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Who died and left the US $7B?

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

#481

Post by jacobolus »

lazide wrote: post #399
jacobolus wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

why would they do that when they can take over the gov’t and steal everyone else’s stuff? (see Russia, Venezula, China, and many others) Notably, the biggest thefts seem to happen when they can convince people that the gov’t is doing it for ‘the good of the people’, and they’re ‘going after the rich people’, and then they can pocket it when no one is looking.

In the USA it's mostly "the rich people" and extremely profitable corporations who have captured parts of the government and figured out ways to corruptly siphon money out of the rest of the economy into their own pockets.

This is a reason why we need better anti-corruption legislation, an end of the "super PAC", much higher inheritance taxes with fewer loopholes, and structural reforms to fix a profoundly corrupt Supreme Court.

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

#482

Post by bialpio »

bluGill wrote: post #473
bialpio wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, how much money do you think is needed to survive ~55 years ("savings by 30" + life expectancy around 85ish = 55yrs) without working? Also, please spell out biggest assumptions you're making.

Eat rice and beans $50/month. Live in a $200 tent with a warm sleeping bag replace every 10 years. every year you get $100 for clothing at goodwill (walmart for underware) No other possessions. don't get sick as you don't have health care, but you should on average live to 70 or so [5-10 years less than average with health care], assuming you are not unlucky. so about $70/ month. I wouldn't want to live like that and…

You may want to revise the life expectancy estimate on a rice+beans diet, scurvy is a thing and based on my googling you would not get enough vit. C. I'm probably missing some other disease too, so "don't get sick" is probably also out the window on this diet.

One can of beans is ~400kcal and costs ~$1.30+tax in my closest QFC, so you need around $4 per day just for beans (3 cans). 5lb bag of rice (50 servings, 160kcal per serving) is $5.50, & you need 5 servings per day to reach 2000kcal, so +55¢. That's $135/mo just for rice and beans, and I have not checked if that satisfies daily protein intake needs.

Where will you set up your tent without getting arrested? Needs to be walkable from a Goodwill, otherwise you need transport once a year. How are you cooking the rice? Where are you getting the potable water from?

Decent sleeping bag is another $100.

Even your unserious response is underestimating the amount of money required.

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

#483

Post by vkou »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #348
vkou wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably the person created something very valuable to the world Or they are a rent-seeker, or a straight-up thief that sucked a lot of value out of the world. (Or one of their ancestors did, etc, etc.) Or they robbed Peter to create value for Paul, and took a share of the difference. These are all tried and true mechanisms for wealth generation. Without any information, you shouldn't assume that their contributi…

Barring evidence to the contrary, some of us prefer to assume that people have good intentions.

Here's some evidence to the contrary: Almost every family of old money has been built on one form of theft or other.

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

#484

Post by tutorialmanager »

dixie_land wrote: post #464
eli wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would capital gains be taxed in the first place? It's simply double taxation on the income

Also, most of my capital gains are due to inflation and not an increase in value.

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

#485

Post by shruggedatlas »

jonny_eh wrote: post #429

Can someone fix this grammar? > The data wasn’t erroneous, Treasury officials found, who are legally forbidden to discuss tax filings.

It seems awkward because removing the parenthical expression between the commas leaves a broken sentence:

"The data wasn't erroneous|who are legally forbidden to discuss tax filings."

The best correction would be something like:

"Treasury officials, who are legally forbidden to discuss tax filings, found the data wasn't erroneous."

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

#487

Post by skizm »

mindslight wrote: post #449
skizm wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I take a company public, and now own $10B in shares in a liquid stock (that I paid $0 for), take out a $1B loan, spend it all, and then die. What taxes need to be paid by the estate in that scenario?

First, a disclaimer that shouldn't even need to be said, but the legal regime being what it is - I'm not an accountant nor an attorney, but rather an just engineer that digs into the specific details of things rather than paying professionals to screw it up for me. So there is no warranty or representation for anything I'm saying, and it's merely meant as starting pointers for your own independent analysis. Being a R…

Cool, thanks for the info! Definitely feels like they should just tax any asset sales needed to pay debts before the step-up happens, but I’m sure there’s a lot of push back against that idea.

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

#488

Post by tim333 »

eli wrote: post #351
tim333 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's a very good fix because the data of how much was paid for the assets may not be available after their owner is dead. The system in the UK seems to work ok for the most part. No CGT on death (the equivalent of step up basis in the US) but 40% inheritance tax on most of the assets over £325K. We do have the odd exemptions like Clarkson's Farm which was bought partly for inheritance tax avoidance, bu…

What would the owner have done if they decided to sell the assets shortly before death? Either they can establish a cost basis, or the basis is assumed to be $0. I don't see why this is a big problem.

It's enough of a hassle acting as an executor when your parents die without that on top.

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

#489

Post by RustyEarthfire »

mindslight wrote: post #389
skizm wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that the estate has to pay the debts before the assets are disbursed, and the step-up basis occurs, thus collecting all appropriate taxes, just deferred until after death. This reddit post says the opposite is true. I cannot find the answer via Google. Does anyone know the order of operations? If the step-up basis occurs first, the fix here seems very obvious, but I assume ultra-wealth peop…

The asset value minus the debt (both on the date of death [0]) is what contributes to estate tax liability on the 706 form [1]. Then going forward, the asset basis is stepped up to what it was on the date of death (for both the estate entity and downstream beneficiaries), based on the idea the asset has already been taxed by the estate tax. This assumption falls apart when there isn't much value left in the asset-min…

The "already taxed by the estate tax" justification is ridiculous to start with. If you have unpaid income tax it doesn't get waived to avoid "double taxation"; certainly you don't get a refund on all the taxes already paid on your savings. But if you kick the can down the road long enough with unrealized gains then you get a special bonus?

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

#490

Post by mmcdermott »

jncfhnb wrote: post #422
mmcdermott wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm sure that someone somewhere objects to paying for law and order, I think most tax grumbling comes from taxes rising (and, arguably, still not rising enough) to pay for bigger and bigger programs with an increasingly tenuous relationship to law or order. Not everyone objects to every line item, of course, but the bigger the budget gets the more certain it becomes that those rising taxes are not just to keep…

Yes that is the nature of compromise

Agreed, but the post above draws a direct line between a taxes and basic law and order, but one could support scaling back any number of taxes and spending programs without opposing or endangering law and order.
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