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Who died and left the US $7B?

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

#521

Post by SR2Z »

lazide wrote: post #513
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens are taxed as individuals, not families. A person did not have assets, and now they do. I don't care that the land was "in their family." If they are even decent at managing their assets, then they will have more assets when they die than when their parents did. And if they don't, then it's not my concern. I don't believe in government policies to perpetuate generational capital wealth, and I will vote agains…

This is the ‘fuck anyone trying to pass anything to their children’ element which most parents will (rightly) got WTF at.

The exemption is several million dollars.

I don't mind if people get mad when anything more than that is taxed.

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

#522

Post by tsimionescu »

logifail wrote: post #512
tsimionescu wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All companies almost everywhere absolutely pay taxes on revenue, in the form of sales tax / value-added tax.

"VAT is... - an indirect tax on the vast majority of goods and services - borne by the final consumer, not by businesses - charged as a percentage of the sales price and collected fractionally at every stage of production and distribution - neutral, as the tax borne by the final consumer is the same regardless of the length of the supply chain" https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/vat_en

VAT (and sales taxes) are absolutely paid by the company, not by the consumer. I as a consumer don't need to keep track of my purchases and pay VAT on them at the end of the month or year. Companies instead keep track of their sales and need to pay the associated VAT to the state every month.

And the final consumer of a good can also be a business, in which case VAT is still paid for that good. For example, if you buy a company car for use by your employees, you can't get back the VAT on that purchase (only if you buy a car to sell it on to someone else can you get the VAT back).

And, of course, given that consumers make purchase decisions based on the nominal price of a good, which includes the VAT, the market price of a good will depend on VAT as well. If an increase in VAT risks to push the price so high that demand decreases, companies can choose to reduce the price before tax so that the final price is low enough not to affect demand.

So, again, VAT is essentially a tax on all sales revenue a company makes. It's true that it doesn't apply to other sources of revenue.

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

#523

Post by MisterBastahrd »

lazide wrote: post #513
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens are taxed as individuals, not families. A person did not have assets, and now they do. I don't care that the land was "in their family." If they are even decent at managing their assets, then they will have more assets when they die than when their parents did. And if they don't, then it's not my concern. I don't believe in government policies to perpetuate generational capital wealth, and I will vote agains…

This is the ‘fuck anyone trying to pass anything to their children’ element which most parents will (rightly) got WTF at.

Yeah, I'm sure the 1% of people this actually affects will be really big mad and stuff.

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

#524

Post by jmpman »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #354
jmpman wrote: post #264

This is the most frustrating news I’ve read about taxes. As an American, I’d like to think that our tax system was designed to be fair. Yes, Warren Buffet’s secretary famously paid a higher tax percentage than he did, because all of his wealth was in unrealized gains. I’d accepted that - with the understanding that upon Warren’s death, estate taxes would be paid, and “fairness” would be restored to the system. But, l…

> I’d like to think that our tax system was designed to be fair It is. But everyone has a different definition of "fair."

Building a business empire your entire life, taking loans against that business, having step up cost basis upon death, leaving everything to your heirs - without estate taxes - isn’t “fair”

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

#525

Post by jmpman »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #519
jmpman wrote: post #264

This is the most frustrating news I’ve read about taxes. As an American, I’d like to think that our tax system was designed to be fair. Yes, Warren Buffet’s secretary famously paid a higher tax percentage than he did, because all of his wealth was in unrealized gains. I’d accepted that - with the understanding that upon Warren’s death, estate taxes would be paid, and “fairness” would be restored to the system. But, l…

Fair would be if everyone would pay a the same percentage on their income, no more brackets. And it should be no more than 10-15% of gross income. That's it. No estate taxe, no inheritance tax, no nothing tax. I am pretty sure that those 10-15% are more than enough to have a functioning government that is able to serve the public pretty well.

Ah yes, the libertarian’s dream. I have a different view of fair - no taxes, except for estate tax of 100%. That’s “more” fair. Equalizes society.

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

#526

Post by ExoticPearTree »

jmpman wrote: post #525
ExoticPearTree wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair would be if everyone would pay a the same percentage on their income, no more brackets. And it should be no more than 10-15% of gross income. That's it. No estate taxe, no inheritance tax, no nothing tax. I am pretty sure that those 10-15% are more than enough to have a functioning government that is able to serve the public pretty well.

Ah yes, the libertarian’s dream. I have a different view of fair - no taxes, except for estate tax of 100%. That’s “more” fair. Equalizes society.

Right, the old eat the rich mantra, eh?

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

#527

Post by willcipriano »

hgomersall wrote: post #436
willcipriano wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where the wasteful bit comes in. If the taxed dollars ended up with say hurricane victims or other struggling Americans, those dollars would chase goods and services domestically driving up the price of those goods. Now consider if instead you helped fund Israels socialized medicine program or paid off some of Ukraines debt or paid interest to Chinese creditors. Those dollars wouldn't have much effect when it…

I'm yet to meet anyone that actually understands MMT and doesn't endorse it. You might be the first, but I doubt it. Which bit of MMT do you have trouble with?

The political will only exists to do money printing part in practice. The rest is a pipe dream.

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

#528

Post by VirusNewbie »

hgomersall wrote: post #424
kelseyfrog wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps to conceptualize the circuit of money as it flows from government(G) to the private sector(P) back to the government as G-P-G. The outlays(G-P) and receipts(P-G) can both be increased or decreased to affect aggregate demand. MMT's view is that inflation can be a result of aggregate demand outstripping economic capacity, though not the only one. Supply-side constraints, resource shortages, or structural bottl…

Please everyone read this comment. Any disagreements should come with relevant references showing how it's wrong. An additional point to add is the mechanism by which taxation controls inflation. Tax serves to suppress demand in the private sector, freeing up resources that can then be bought at non-inflated prices. This is why super wealthy people are irrelevant to a sovereign government's ability to spend; their ma…

Disagreement? Literally nowhere in either of your comments did anyone actually explain how government spending is deflationary.

There is nothing to disagree with, no claims were made!

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

#529

Post by bialpio »

bluGill wrote: post #518
bialpio wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, 160kc…

Bags of dry beans are a lot cheaper than cans. there should be room for a few vegitables in the budget.

Not if you have to pay to set up your tent legally, which you conveniently forgot to respond to. The only place I found so far that is free is BLM dispersed camping, but they allow only 14 consecutive days in 28 day period, and those places are far from civilization, so buying those beans is going to be a challenge.

Sorry, but with such an outrageously low estimate (US poverty line is $15k a year), you have to put in a bit more effort and show some receipts.

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

#530

Post by opo »

_bin_ wrote: post #223
opo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is something people love to rage about ... Yes, people get angry about this, but no one has provided any statistics showing this is actually a common loophole. The basic idea in the reddit post is that there were lenders giving multi-decade loans at a tiny interest rate (only payable upon death with also sharing a % share of the gains). Maybe there are lenders who have lots of capital and also don't understand…

I'm very much on your side of the argument but it's common practice. It's not like you can walk into a bank tomorrow and ask for that sort of thing, but for a HNW customer who makes use of lots of private banking services it's routine. I'm not Bezos or part of his family office so I can't say for sure. My guess would be a mixture of capital demands elsewhere (Blue Origin?) and a desire to diversify. Start-up founders…

>...but it's common practice.

There are many web pages claiming this, but I haven't seen actual statistics on this loophole. To be clear, many, many, people borrow against the value of an asset - from the middle class up to the ultra wealthy and they can defer capital gains in that way. The claim with buy, borrow, die is that you can borrow for decades and not have to pay back the loan until death. Some claim that the rich just keep rolling over loans on to new loans to avoid paying interest/principal for decades. The reddit posting discussing this has been edited since it was first discussed on hacker news, but now it emphasizes that the bank and the ultra wealthy person come to some sort of agreement to share in the gains of the asset upon death. Considering the length of the agreement it seems it would difficult to come up with an agreement that would be fair to both sides in that agreement.

I saw that on reddit, /u/Taxing responded to a different post by the author of the reddit posting and was skeptical of how common this approach is:

>...I too went to law school, earned my LL.M. from NYU and have been practicing in this area for decades with broad family office clients ranging from a few hundred million to many billions, and yes have clients with public companies, private companies, and taken companies between the two structures. I’ve worked at every level and now sit on the boards, manage the relationships, etc., which I enjoy more.

>...I struggle to think of a single family office interested in a lifelong arrangement with Goldman or other firm at that level, providing them strings of participation and control. Over time, circumstances change, and they are not your friend.

So, maybe, the "Buy, Borrow, Die" approach is common practice, but I have yet to see any actual stats on it.

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