Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#511

Post by kgc » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

quickthrowman wrote: post #468

skissane wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But he never has to sell any Tesla shares, he can just buy hedges against them and take out loans So he takes out a $1 billion loan, and he offers $1 billion in stock as a security, and then also buys a futures contract (or a put option) on his $1 billion of stock to lock in the current price, so if the stock goes down in value over the life of the loan, the lender doesn't lose their security? And then when the loa…

> I suppose though, you can't just go on refinancing forever. One day he will die, and then it will have to come out of his estate, and I guess his estate may pay the capital gains tax then? This is the best part. The cost basis for assets is stepped up on death to the price of the asset on the day that the decedent .. became the decedent. That becomes the cost basis for any capital gains tax the heir would owe if th…

The estate tax is 40% above about 11 million. Soon to be about 5 million.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#512

Post by bradknowles » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #171

m0zg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've looked at properties in Austin area a few months back. It's more affordable than CA, but it's still way out of reach of most non-HQ staff that Tesla employs. I've read the stat that property values have gone up 43% due to exodus from locked down blue states over the course of just the past year. Couple this with Texas' higher than average property tax rate (_especially_ in Austin area) and you've got some pretty…

One theory is that it's still legal to build new housing in Texas, so the Austin supply can increase to match the demand.

You still have to find a builder, or a place where a builder has built a house that you can afford to buy. Even regular handymen are backlogged by six months or so. Forget trying to get a builder within a year or more. Meanwhile, all those expensive high rises on the river for those millionaires and billionaires keep going up, faster than you can blink an eye.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#513

Post by kelnos » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #380

refurb wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to spend less time on the internet. You’ve worked yourself into a frothy rage and I suspect the only think you know about the state is what you’ve read online. Go outside sometime, you may be surprised.

These laws and politics have real effects on people's lives. Just because you personally are comfortably removed from them doesn't mean that they aren't problems.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that point, but if you're expecting to have productive discussion here, and not be downvoted and flagged into oblivion, I would suggest you frame things in less inflammatory and absolutist terms.

It's stuff like this (from another post of yours) that shows your ignorance of people's views:

> If someone can't agree that (a) the current state of climate change is bad, and (b) women deserve bodily autonomy, their opinion simply doesn't matter to me. IMO they also shouldn't be around women.

I agree that women deserve bodily autonomy, and I'm fine with abortion if it's a choice made freely, but there are tens of millions of women -- 43% of women in the US[0] -- who believe abortion is wrong. Not sure how many of them also want to impose that view on other women who don't share their views, but I expect that number still ranks in the millions. Should those women not be around... themselves?

[0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/244709/pro-choice-pro-life-2018...

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#514

Post by bradknowles » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 4:51 AM UTC

bradknowles wrote: post #512

BurningFrog wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One theory is that it's still legal to build new housing in Texas, so the Austin supply can increase to match the demand.

You still have to find a builder, or a place where a builder has built a house that you can afford to buy. Even regular handymen are backlogged by six months or so. Forget trying to get a builder within a year or more. Meanwhile, all those expensive high rises on the river for those millionaires and billionaires keep going up, faster than you can blink an eye.

Sorry, I meant “on the river”, not “in the river”.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#515

Post by bradknowles » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

SauciestGNU wrote: post #249

philwelch wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those poor, powerless, persecuted politicians.

Politicians are at least theoretically accountable to an electorate, whereas egomaniacal billionaires are accountable to nobody.

Politicians are only accountable to the people who put money into their election.

Which means, mostly the millionaires and billionaires. And SuperPACs owned by corporations who have unlimited funds that they can give, because Citizens United showed that $1 = 1 vote.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#516

Post by new_realist » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 4:58 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #56

The official reason is because of housing: "To be clear we will be continuing to expand our activities in California," Musk said. "Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50%. If you go to our Fremont factory it's jammed." But, he added, "It's tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away....There's a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area." https://ww…

Housing was costly in Palo Alto well before Tesla decided to make it their headquarters. Elon just hates CA for forcing their factory to close during the pandemic, biting the hand that feeds him.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#517

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

AmericanChopper wrote: post #298

brianwawok wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equity is taxed on sale. He will never sell it. He will give it to a bank and take a loan against it. When he dies bank can sell it and pay itself back.

I really don’t think this is true. Being granted the stock is a taxable event, even if you don’t liquidate any of it, and even if that means you have to sell some to pay the taxes. Also, the methodology you’ve described for avoiding taxes is used to benefit from offshore holdings, not avoid paying taxes on locally held assets.

This scheme finances the personal spending of every American worth more than $50M. Sure, any time they're sloppy enough to personally receive real income, they pay taxes on it. Usually they are not that sloppy. The income goes to shells or other assets in which they've "invested". The assets become more valuable, and thus can be used as collateral for larger loans.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#518

Post by kelnos » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 5:00 AM UTC

yonran wrote: post #304

bluejekyll wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To back this up, CA and TX tax people differently, but CA is more fair: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/11/taxes-are-sur... By More fair, I mean, CA has a similar tax rate across incomes, but does place more burden on top earners than TX does. TX on the other hand, is unfairly taxing people more at lower incomes, and less for people at higher incomes. TX policies don't align with my moral beliefs–I would…

I disagree with that article (which repeats the ITEP WhoPays report). It incorrectly assumes that the incidence of the property tax is on the renters that occupy a house rather than the landowner. If you think that property taxes are more regressive in Texas than California you would predict that poor people pay more for rent in Texas than California, when the truth is the reverse. And if you think that property taxe…

Rents in CA (bay area in particular) are a function of demand more than landlords' cost. When rents in CA go up by 40%, I guarantee you that's not because a landlord's taxes went up by 40%, but because demand has shot up and landlords can extract more profit from their renters. The big pandemic rent cuts in SF give a glimpse of what reasonable rents could look like here, if supply met demand (though even the lowest pandemic rents are still higher than they should be here).

I agree that CA's housing situation does often enrich landowners at the expense of lower-income folks, but my take on that is that's more caused by NIMBYism and an unwillingness to build enough housing to meet demand. The Prop-13-fueled property tax distortion certainly plays a role, but I don't think it's the dominating factor. CA's property taxes are lower (by percentage of home value) than the national average, but not by all that much, on the order of a tenth of a percent or so.

Property tax is absolutely not a progressive tax, by definition: everyone pays the same rate based on the value of their home, not based on their income or means.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#519

Post by smabie » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

nicoffeine wrote: post #434

FredPret wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uhhh... they are accountable to every one of their clients, every time those clients make a purchase. For almost all billionaires, that's a far larger constituency and a much more frequent and efficient selection process compared to elections every x years by the 30% of the population who bother to vote. As soon as they stop performing, the money stops rolling in.

They aren't even held accountable when they sell products that spark a nationwide overdose epidemic. "That may seem like a lot of money, but billionaire math can be deceptive. The Sacklers proposed to pay the $4.5 billion out over nine years. Their current fortune is estimated to be at least $11 billion. Conservatively, with interest and investments, this means they can expect a 5 percent annualized rate of return on…

Billionaire dictators get put in prison or worse all the time. However I suppose that's a subset of politician

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#520

Post by darawk » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 5:02 AM UTC

double_nan wrote: post #497

plorkyeran wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His estate pays them back when he dies. Inherited shares have their cost basis reset to the current value, so if his heirs sell them immediately there's no capital gains to be taxed.

The loan will be cheap but not free. The problem with shares is that their price can go down to zero in case of company bankruptcy. So there will be premium for that risk.

Not really. His loan will be way way way way over-collateralized, and like I said, he can even hedge it perfectly. His cost will likely be about the RFR.