Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We are publishing the tax secrets of the .001%

propublica.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 580 posts

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

#431

Post by LatteLazy »

ksec wrote: post #414
bwestergard wrote: post #7

In Finland, everyone's taxable income is a matter of public record. One theoretical benefit of such a policy is that it eliminates information asymmetries between workers and employers in wage bargaining.

>eliminates information asymmetries between workers and employers in wage bargaining. WOW! Never heard of this as an argument. I think it is a very good one for working class.

(not OP)

There is good evidence that when wages are public knowledge minorities and women get paid more too...

https://time.com/5353848/salary-pay-transparency-work/

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

#432

Post by jlmorton »

frockington1 wrote: post #423
jlmorton wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The extremely wealthy will move their wealth into complex multinational financial vehicles In Elizabeth Warren's proposal, they would be subject to a 40% exit tax on the wealth that they moved. If they didn't pay the exit tax, that would be fraud.

Who would wait long enough after that bill passed to keep their wealth in America? The second it went through congress the money would start pouring out

To be clear, in Warren's wealth tax proposal, it doesn't matter where the wealth is located. If you're an American citizen, you would be required to pay the tax on all of your wealth above $50 million, no matter where it is.

The alternative is to move your money overseas and renounce your American citizenship, at which point you would owe a 40% exit tax.

One could certainly hide their assets overseas, but that would be tax fraud, and if discovered would result in prison time for both accountant and wealthy individual.

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

#433

Post by triceratops »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #424
triceratops wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SALT deductions are a massive tax break for the wealthy. How? The point of being able to deduct state and local taxes from federal ones is to devolve power to as local a level of government as possible. You've already paid the local authorities some taxes, so now you owe the federal government less. SALT limits do the opposite of that.

SALT is a tax break for the rich because state and local taxes are progressive, the rich pay more per dollar earned, and the rich are much less likely to be taking the standard deduction. And when a state like New York or California decides to raises income taxes, it should not be understood that they are strengthening their participation in any power devolution scheme. It could work that way, but it doesn't. The Fed…

> the rich are much less likely to be taking the standard deduction.

Not sure what that has to do with SALT deductions. My understanding is they were on top of the standard deduction, not as an additional line on itemized deductions.

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

#434

Post by LatteLazy »

mlac wrote: post #24

I would really just like a flat tax. No loopholes or deductions. Very simple. It should not take a masters degree to understand the tax code. I recognize this is one of the main ways Policy is implemented (incentives can drive certain behavior), but we’ve got hundreds of years of complexity going on and I wouldn’t mind simplifying this. I don’t know where to start though.

A flat tax removes the simliest fairest part of the tax code and leaves all the bullshit and loopholes behind. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're (and my) experience of the tax code is anything like the actual code. We only see 0.001%. It's easy to consider only the things we see after all.

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

#435

Post by jdsully »

HWR_14 wrote: post #419
kristjansson wrote: post #388

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 o…

I never followed this chain of logic. The whole point behind the stock market is to treat any commonly traded stock as a liquid asset. Why do you think that this fails with respect to Bezos and Gates?

Bill Gates started selling off his microsoft stake in the late 90s. It took him more than two decades to get from 49% ownership down to the 1.9% he has today. It's hard for figure heads to divest without crashing the stock because it carries substantial signal risk.

The stock market is only liquid at smaller scales, bigger transactions will have dramatic effects on the price.

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

#437

Post by taeric »

HWR_14 wrote: post #419
kristjansson wrote: post #388

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 o…

I never followed this chain of logic. The whole point behind the stock market is to treat any commonly traded stock as a liquid asset. Why do you think that this fails with respect to Bezos and Gates?

I think the market is more to treat the stake in a company as a liquid asset. Such that you can transfer stake to someone else for an agreed value.

But, it is not the value that is liquid, necessarily. It is just the stake. In theory, there is intrinsic value to this. In practice? Much more complicated.

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

#438

Post by boruto »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #37
bwestergard wrote: post #7

In Finland, everyone's taxable income is a matter of public record. One theoretical benefit of such a policy is that it eliminates information asymmetries between workers and employers in wage bargaining.

Interesting. It seems to work for Finland. In some countries it would probably make you a kidnapping target.

> kidnapping target.

Or a target for scamming.

Seems privacy nightmare too. I hope there is an opt out where you don't ask and yours is private.

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

#439

Post by Wowfunhappy »

zepto wrote: post #349
dougmwne wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probability. Let's say a state actor had access to a whole pile of tax returns and wanted to manipulate them to change the conclusions ProPublica would draw. The state actor changes half the data points. Let's say ProPublica was able to check an average of 3 data points on those 50 individuals they reviewed. The data point could have either been manipulates or untouched. I'd model this like a coin flip and say that i…

This is a straw man. Firstly we have no idea how many of the 50 individuals data were public or not. All public data can be discounted since the state actor can just copy it. Secondly, for the private data, the definition of ‘private’ is unspecified. It really just means not part of a published record. If propublica has access to it, then why couldn’t someone else? I agree that if there were 150 separate sources with…

I’m assuming good faith on ProPublica’s part, that a reasonable amount of the data was private and that it was truly private. If I didn’t trust them I wouldn’t read their reporting.

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

#440

Post by taeric »

koala_man wrote: post #330
MR4D wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> everyone's taxable income is a matter of public record That's an interesting approach. I have a couple questions out of curiosity. Does that include their "offshore" income? By that, I mean income earned outside of the country, not necessarily hidden. Also, what is income? If there is a billionaire investor and he loses $10 million, do you see that as well?

Can't answer for Finland, but in Norway: >Does that include their "offshore" income? Yes. It counts as taxable income even if you end up paying 0% tax on it (such as via foreign tax credit). >Also, what is income? Net realized income. You can't tell the difference between earning $1M, and earning $10M and losing $9M, and earning $10M on paper but only selling $1M.

So what would the public record for Musk be? The number reporting usually quotes? Or a much smaller one? (Still large, of course.)
Post reply on HN