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Larry Page has moved to Florida

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Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#61

Post by lotsofpulp »

rickydroll wrote: post #55
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO capital gains taxes are bad as well, they discourage efficient investment allocation (you are stuck with what you have now). It would be better if we mainly taxed consumption directly. If you are a billionaire but spend $100k/yr I am fine with you paying the same taxes as anyone else spending $100k/yr.

Taxing consumption hurts people more at the lower end of the income scale than at the higher end. It all comes down to what reserves you have to accommodate different scales of financial events. For example, will not having enough money for a tank of gas break you, or just annoy you? Could you survive needing an ambulance ride? Do copays keep you from seeing the doctor, or are they just a rounding error on your incom…

If having less money hurts people, then the government should give them more money.

Consumption taxes incentivize reducing waste and is pro environment. Isn't that what California is about?

>people acquire it just for the sake of acquiring more and building their personal power. It seems that wealth is used to build more mechanisms of rent-seeking to further extract money from people who make their money through labor.

So why are you a proponent of earned income taxes? Those hit people who make their money through labor. What you want is land value taxes, those hit people who make money through rent seeking (including tech companies whose assets sit on valuable land).

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#62

Post by piva00 »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #31
garciasn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah; there's absolutely no way he could possibly support philanthropic efforts in one state from another. Nope; everyone now loses out because of it! There is absolutely 0 reason that someone worth $270 billion needs to worry about the 5% tax. The 5% tax will reduce his estimated worth by $13.5B bringing him to a paltry $256.5B. To put $256.5B in perspective: over two /lifetimes/, he would need to spend around $4.5M…

1. The tax could cause him to sell equity he doesn't want to. It's not like he has $270B in a checking account. 2. If they do it once then why not again next year? Maybe next time it's for only $100 million or $10 million or $1 million. Eventually everyone is paying 5% of their wealth every year. Why not? That's how we got the current income tax. 3. It's the principle. Resisting these efforts sends a signal that they…

> 1. The tax could cause him to sell equity he doesn't want to. It's not like he has $270B in a checking account.

If there is $270B in equity invested, making those 5% back should be rather straightforward for someone with that much wealth, a decent wealth manager would recoup that easily. Money makes money.

> 2. If they do it once then why not again next year? Maybe next time it's for only $100 million or $10 million or $1 million. Eventually everyone is paying 5% of their wealth every year. Why not? That's how we got the current income tax.

This is just a slippery slope fallacy.

> 3. It's the principle. Resisting these efforts sends a signal that they aren't a good idea.

Exactly, it's blackmailing, sending a message "look what you've made me do" when the government attempts to reign in the ultrawealthy.

> 4. Do we really think the money is better off in control of the incompetent CA government than invested in private enterprise or donated to charity? I don't see how it's better for it to line Newsom's Swiss bank account.

With this argument you can defend never paying taxes to CA then, do you think it would be better as a complete anarco-capitalist state? It makes me sad that USA's public governance is so bad that this argument is always used to defend rich people not paying taxes; the political system is so absolutely broken that people prefer to allow ultrawealthy folks to keep hoarding even in the face of very real issues fracturing society stemming from that instead of thinking about how that money could fix many public issues.

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#63

Post by Jensson »

piva00 wrote: post #62
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The tax could cause him to sell equity he doesn't want to. It's not like he has $270B in a checking account. 2. If they do it once then why not again next year? Maybe next time it's for only $100 million or $10 million or $1 million. Eventually everyone is paying 5% of their wealth every year. Why not? That's how we got the current income tax. 3. It's the principle. Resisting these efforts sends a signal that they…

> 1. The tax could cause him to sell equity he doesn't want to. It's not like he has $270B in a checking account. If there is $270B in equity invested, making those 5% back should be rather straightforward for someone with that much wealth, a decent wealth manager would recoup that easily. Money makes money. > 2. If they do it once then why not again next year? Maybe next time it's for only $100 million or $10 millio…

> If there is $270B in equity invested, making those 5% back should be rather straightforward for someone with that much wealth, a decent wealth manager would recoup that easily. Money makes money.

Its his voter shares, he wont get them back. Larry and Sergei currently control 51% of Google votes, if they sell any more they lose control of Google so they can't afford to sell.

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#64

Post by piva00 »

Jensson wrote: post #63
piva00 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. The tax could cause him to sell equity he doesn't want to. It's not like he has $270B in a checking account. If there is $270B in equity invested, making those 5% back should be rather straightforward for someone with that much wealth, a decent wealth manager would recoup that easily. Money makes money. > 2. If they do it once then why not again next year? Maybe next time it's for only $100 million or $10 millio…

> If there is $270B in equity invested, making those 5% back should be rather straightforward for someone with that much wealth, a decent wealth manager would recoup that easily. Money makes money. Its his voter shares, he wont get them back. Larry and Sergei currently control 51% of Google votes, if they sell any more they lose control of Google so they can't afford to sell.

I highly doubt that Larry Page has $270B only invested in one egg (Google), even if a large part of his wealth comes from that.

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#66

Post by steveBK123 »

GenerWork wrote: post #3

>"He wasn't just pretending to move to Florida." Do people often pretend that they're going to move? Seems like a weird thing to say.

Yes.. Florida is fine, and the weather is even nice 3-6 months/year depending on your basis of comparison.

But if you are unfathomably rich, it's missing a lot of the culture/arts/schools/dining/tier 1 medical care/things to do of a big blue city like NYC/Bay Area/whatever. It's also culturally a place who already made their money elsewhere go to flaunt it. It's a very different vibe than places people work and grow wealth.

So a lot of the uber rich already have 5 homes, one of which is Florida, and they spend exactly enough days there, creating exactly enough of a paper trail to show Florida is their primary residence.

In practice it may just be adjustments around the edges to where they already spend time. Most only do this if they are childless, the kids are out of the house, or they are extremely divorced.. since it's disruptive to kids being in school.

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#67

Post by steveBK123 »

cgio wrote: post #35
Bender wrote: post #7

From elsewhere: Google co-founder Larry Page moved to Florida from California in early 2026, purchasing over $188 million in Miami property. He left California to avoid a proposed 5% state wealth tax targeting billionaires, shifting his primary residence and assets to Florida, which has no state income tax. Makes sense to me. Several businesses and individuals from NYC have also moved to Florida for similar reasons.…

If I were as wealthy as them I would not mind paying a 5% tax after years of tax avoidance. But that’s just one of the many reasons why I am not as wealthy as they are.

In agreement. It strikes me as contradictory to be so wealthy you can never spend it all, but price sensitive enough to uproot your life over a tax?

To paraphrase Don Draper - That's what the money is for! (to live the life you want)

But I think for many that make that much money is a scoreboard primarily, and they've given up any normalcy of a personal life so long ago to get it that they don't really know what to do with themselves once they have the money.

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#68

Post by steveBK123 »

selridge wrote: post #32
snapetom wrote: post #15

This part from Paul Graham on his own move was eye opening: "After we'd been in England for several years, I asked the people who do our taxes to check, and they told me that I actually saved money by moving to England. That's how high California state taxes are already."

Yeah sounds like he was really scrimping.

I have a lot of UK employees and the tax system is quite strange compared to US. One of them described it to me as a "great place to already be rich".

If you make under say $200-250k, you pay way way higher taxes in the UK. Above that, if you are in a high tax US city/state .. US total fed/state/local taxes start to pull well ahead at the $500k & $1M income levels.

Seems like a defect.

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#69

Post by Bender »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #59
Bender wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am being honest inequality will always vary wildly based on the monetary policies and all the things I mentioned. To me anything else is getting into vague unattainable unrealistic ideologies. No harm in dreaming, everyone should. No harm in envy either even if some think it is unhealthy. It's all human nature. If someone has a gazillion gazillion gazillion mega-bucks that does not harm me in any way shape or fo…

Their 'paying in' is capped at a ridiculously low rate thanks to their continuous lobbying and equal to what doctors pay in. Brin paid more for his new home that his lifetime charity giving according to Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeswealthteam/2026/02/09/ame... looks like he paid more for his new house that what Forbes thinks he's given to charity.

And that's fine. The pay out is also on a scale. I have no desire to "rob the rich". Everyone pays into corrupt governments and fraudulent wasteful government programs. I would rather cut 50% of all programs every year to remove the burden from all citizens.

Re: Larry Page has moved to Florida

#70

Post by iamnothere »

piva00 wrote: post #62
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. The tax could cause him to sell equity he doesn't want to. It's not like he has $270B in a checking account. 2. If they do it once then why not again next year? Maybe next time it's for only $100 million or $10 million or $1 million. Eventually everyone is paying 5% of their wealth every year. Why not? That's how we got the current income tax. 3. It's the principle. Resisting these efforts sends a signal that they…

> 1. The tax could cause him to sell equity he doesn't want to. It's not like he has $270B in a checking account. If there is $270B in equity invested, making those 5% back should be rather straightforward for someone with that much wealth, a decent wealth manager would recoup that easily. Money makes money. > 2. If they do it once then why not again next year? Maybe next time it's for only $100 million or $10 millio…

> Exactly, it's blackmailing, sending a message "look what you've made me do" when the government attempts to reign in the ultrawealthy.

If it’s blackmailing, it’s blackmailing that is legal and extremely common. Similar events have occurred in multiple jurisdictions around the world whenever wealth taxes are attempted. The only way to prevent this in a country like the US that doesn’t allow retroactive taxation is to institute an exit tax, but this is also not legal at the state level in the US. Oh, and you also likely need capital controls, another no-no inside the US.

Capital flight is so historically common that there’s a common phrase to describe it. I have no idea why CA thought they were any different.

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