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We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

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

#381

Post by mrtnmcc »

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.

Wait, I thought the first 250-500K home sale profit was not capital gain taxed in the US?

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/capitalgainhomes...

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

#382

Post by dkokelley »

scott_w wrote: post #177
jvanderbot wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was a question, not an argument. Let me restate it: Buying a stock (or bitcoin) uses gobs of the same regulated, government-funded infrastructure. If that stock/coin becomes immensely valuable, that (the fact that I now have a high net worth) makes me "wealthy". What I'm asking is: Please clarify whether the intent is to tax people based on their net worth (wealth), not their income. The articles are not clear…

Look at the countless issues raised by people being unable to exercise stock options for tax reasons. It’s clear that taxing stock is NOT unprecedented. We’ve seen repeatedly over the past 50 years that Bezos will NOT be taxed of that wealth under the current system. There’s nothing sacred about different types of wealth. The question is whether society can benefit more from taxing and redistributing that wealth, or…

Exercising stock options is a unique case. If I as an employer give you $10m worth of stock (through grants or options), you have something akin to an "income" of $10m on the receipt of that stock. (For the record I disagree with taxing stock grants/options until they're realized and the proceeds can be used to pay the accompanying tax burden.)

If I give you $1 worth of stock and it appreciates to $10m, you have capital gains that will be taxed when you realize those gains.

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

#383

Post by Alupis »

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.

Just imagine Income Tax + Sales Tax... get taxed on what you earn, then taxed again when you go to spend it!

This is a clever way to reduce purchasing power without making it seem as bad, ie. nobody really considers the tax on a new car purchase until they're signing the final paperwork... or even on a new T-Shirt. Depending where yo live, this sales tax is non-trivial too, sometimes up to 10%+.

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

#384

Post by silexia »

munificent wrote: post #277
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 single time someone tries to make a tax targeting the ultra rich, someone writes a comment just like this. Every. Single. Time. As far as I can tell, this comment is semantically identical to: "Every time someone tries a new cancer therapy, it ends up not helping the worst cancers." "The sting operation was a failure because it only caught low- and mid-level criminals." "We shouldn't use automated tests because…

Very good point! I thought the same thing about the original comment, but you actually analyze the entire thing improved why it is incorrect. Thank you!

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

#385

Post by lotsofpulp »

Alupis wrote: post #383
ojbyrne wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Just imagine Income Tax + Sales Tax... get taxed on what you earn, then taxed again when you go to spend it! This is a clever way to reduce purchasing power without making it seem as bad, ie. nobody really considers the tax on a new car purchase until they're signing the final paperwork... or even on a new T-Shirt. Depending where yo live, this sales tax is non-trivial too, sometimes up to 10%+.

Sales tax is the most visible tax. Maybe the richest of rich people do not consider it, but I have a hard time believing "nobody" considers it.

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

#386

Post by silexia »

lumost wrote: post #292
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.

That's the ultimate appeal of a wealth tax. Taxing a hundred millionaire, or billionaire, or even a 10 billionaire a progressive 4% annual tax won't affect someone making good money off of income in nearly every scenario.

I agree! All taxes should be wealth taxes. Or to be more clear - the only tax we have should be one wealth tax that is a single percentage and affects everyone at all levels equally. Maybe 3% per year or something.

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

#387

Post by whakim »

nostrademons wrote: post #187
ipython wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your general point, but your specific example of selling highly appreciated real estate is a poor one, since you incur no tax when selling your primary residence (up to something like $500k gain - over your cost basis which includes any capital improvement you made to the property) as long as you lived there for two of the last five years. It’s a huge tax advantage for homeowners. One could argue that it…

> (up to something like $500k gain - over your cost basis which includes any capital improvement you made to the property) In a lot of markets this absolutely hits the "moderately wealthy trying to leave the working class". Bay Area houses that went for $1.2M in 2009 now go for about $3M, for a gain of $1.8M. That's well over the $500K exclusion, even including capital improvements. Few folks will shed a tear for peo…

In the US, simply owning a house that's worth $3M (and literally zero other assets of any kind) puts you in the top 1.5% of the wealth distribution, per the WID. So I'm not sure how you could classify this scenario as "moderately wealthy trying to leave the working class." More like "extremely wealthy people trying to become even more wealthy."

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

#388

Post by kristjansson »

The conflation of change in mark-to-market net worth with income has got a whole lot to do with the constant breathless reporting of "Bezos/Gates/Buffet/... made/lost x BILLION dollars today" every time the market moves by more than a point.

Sure, I get they want to beat the drum on wealth inequality, and perhaps that's a drum worth beating. But its a disingenuous disservice to pretend that these people are sitting on a massive pile of 'hoarded' liquid cash that could be redistributed in a meaningful without incurring massive losses. Might as well pretend that we could seize and sell all of the latest $100bn shitcoin and get $100bn USD to distribute.

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

#389

Post by doytch »

marcusverus wrote: post #355
bwestergard wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the U.S. certainly has regional, class, and other subcultures, there is very clearly a national culture and "social fabric". The easiest way to see this, if you grew up in the U.S. and have not traveled much, is to read tourist guides for your own country.

Is this really the case? Imagine you're at a masquerade ball with 25 people from random countries around the western world, 5 of whom are Americans from various states. Everyone speaks perfect, mechanical, unaccented English, and you are not permitted to discuss dead-giveaway topics like geography, political parties/candidates, specific foods, etc. How confident are you that you could pick out the Americans?

How confident are you that you'd pick out the Spaniard? Or Belgian? Or Canadian?

Generally, people overestimate the variation in their own compatriots and underestimate that in foreigners.

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

#390

Post by aaron-santos »

bko wrote: post #17
toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better analogy would be breaking and entering to collect evidence that a building was unsafe for occupancy, and I’d support that as well under the assumption that due process had failed and there was risk to those marginalized. I don’t believe there is an absolute right to privacy. As always, there’s nuance.

So evidence obtained illegally outside of due-process is fair game in your book? I guess by saying "when due process failed" kind of makes it so since by definition it "failed".

You're not advocating for modeling our actions, social interactions, behaviours, and relationships after our criminal justice system, right? Also you're not advocating for an equivalentcy between judicial evidenciary procedure and information gathering, and judicial due process and social due process, right?
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