionaires erroneously believe they are temporarily embarrassed billionaires who will fight any attempt to raise taxes on our domestic overlords just in case. Which is the way they want it...

> sub millionaires erroneously believe they are temporarily embarrassed billionaires

This is fucking spot on.