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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%

#571

Post by mariozivic »

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.

In the current low interest rate environment, I've heard that it's common for founders like Musk to borrow against their shares instead of selling shares. The difference is that they pay small interest rate but don't pay larger income tax by realizing their income.

Basically, the same thing that their companies used (or maybe still use) for avoiding high tax on repatriation or their non-US earnings.

Edit: Here's a proof but with different incentives (keeping control): https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-techs-cash-poor-billi...

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

#572

Post by mariozivic »

taeric wrote: post #440
koala_man wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

$0 for income tax as his salary is $0 and he funds his lifestyle by borrowing against shares he owns: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-techs-cash-poor-billi...

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

#573

Post by taeric »

mariozivic wrote: post #572
taeric wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

$0 for income tax as his salary is $0 and he funds his lifestyle by borrowing against shares he owns: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-techs-cash-poor-billi...

That... Isn't accurate either. :(. He did actually pay some taxes, so income wouldn't be zero.

This whole "loan against debt" story feels off.

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

#574

Post by cycomanic »

rllearneratwork wrote: post #559
ryandrake wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no metro region on Earth where $1M/year can be considered middle class.

1M/year is roughly 500K after taxes in Bay Area. Starter house is bad school district (means you need to pay 25K-45K per year per kid for private school) is over 1M.

A typical multiplier for house price and before tax income is 6. So you are saying a 1M house, but for 1M yearly income we should be taking about 6M house (assuming the spouse is not working). Now I definitely wouldn't call a 6M house middle class.

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

#575

Post by silicon2401 »

sklearncowboy wrote: post #513
silicon2401 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, at least not with so simple an implementation. I don't want to live in a world where we're unable to escape working by constant taxes. There should be at least a minimum threshold where wealth is completely untaxed so that people can live freely and not have to work until they die. Enough for a house, some property and land, and a retirement fund. I'd consider it more justifiable to tax someone like Bill…

Isn't the problem though that any time you introduce a threshold the threshold gets gamed? A tax on people making $400k a year causes a giant spike in people making $399k a year. I think no matter what you do, bad unintended consequences will occur.

> I think no matter what you do, bad unintended consequences will occur.

I agree, and that's why I don't freak out when we have inequality. It's unavoidable for as long as we allow humans to grow based on genetic lottery rather than pre-approved personalities. No matter what system you have, if I'm smart and selfish enough, I'll find a way to exploit it for my benefit at least, and maybe go out of my way to harm others if I'm sadistic, too.

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

#576

Post by boredwithlife »

Retric wrote: post #303
btilly wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That book was originally written decades ago. Its threshold corresponds to about $1.7 million in savings in today's world. Their median was $1.6 million, or about $2.7 million in today's dollars. And given that the people who attained that status on average lived in cheap neighborhoods, the fact that their income wouldn't stretch long in an affluent neighborhood isn't really a concern for them.

Even adjusting for inflation from 1996 half the population had 1.0 - 1.6 million. That translates to ~$1.7M - 2.7M, or an income of ~68k to 108k which is still not that significant.

Don't forget that married filing jointly allows about $106k of long term capital gains per year taxed at 0% federally within the US.

If you had a paid off home and $68k of tax-free income per year, would you really find it difficult to live? Seems pretty cushy to me.

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

#577

Post by ncmncm »

ffggvv wrote: post #567
ncmncm wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part of, " This was recently demonstrated in Seattle, in practice. " were you not able to follow? 100% wrong, and evidently you don't consider it good news.

just saying that and getting angry doesnt make it true. urban areas all boomed due to the roaring economy up until covid, especially powered by the large growth in the tech sector there and corporate tax cuts (and seattle's low state tax making it an attractive place to be locate). theres no evidence seattle magically helped everyone by raising minimum wages. likely seattle did fine despite the minimum wage increase,…

Perceiving anger where there is none reveals more than you probably intended.

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

#578

Post by boublepop »

jvanderbot wrote: post #116
mjmahone17 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if I want to keep that diamond but cannot afford to because of the taxes? Then you have to sell it. This is no different from game show awards, where the “car” you ein is taxed at the car’s value, so unless you have enough savings, you have to sell the car to pay the taxes. I don’t really see any problem with this though? Absolutely we should force Bezos to sell some of his stock to pay taxes: employees alread…

But why should someone be forced to sell parts of their business (stock) because that business has increased in value? Or is that not the claim being made here? Isn't that the vast majority of the richests' wealth?

We have a system based around the notion that when a worker is given money or other value in exchange for work, part of their value increase needs to be transferred to the state. That is the same even if you get a car in compensation instead if a paycheck.

Why should the system be such that if you gain value without exchange of work, then suddenly you should not transfer anything to the state?

Yes that means that you might need to liquidate part of the asset to cover taxes on its value, just like paying a workers sallee by giving them a car might mean they need to sell it to cover taxes.

But it’s extremely odd to argue that there is some inherent “unfairness” in Musk or Buffet having to transfer part of their value increases to the state when we all agree every worker should do this.

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

#579

Post by eecc »

WalterBright wrote: post #245
carapace wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But how? I think that, if you could somehow collect all the wealth and redistribute it equally, within a few years we would see disparity reappear. Some folks are better at accumulating wealth than others. It seems to me that you would have to keep reallocating wealth. And many would then ask, what's the motive for generating wealth if it's just going to be taken away from you?

This has happened before. After the end of WW2, the Allies decided to repudiate the ReichsMark (the German dollar) and issue a new Mark. Everyone who held ReichsMarks saw it go to zero. To get the economy going again, everyone was issued 50 of the new Deutsch Marks. Within a couple weeks, the people who had been wealthy before were rapidly moving ahead, and the ones who had not been were again at the bottom. I.e. the…

Or, anyone with significant enough wealth had already diversified to gold and stashed it in Switzerland. Not too conspicuously as you wouldn't want to draw the attention of the Gestapo on your "short" but enough to be in a better position for a fresh start, than a 50 DM.

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

#580

Post by eecc »

boruto wrote: post #438
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My guess the records are public but access is not anonymous; you'd need to identify yourself and leave a plausible reason on record.
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