They pay a low interest rate on continuously increasing debt. The advantage is their investments grow more.
When they die the loans are paid off and their descendants may have no taxes on the remainder. If they have taxes to pay it gets step up tax basis, so much lower or no tax. Even if the tax were the same, it is delayed so long as to be a massive advantage.
the main issue is that as long as taxes > bank interest rates, the ultra rich will always take up loans and use their assets as collateral rather realize any gains from their assets, for which they would have to pay a larger chunk in form of taxes.
Exactly, but it stops being advantageous when the tax code catches up to the trick. Closing huge tax avoidance schemes has been going on for a very long time.
Well George, that's why rich people invest in politicians to keep those loop holes open and defund the IRS in order too keep that from happening. Which they achieve with the loans.
The IRS can't catch up to the schemes if they keep getting pulled by the rope they are attached to.
Which is why the IRS only goes for poor people who have no way of fighting back or fixing their issue.
Do people not know about the estate tax which is at a much higher rate than capital gains tax? Rebasing makes sense because there deficit paid the estate tax on the current market value on what they go, including any gains prior to the testators death. this is a terrible estate planning strategy and i don’t know of any tax planning expert that would recommend this.
Well it wouldn't be surprising for the US.
After all the 2008 bank bailouts basically incentivized reckless investing/greed over *protecting peoples fucking money* LOL
In place of income tax, she would love it. Less than half of Americans have a positive net worth. If she was taxed on her net worth, the government would be giving her money, not her giving the government money.
Based off what I could see, she is a nomadic consultant who travels the world and is financially supported by a humanist institution. She probably has no net worth to begin with.
Wait, wait, wait. Reddit university of economics taught me that the rich never sell, and never make income. So either Elon is not rich to have paid 37% income tax, or Reddit university is a fraudulent university - not unlike Trump's University.
Maybe the problem is that people who have an extremely high net worth don't bring home enough taxable income to justify their extremely high net worth.
naw the issue is allowing high net worth individuals to take out loans on their unrealized assets with the intention of never realizing them until after they die and their tax step up basis nullifies all the gains that taxes would be due on. IDK heres an idea. If you have over 100mil in total assets and you use said assets as collateral for a loan you get taxed on the loan amount or something like this. Like lets close the current loopholes.
People always say this, and yet billionaires in fact do sell stock and realize gains, elons twitter post is case in point. And didn’t bezos just sell 5billion dollars worth of Amazon stock?
you are correct they both did these things. But AFAIK the above method is currently one of the best tax loopholes the ultra wealthy use to avoid paying taxes. If I become ultra weathy myself ill come back and describe in more detail about why people will sell and realize gains and why they will go about the loan route. LOL i don't pretend to fully understand it right now.
So they do realize gains before they die? Seems contradictory to your previous comment.
And there are then taxes that apply to their estate after said death.
Property taxes are not a tax on assets or net worth. They are a fee for using the services provided to that location. Roads, schools, fire departments.
The point is nobody is taxed on their net worth.
You pay that property tax for owning a property, you pay it regardless of whether or not your net worth is hugely positive because you own the home, or negative because you're underwater on the loan -- it's simply **not** a tax on net worth.
If there’s a floor on it at like 5 million or something, it makes a lot of sense. No man is worth or does anything worth that kind of money. Just because you can get it doesn’t mean you “earned” it. There is no positive value to be had for any individual to have a billion dollars. That we have allowed it to happen just shows how stupid humans are.
> If there’s a floor on it at like 5 million or something, it makes a lot of sense
I just wish the people stupid enough to think a net worth tax would not be slowly ratcheted down wouldn't get to drag everyone else down with them lmao. Do you guys not realize the income tax was originally only for th richest people and it was just temporary "to fund the war effort"? Now you pay federal income tax starting basically at the poverty line.
You may be taxed based on your income. But what she said was “vying for sympathy”.
He says he’s paying 11 billion in taxes on 90 billion of earnings, which leaves 79 billion left over, which is more than 1 million times the median American pre-tax income. He has a net worth of $238 billion.
No sympathy here.
He also helped generate that much value. That's the incentive for entrepreneurs.
If his companies fail workers lose their jobs and he loses his net worth. Shareholders votes for this compensation as well because he has all the responsibilities to make it happen and took all the risk to get it started.
I trust him to spend and create value more than the US government.
I know musk was testing the collective iq. And it proved to show how dumb we are. It’s insane people are obsessed with more taxes in any form . No let’s not punish the guys creating jobs. The govt sucks with managing our money. We should always say no. We’re over taxed. I’d rather those billionaires spend their money not a bunch of politicians hiring contractors charging them 100X the price doing nothing and kicking money back. It’s insane people will never see a dime of the Rich’s taxes it’ll be flushed down the tube but they really want big daddy govt to punish the wealthy.
This is just supply side economics, a theory that has been thoroughly tested and emphatically shown to not be true, not that it was necessary as it ignores supply and demand—economics 101.
These government waste posts were always so absolute, but somehow always include absolutely no data or examples of this waste.
I agree with you, but I have a whopper of government waste from Florida lol. The city decided to change its non main roads to 20 mph. They spent like 25 grand replacing all of the signs. Once it was all done, they got a call (or letter, idk) from the DMV. Turned out, you can't legally have a speed limit below 25 unless it's private property. So they had to re-replace all the signs. Fortunately, my dad didn't listen to them when they told him to dispose of the old signs or they would have needed to buy all new signs again (idk how much the signs were vs labor). So my dad grabbed the stache of the old ones to save the day. Still laugh about the fact nobody bothered to see if there was a reason nobody had 20mph anywhere.
How fucking dumb do you have to be to give this guy so much credit?
He was testing us! Our job creator is above us in every way! Don't look into his finances. In fact, let's give him even less oversight than the government!!
Seriously. You guys are pathetic.
Make it bracketed. First tier could be $2-5 million. That means if your net worth is under $2 million you pay nothing. Since the top 10% have over 80% of the wealth they could effectively supply all of the taxes. I’d say it starts at .5% and then goes to 10% at the top tier. Maybe the top tier starts at $100 million. Net worth of America is about $136T and about $5T tax revenue generated each year. My proposal would generate about $7T in tax revenue with zero coming from income.
Considering 401k is heavily invested in corporations that hold said billionaires wealth, I would say middle class is going to be fucked over many times if this is implemented.
It’s a function of distribution. As long as the distribution of capital is so extreme in America it would continue indefinitely. If all of the wealth were evenly distributed then it would amount to much less than $2m per person and zero taxes would result so you’d have to adjust. But on the flip side if things get more and more extreme where fewer ppl have all the wealth then tax revenues would increase. The basic idea is taxes can be structured in a way to mitigate problems in wealth inequity if we wanted. It won’t happen but nice to think about.
So old people who saved a couple million to last 30 years in retirement should pay a wealth tax on money that they need to retire on. How about fuck off! I have 5 million net worth. I doubt it will last me 30 or 40 years. Go fucking pay more taxes if you want, but leave everyone else out of it.
It’s not silent, they’re openly calling for taxation of unrealized capital gains.
What I haven’t seen, though, is what their plan is on unrealized capital *losses*.
It is already used on your house or any other owned real estate, nothing new at all for the average person who already has most of their net worth tied up in housing.
Except, as an average person, I feel there should be a law that forces the government to buy my house at the price they appraise it at.
Too many people get screwed over because the government believes your property is worth 6 figures more than the going market rate.
There doesn't need to be a plan. The tax on unrealized gains is used as a credit. When you have unrealized losses, you pay nothing but also, if you've paid enough in unrealized tax then you also pay nothing when you sell.
In most proposals to tax unrealized gains, your unrealized losses can result in refunds.
Which means that a hypothetical billionaire could pay a billion dollars in taxes on stock in 2024, then receive a billion dollar tax refund on the stock in 2025. Without selling or exchanging the stock.
It might seem popular to make Elon Musk pay an extra $20 billion in taxes one year. But it'd be an embarrassing scandal if they issue a $20 billion tax refund to Elon Musk.
But there definitely needs to be a detailed plan to do it in a reasonable way. Like how to handle illiquid assets, restricted assets, etc. If the rules are too simplistic, then the system will either be laughably easy for rich people to game or be brutally harsh in a way that looks unreasonable. The idea might seem easy in principle, but it's not so simple to design rules that are simultaneously enforceable, fair, and cost efficient.
In Elon Musk's case (and other hyper wealthy), it's somewhat valid the criticism.
They often borrow money using their stock as collateral, which isn't taxed. Because the collateral is considered safe (or liquid enough), they receive special interest rates, making the appreciation of the stock usually outweigh the interest. In other words, it's like selling stock with extra steps and no taxes.
Musk was in panic mode a few months ago because if the board hadn't approved his compensation package at Tesla, almost all of "his" stocks, which are pawned at banks, would be at risk of being sold, due to Tesla's drop in value.
There is a threshold where banks would eventually sell the pawned stock, creating a snowball effect with the stock lowering the price even further, leaving Musk with almost no Tesla stock. He was so desperate that he was accelerating to IPO SpaceX to get some quick cash.
I think it's not that black and white. A possible solution could be a progressive tax where amounts over $100 million are taxed as regular capital gains if a collateral it's being used.
This approach would prevent overtaxing the already overburdened middle class while closing the loophole that allows the hyper-wealthy to avoid taxes on loans. For the wealthy, most of their income comes from these loans rather than capital gains or salaries, unlike most people.
There's a lot of things that make sense until they're put into practice. In a class I took on ethics, they would talk about things that were wrong because there's no way to do them that doesn't end up evil. There's nothing wrong with them a priori, but the more you think about it, the more you realize they're only possible if someone gets hurt.
There's nothing wrong with people borrowing money against assets. It's the way it's put into practice that makes it fucked up. They're not taking out a loan, they're starving the government of the taxes that keep elderly people alive (Medicare), protect us while we sleep (Defense) and fight wildfires before they burn people alive (USFS Fire crews). That is fucked up.
Yup. It's why the mind fuck of MAGA is so confusing.
Their favorite argument against taxing billionaires is claiming that the government is corrupt and functions with no checks or balances, so that money would disappear...
....Then they advocate to have the most corrupt and least functional government in my lifetime reinstated.
Property taxes exist. They aren't generally based directly on the valuation of the home but there is a correlation with property value and property tax.
The precedent basically exists already. Most folks are already paying tax on their biggest unrealized asset.
Stop comparing the personal funds and property of a middle class person to the richest 5% in America. Its perfectly reasonable to say "apply this principle to him, but not to normal people".
That’s the problem with the fight for this net worth tax, I think a fight for the tax on money borrowed for people worth over a billion is more reasonable and realistic,
Realistically even a billionaire couldn’t pay the taxes if it was based on there net worth
That would mean he has to sell the stocks to get the money to pay the taxes, it would make more sense to tax billionaires the money they borrows using the stock/assets as collateral
>They often borrow money using their stock as collateral, which isn't taxed. Because the collateral is considered safe (or liquid enough), they receive special interest rates, making the appreciation of the stock usually outweigh the interest. In other words, it's like selling stock with extra steps and no taxes.
and thats a loophole that should be fixed, but its not a reason to start taxing unrealized gains, its a reason to stop loopholes.
Equity in your home is part of your net worth. 401k and IRA is part of your net worth. Cash in savings accounts is part of your net worth.
If I got taxed even 3% of my net worth I would be fucked.
And to anyone about to respond how this tax would only be on the ultra wealthy, yeah right. Ain’t no way a tax on net wealth is implemented and doesn’t fuck over the middle class. You’re delusional if you think otherwise.
FWIW, if you own a house, you are getting taxed on a portion of your net worth via property tax.
I agree that it would fuck the middle class if implemented stupidly of course.
Any tax on assets would likely end up using a standard deduction to limit the scope of the tax - similar to income.
If the tax is 3%, and the standard deduction is $30M, it would not impact 99% of us.
Good question that leads to the real glaring issue, which is the 20% cap on long term capital gains taxes.
It's an affront to common sense and a crime against society that individuals can cash out billions of dollars of stock and pay less % in taxes than people barely scraping by pay on their income tax.
Yeah. Its literally the same as property tax that homeowners have been paying for hundreds of years. Sure, grandma might have to sell her home that her family built generations ago. But you can't just make a shareholder sell their stocks to pay tax, that's like un-American.
You can take out a loan on it or sell it. There is no reason it should be any different to be paid in stock or money. I’m pretty sure I’m taxed on my compensation even if some of it is in a form of housing or some other benefit. In that situation I have to come up with cash to pay the taxes on the value of my housing. Why is that hard to understand? Why are so many of us hell bent on there being humans walking the earth with so much wealth they can decide to start their own space program. It’s stupid.
Stocks are used as collateral for loans which acts as income to fund lifestyle and daily living expenses. Additionally there are company furnished benefits like permanent transportation, lodging, etc. If these were private party gifts you’d have to pay taxes on their value in many cases.
We can not tax wealth and close loopholes at the same time. Otherwise I’ll ask my employer to pay me in stocks only and avoid taxes in the same way.
It's income of an asset.
They can't just pay you in cars so you pay no tax ever.
You pay tax on the income when you get the share, then on the capital gains once you sell.
God I hate these posts.
First “most” people don’t pay 10-37% of their income to federal taxes. 40% of Americans don’t pay federal taxes. Next the avg individual income in America is 59k, which as a single filer would put you at a 8.8% effective tax rate. I filed married and our household income is around 170k and our effective tax rate is around 12%.
Taxing someone on their net-worth is silly. If you want to do something like a luxury tax, maybe that would make more sense. For example would an extra million on a boat, or private plane really stop someone from buying it.
In Nov 1991, congress enacted a luxury tax and Bush 41 signed it. It was a 10 percent luxury surcharge tax on boats over $100,000, cars over $30,000, aircraft over $250,000, and furs and jewelry over $10,000. It didn't raise tax revenue as expected and led to the loss of something like 20k+ jobs in the boating industry. In Aug 1993, it was eliminated by Clinton.
Also I am 37 and pay in to social security every year fully expecting to not receive the benefits from it that the government promises (I realize that is not what you meant by retirement savings).
The "we can't tax billionaires because then they'll come for my $75k/year"'argument doesn't really make any sense.
Also, you already have to pay taxes on your 401k when you withdraw money. And you have to pay taxes on capital gains when you sell stock. So your example of putting lint away only for the government to take it out is actually pretty standard.
Are you referring to military equipment sent overseas? That stuff's manufactured in the US, by US workers, so... Replacing it is helping to create a domestic manufacturing boom (along with other policies like the Chips and Sciences Act), creating high paying jobs. Seems good, and all of Europe not being at war means they have more money to import American products. Also seems good.
Because it sure as fuck beats putting our own boots on the ground and it’s been incredibly effective, Oh and by the way all of those “assets” are American made by American workers collecting a paycheck.
Tell me in what world would the “working class” have gotten any benefit from if the money weren’t given away?
This hurting the working class rhetoric and the “I suddenly care about the debt” patriots have no other thought on these hot topic issues past their first 3 poorly memorized sentences
Also you’re either too ignorant to understand that it’s not even close to a quarter trillion **dollars** given away or you’re just lying
Uhhh yea, that's 3.6T of it. the other part of it is the 4.8T that he rolled in for a grand total of 8.4T added to the national debt under Drumpf's watch because of his idiotic tax cuts + policies
Biden? Non covid debt: 2.2T. American rescue plan? 2.1T for a total of 4.3T.
Who fucked us again on the national debt? His name is Trump, and the republicans. Like always.
[https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt](https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt)
people are intentionally obtuse to justify their middle class life as luxury and I did it all myself
There are tons of services we could offer (healthcare, mental institutions, better public transit, better funded IRS) that would involve spending money but wouldhave an incredible reward
genius guys like the commenters above would rather the economy stagnate than follow common sense national policy if it helps low income /homeless /minorities
What are you talking about
We all want universal healthcar
Free education
Yes, we can
We will never get these things if the billionaire corporations don’t pay their part
They do not pay enough employees to have a decent living
Come on man
A relevant fact here: Billionaires only become billionaires by taking more than their share from their employees, suppliers, companies they invest in and so on.
By doing so they lower everyone's incomes, which in turn lowers everyone's income tax, which in turn then lowers the government budget.
Not only are billionaires not paying their share, they also take from everyone else's shares.
Elon pays more tax in ONE YEAR than any of you will ever make in your lifetime and people still want to bitch about it.... WHY GIVE THE GOVERNMENT ANY MORE MONEY? ALL THEY DO IS WASTEFUL SPENDING!
Elon makes more in an hour then people who work hard over their entire lifetimes.
Balance the budget like Clinton did and try not to start a 20 year war over.family drama, invade a country over lies, and let self regulation crash the economy. But what do I know, I only lived through it.
Go Vote
> Balance the budget like Clinton
Clinton's congress, which was Republican controlled.
This balance was almost accidental, but of course they take credit afterwards.
Yeah a lot of us lived through it.
Clinton balanced the budget because he was forced to work with Newt Gingrich who wanted to put in a spending cap. Almost succeeded too.
you understand the purpise of subsidies and tax breaks right?
if the gov't thinks you can be super successful, they'll cut you a break upfront.....with the hope you create tons of jobs and grow the USA GDP.
Then all those people and parts and growth are taxed.....and they'll get the political biz win and get a new tax base year over year.
Tesla or anyone else isn't just given billions with no strings attached
same with 'tax payer funded' sports stadiums.
Tesla was founded in 2003. It's had 20 years. Is it not a successful company yet that still needs government crutches?
Wal-Mart gets 6.2 Billion, teaches employees how to file for food stamps.
Stadiums generating money has been debunked. Same people, same area, same spending, It only concentrates it. Once you add in the tax breaks the stadium gets for a few years, it becomes a net loss.
As someone who is in no way an expert in finance: would it make more sense to add a tax for when people trade assets or use them as collateral? Say if when Elon put stock in tesla up as collateral for the massive loan to buy twitter, he was taxed on the portion of stock he used as collateral as he would then pay taxes on the value of the shares that he put up as collateral. Essentially, once they use it as a currency or something of value, they get taxed on the value at that time.
What are the pros/cons of something like this?
Edit: Thanks for all the comments on the pros/cons of a system like this, I appreciate the help understanding it!
Collateral is not trading, there's no transaction. It's like a pending transaction if things go to shit. It's an insurance policy. If things go to shit and they have to cover the costs, I think Elon would have to sell the assets, get taxed, then pay off his debts. Or companies take the assets, sell them (get taxed) and use the money on new assets.
You get taxed if you sell assets for new assets as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure there's a "trading assets" as you called it without a middle transaction of buy/sell. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
You make a point though, maybe just stop allowing people to use collateral for buying out businesses? Pay taxes on debt paid? If it doesn't already.
I know us regular folks use after tax income to pay our debt, besides student loans that is. I hope the rich don't have some workaround for paying their debt tax free.
Just because the number is big to us normies doesn't mean it's big enough to have any effects on the wealthy.
A $10,000 gag order breach would cripple my household but Trump racked up more than a dozen because that's like a dollar to him.
Eeehhhhhh, kind of.
Trumps actual wealth is the problem. He’s been defrauding some many systems that his actual wealth isn’t really known, probably even to him. He’s got an Amex so his bills get paid and somehow there’s always enough to keep the ball moving, but we know that he doesn’t have the liquid wealth to cover his legal expenses at the moment.
$10,000 is like a dollar to him not because he is wealthy but because he’s so removed from the reality of money having value. It’s all literally paper to him.
No. BUT they should pay taxes in some way on utilizing their vast fortunes as collateral to secure massive loans at low interest rates, while their fortunes appreciate at a higher rate than said loans, thus allowing them to profit off of just existing and living/paying bills.
I think this is a complicated issue. Because I firmly believe as a business or business person it is your job to save as much money as possible. So I understand the motive. I just don’t understand what changes between 1 billion and 10 billion? Does your life change at all? I’m speaking for myself but my ultimate goal is to be wealthy enough I can support the science and other things that interest me. I’d have people doing research all over the world. I’d be funding physics departments in ways that bring the smartest people back from finance. I’d be pouring money into the schools and institutions in the places that I grew up.
I don’t think it matters in the least what changes, it’s still their money and they can do whatever they want with it. I have no right to anything that any billionaire owns and he doesn’t have a right to anything I own unless I wanted to sell it to him.
I am all for anyone giving the government as little as possible. If the government really was efficient at using tax dollars, people would be donating more than required to the government.
No.
That would be no different than adding up a homeless persons "wealth" and the gov't taking a percentage of it.
The US gov't has a spending problem. The fact that Elon Musk's entire wealth would only sustain the cash burning machine for about a week that it the US gov't is enough proof of that.
Did she use the right term, or just gaff? Is it 4.5% of his net worth, or his profits and income?
Should you be taxed on net worth? Probably not. Should you be taxed heavier than the poor and middle class on your income and profits? Probably so.
I guess people who think like this don't understand that you have to liquidate stocks in order to buy stuff with your theoretical wealth, and that you get taxed on all the profit you made on those stocks when you liquidate them.
>I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year
but like the year before this one, next year I'll pay none since I'll hide it as unrealized gains -- living off low interest loans I got using these unrealized gains as leverage.
I think there is some sense in taxing cash that is stored in a way that isn’t really cycling through the economy, but what money is and isn’t stagnant is debatable, like is the money a bank is very conservatively ( assumedly) investing from your checking; or like properties that have projected that’s won’t do anything for years.
But I see no viable reason to tax a person’s entire net worth, it’s not just silly it could actually really hurt people trying to say start businesses or just start there own lives, cause if you save up for a big purchase it would really suck to pay tax paying tax on your capital, then more so the entire time you are just trying to straighten things up,
though I know crap all about finance, I’ve been saving for a house for 6-7 years now, and am not sure if this would hurt more before, after or the throughout the entire process of buying a house but I’d probably be arguing to depreciate my house real quick even before taxes over-evaluate it. And doesn’t that make the idea of buying your own home more fun.
No because then it opens the door for the government to charge everyone a tax based on net worth, just like how when the 16th Amendment was passed to open the door to tax the income of the rich it also opened the door to tax people making minimum wage. If anyone tells you something will never happen, remind them how often governments willingly roll back policies without a revolution.
If I'm paying 22%, they should pay 22%... I don't give a shit if that's $11 billion, or $100 billion... If that's 22% of your income, you assuredly aren't missing any fucking meals.
I think if you tax the billionaires on their net worth it will trickle down to the millionaires, then hundred thousandaires, then the average man. It’s a slippery slope
How would they pay those taxes? Taking out loans against their assets wouldn't really help them since they'll just have to pay taxes on those same assets the following years. The idea is probably to force them to sell off those assets thereby reducing their net worth and making people happy. Of course, that sell off will tank whatever company's stocks are getting dumped since those shares will not hold value. This will of course make people happier as those ultra wealthy see their net worth tank even farther. Then again, those same people will be bitching up a storm when their 401k drops into the crapper, but hey, at least those ultra wealthy jerks are poorer now.
The people complaining here are basically that 400k meme
None of you will ever pay this tax,, but you keep on seeing yourself as a temporarily broke billionaire
Right so your Taxed yearly on your “net worth” not your income for the year👍🏼👍🏼👌🏼 I’m sure half the idiots on here fall for it.
I wonder how much Anya would enjoy being taxed on her net worth.
She'd probably love it. All refund, no taxes for her CC debt.
What a great improvement to our tax code! Incentivize excessive debt and punish success 🙌
Isn’t that how it already works? Instead of using your money to pay off your debt, you take out more loans and invest the money you have now.
When do they pay off the loans or do banks no longer care if you borrow millions from them?
They pay a low interest rate on continuously increasing debt. The advantage is their investments grow more. When they die the loans are paid off and their descendants may have no taxes on the remainder. If they have taxes to pay it gets step up tax basis, so much lower or no tax. Even if the tax were the same, it is delayed so long as to be a massive advantage.
the main issue is that as long as taxes > bank interest rates, the ultra rich will always take up loans and use their assets as collateral rather realize any gains from their assets, for which they would have to pay a larger chunk in form of taxes.
Exactly, but it stops being advantageous when the tax code catches up to the trick. Closing huge tax avoidance schemes has been going on for a very long time.
Well George, that's why rich people invest in politicians to keep those loop holes open and defund the IRS in order too keep that from happening. Which they achieve with the loans. The IRS can't catch up to the schemes if they keep getting pulled by the rope they are attached to. Which is why the IRS only goes for poor people who have no way of fighting back or fixing their issue.
As long as you have millions in assets then you're good. Also interest rates are lower for the rich.
So you’re saying they don’t pay off the loans because…assets?
https://www.dcfpi.org/all/how-wealthy-households-use-a-buy-borrow-die-strategy-to-avoid-taxes-on-their-growing-fortunes/
Do people not know about the estate tax which is at a much higher rate than capital gains tax? Rebasing makes sense because there deficit paid the estate tax on the current market value on what they go, including any gains prior to the testators death. this is a terrible estate planning strategy and i don’t know of any tax planning expert that would recommend this.
All the way up to the Federal Government
Well it wouldn't be surprising for the US. After all the 2008 bank bailouts basically incentivized reckless investing/greed over *protecting peoples fucking money* LOL
And it happened again with the bond buyouts after SVB went down.
> punish success "social justice" , the new fancy name for communism
Debt is an asset…
Well when someone exploits the tax code and their employees we misconstrue that as "success" lol
If you’re in debt does that mean you get paid money?
In place of income tax, she would love it. Less than half of Americans have a positive net worth. If she was taxed on her net worth, the government would be giving her money, not her giving the government money.
She probably has no net worth.
Based off what I could see, she is a nomadic consultant who travels the world and is financially supported by a humanist institution. She probably has no net worth to begin with.
I have a negative net worth does that mean I get paid?
That means you pay ZERO in income taxes - if you see the example in my other post.
Might as well just get direct to the point and abolish income tax because everyone will be holding debt til the day they die if that was the case.
Because people are fucking stupid.
How about raise the capital gains tax on billionaires.
If they don't sell anything their won't be anything taxed.
Yea I suppose that was the $11b Elon paid. I stand corrected.
Those sales were taxes as income, so he paid the full 37% income tax on it, not capital gains.
Wait, wait, wait. Reddit university of economics taught me that the rich never sell, and never make income. So either Elon is not rich to have paid 37% income tax, or Reddit university is a fraudulent university - not unlike Trump's University.
Maybe the problem is that people who have an extremely high net worth don't bring home enough taxable income to justify their extremely high net worth.
naw the issue is allowing high net worth individuals to take out loans on their unrealized assets with the intention of never realizing them until after they die and their tax step up basis nullifies all the gains that taxes would be due on. IDK heres an idea. If you have over 100mil in total assets and you use said assets as collateral for a loan you get taxed on the loan amount or something like this. Like lets close the current loopholes.
Congress will never close loopholes they and their benefactors benefit from. It's a nice sentiment, but it'll never happen.
a guy can dream
Yeah, we can dream Congress will impose term limits on themselves too. Both actions have about the same likelihood of happening.
We can dream they perform self immolation all together with SCOTUS
Last guy with a dream got shot :(
They’ve been well compensated to open them and keep them open.
Because people like you keep saying it will never happen, stop voting for politicians that will never let it happen
People always say this, and yet billionaires in fact do sell stock and realize gains, elons twitter post is case in point. And didn’t bezos just sell 5billion dollars worth of Amazon stock?
you are correct they both did these things. But AFAIK the above method is currently one of the best tax loopholes the ultra wealthy use to avoid paying taxes. If I become ultra weathy myself ill come back and describe in more detail about why people will sell and realize gains and why they will go about the loan route. LOL i don't pretend to fully understand it right now.
So they do realize gains before they die? Seems contradictory to your previous comment. And there are then taxes that apply to their estate after said death.
Hey I have a painting to sell you
What does that even mean? Why does net worth have to be justified by how much you pay in taxes?
Agreed. Nobody pays taxes based on their net worth.
Nope. My net worth is in my home and I pay 1.5% property tax every year. So, in 10 years I will pay roughly 15% tax on my net worth.
Property taxes are not a tax on assets or net worth. They are a fee for using the services provided to that location. Roads, schools, fire departments.
That’s every tax.
The point is nobody is taxed on their net worth. You pay that property tax for owning a property, you pay it regardless of whether or not your net worth is hugely positive because you own the home, or negative because you're underwater on the loan -- it's simply **not** a tax on net worth.
If there’s a floor on it at like 5 million or something, it makes a lot of sense. No man is worth or does anything worth that kind of money. Just because you can get it doesn’t mean you “earned” it. There is no positive value to be had for any individual to have a billion dollars. That we have allowed it to happen just shows how stupid humans are.
> If there’s a floor on it at like 5 million or something, it makes a lot of sense I just wish the people stupid enough to think a net worth tax would not be slowly ratcheted down wouldn't get to drag everyone else down with them lmao. Do you guys not realize the income tax was originally only for th richest people and it was just temporary "to fund the war effort"? Now you pay federal income tax starting basically at the poverty line.
You may be taxed based on your income. But what she said was “vying for sympathy”. He says he’s paying 11 billion in taxes on 90 billion of earnings, which leaves 79 billion left over, which is more than 1 million times the median American pre-tax income. He has a net worth of $238 billion. No sympathy here.
He also helped generate that much value. That's the incentive for entrepreneurs. If his companies fail workers lose their jobs and he loses his net worth. Shareholders votes for this compensation as well because he has all the responsibilities to make it happen and took all the risk to get it started. I trust him to spend and create value more than the US government.
I know musk was testing the collective iq. And it proved to show how dumb we are. It’s insane people are obsessed with more taxes in any form . No let’s not punish the guys creating jobs. The govt sucks with managing our money. We should always say no. We’re over taxed. I’d rather those billionaires spend their money not a bunch of politicians hiring contractors charging them 100X the price doing nothing and kicking money back. It’s insane people will never see a dime of the Rich’s taxes it’ll be flushed down the tube but they really want big daddy govt to punish the wealthy.
This is just supply side economics, a theory that has been thoroughly tested and emphatically shown to not be true, not that it was necessary as it ignores supply and demand—economics 101. These government waste posts were always so absolute, but somehow always include absolutely no data or examples of this waste.
I agree with you, but I have a whopper of government waste from Florida lol. The city decided to change its non main roads to 20 mph. They spent like 25 grand replacing all of the signs. Once it was all done, they got a call (or letter, idk) from the DMV. Turned out, you can't legally have a speed limit below 25 unless it's private property. So they had to re-replace all the signs. Fortunately, my dad didn't listen to them when they told him to dispose of the old signs or they would have needed to buy all new signs again (idk how much the signs were vs labor). So my dad grabbed the stache of the old ones to save the day. Still laugh about the fact nobody bothered to see if there was a reason nobody had 20mph anywhere.
Trickle down doesn’t work.
How fucking dumb do you have to be to give this guy so much credit? He was testing us! Our job creator is above us in every way! Don't look into his finances. In fact, let's give him even less oversight than the government!! Seriously. You guys are pathetic.
Because infact he's investing his money and creating jobs
Make it bracketed. First tier could be $2-5 million. That means if your net worth is under $2 million you pay nothing. Since the top 10% have over 80% of the wealth they could effectively supply all of the taxes. I’d say it starts at .5% and then goes to 10% at the top tier. Maybe the top tier starts at $100 million. Net worth of America is about $136T and about $5T tax revenue generated each year. My proposal would generate about $7T in tax revenue with zero coming from income.
And for how long will it generate $7T in tax revenue?
Honest question: What would happen to the average person’s 401k if the Top 10% had to sell that many $trillions worth of shares every year?
Considering 401k is heavily invested in corporations that hold said billionaires wealth, I would say middle class is going to be fucked over many times if this is implemented.
It’s a function of distribution. As long as the distribution of capital is so extreme in America it would continue indefinitely. If all of the wealth were evenly distributed then it would amount to much less than $2m per person and zero taxes would result so you’d have to adjust. But on the flip side if things get more and more extreme where fewer ppl have all the wealth then tax revenues would increase. The basic idea is taxes can be structured in a way to mitigate problems in wealth inequity if we wanted. It won’t happen but nice to think about.
So old people who saved a couple million to last 30 years in retirement should pay a wealth tax on money that they need to retire on. How about fuck off! I have 5 million net worth. I doubt it will last me 30 or 40 years. Go fucking pay more taxes if you want, but leave everyone else out of it.
Thank you 🤜🤛
How can you get taxed on stock you hold that you haven’t sold?
Ssssshhhh don't ask the silent part out loud!
It’s not silent, they’re openly calling for taxation of unrealized capital gains. What I haven’t seen, though, is what their plan is on unrealized capital *losses*.
Which people calling for that don’t realize it would more than likely be used on them also.
It is already used on your house or any other owned real estate, nothing new at all for the average person who already has most of their net worth tied up in housing.
I don't remember paying taxes when the bank loaned me money to buy my house
Except, as an average person, I feel there should be a law that forces the government to buy my house at the price they appraise it at. Too many people get screwed over because the government believes your property is worth 6 figures more than the going market rate.
There doesn't need to be a plan. The tax on unrealized gains is used as a credit. When you have unrealized losses, you pay nothing but also, if you've paid enough in unrealized tax then you also pay nothing when you sell.
In most proposals to tax unrealized gains, your unrealized losses can result in refunds. Which means that a hypothetical billionaire could pay a billion dollars in taxes on stock in 2024, then receive a billion dollar tax refund on the stock in 2025. Without selling or exchanging the stock. It might seem popular to make Elon Musk pay an extra $20 billion in taxes one year. But it'd be an embarrassing scandal if they issue a $20 billion tax refund to Elon Musk. But there definitely needs to be a detailed plan to do it in a reasonable way. Like how to handle illiquid assets, restricted assets, etc. If the rules are too simplistic, then the system will either be laughably easy for rich people to game or be brutally harsh in a way that looks unreasonable. The idea might seem easy in principle, but it's not so simple to design rules that are simultaneously enforceable, fair, and cost efficient.
Exactly. It's a rediculas proposal. Government wouldn't rely on this revenue source with fluctuating net worth all the time.
In Elon Musk's case (and other hyper wealthy), it's somewhat valid the criticism. They often borrow money using their stock as collateral, which isn't taxed. Because the collateral is considered safe (or liquid enough), they receive special interest rates, making the appreciation of the stock usually outweigh the interest. In other words, it's like selling stock with extra steps and no taxes. Musk was in panic mode a few months ago because if the board hadn't approved his compensation package at Tesla, almost all of "his" stocks, which are pawned at banks, would be at risk of being sold, due to Tesla's drop in value. There is a threshold where banks would eventually sell the pawned stock, creating a snowball effect with the stock lowering the price even further, leaving Musk with almost no Tesla stock. He was so desperate that he was accelerating to IPO SpaceX to get some quick cash.
So if someone were to use something like their house as collateral, should they be taxed for capital gains? Normal people do this all the time
I think it's not that black and white. A possible solution could be a progressive tax where amounts over $100 million are taxed as regular capital gains if a collateral it's being used. This approach would prevent overtaxing the already overburdened middle class while closing the loophole that allows the hyper-wealthy to avoid taxes on loans. For the wealthy, most of their income comes from these loans rather than capital gains or salaries, unlike most people.
Are these loans not paid back???
Yeah, but normal people don't have enough assets to live off of it for an entire lifetime
Right? These people are morons.
There's a lot of things that make sense until they're put into practice. In a class I took on ethics, they would talk about things that were wrong because there's no way to do them that doesn't end up evil. There's nothing wrong with them a priori, but the more you think about it, the more you realize they're only possible if someone gets hurt. There's nothing wrong with people borrowing money against assets. It's the way it's put into practice that makes it fucked up. They're not taking out a loan, they're starving the government of the taxes that keep elderly people alive (Medicare), protect us while we sleep (Defense) and fight wildfires before they burn people alive (USFS Fire crews). That is fucked up.
Well put.
Yup. It's why the mind fuck of MAGA is so confusing. Their favorite argument against taxing billionaires is claiming that the government is corrupt and functions with no checks or balances, so that money would disappear... ....Then they advocate to have the most corrupt and least functional government in my lifetime reinstated.
It is stupidity at their finest. The govt is corrupt. So let's give the people corrupting them more money in which to corrupt them.
Property taxes exist. They aren't generally based directly on the valuation of the home but there is a correlation with property value and property tax. The precedent basically exists already. Most folks are already paying tax on their biggest unrealized asset.
You pay "wealth tax" on your home every year already
Stop comparing the personal funds and property of a middle class person to the richest 5% in America. Its perfectly reasonable to say "apply this principle to him, but not to normal people".
No its not.
if you borrow and get taxed then you as normal people wont be able to get a mortgage or refinance your home.
That’s the problem with the fight for this net worth tax, I think a fight for the tax on money borrowed for people worth over a billion is more reasonable and realistic, Realistically even a billionaire couldn’t pay the taxes if it was based on there net worth
what do you mean, elon owns 20% of tesla shares, i think he could pay tax lmao
That would mean he has to sell the stocks to get the money to pay the taxes, it would make more sense to tax billionaires the money they borrows using the stock/assets as collateral
>They often borrow money using their stock as collateral, which isn't taxed. Because the collateral is considered safe (or liquid enough), they receive special interest rates, making the appreciation of the stock usually outweigh the interest. In other words, it's like selling stock with extra steps and no taxes. and thats a loophole that should be fixed, but its not a reason to start taxing unrealized gains, its a reason to stop loopholes.
Same way you can get taxed on your home you 'own.'
i can't decide if you are asking for more of this or not
They want to force you to sell some of them. That's the point.
Equity in your home is part of your net worth. 401k and IRA is part of your net worth. Cash in savings accounts is part of your net worth. If I got taxed even 3% of my net worth I would be fucked. And to anyone about to respond how this tax would only be on the ultra wealthy, yeah right. Ain’t no way a tax on net wealth is implemented and doesn’t fuck over the middle class. You’re delusional if you think otherwise.
FWIW, if you own a house, you are getting taxed on a portion of your net worth via property tax. I agree that it would fuck the middle class if implemented stupidly of course.
Any tax on assets would likely end up using a standard deduction to limit the scope of the tax - similar to income. If the tax is 3%, and the standard deduction is $30M, it would not impact 99% of us.
The same way I'm taxed on a house and a car that I'm not selling.
by forcing you to sell it. to yourself, if you want, but you'd still have to realize the gains.
In Biden's 2025 tax plan, he does just that. Basically forcing stockholders to sell assets to pay taxes on unrealised gains.
Good question that leads to the real glaring issue, which is the 20% cap on long term capital gains taxes. It's an affront to common sense and a crime against society that individuals can cash out billions of dollars of stock and pay less % in taxes than people barely scraping by pay on their income tax.
It’s really pretty easy.
Yeah. Its literally the same as property tax that homeowners have been paying for hundreds of years. Sure, grandma might have to sell her home that her family built generations ago. But you can't just make a shareholder sell their stocks to pay tax, that's like un-American.
You can take out a loan on it or sell it. There is no reason it should be any different to be paid in stock or money. I’m pretty sure I’m taxed on my compensation even if some of it is in a form of housing or some other benefit. In that situation I have to come up with cash to pay the taxes on the value of my housing. Why is that hard to understand? Why are so many of us hell bent on there being humans walking the earth with so much wealth they can decide to start their own space program. It’s stupid.
How can you get taxed on a home you hold that you have not sold?
Stocks are used as collateral for loans which acts as income to fund lifestyle and daily living expenses. Additionally there are company furnished benefits like permanent transportation, lodging, etc. If these were private party gifts you’d have to pay taxes on their value in many cases. We can not tax wealth and close loopholes at the same time. Otherwise I’ll ask my employer to pay me in stocks only and avoid taxes in the same way.
Which is the goal of Bidenomics. My question is always “does that mean you can write off unrealized losses?”
It's income of an asset. They can't just pay you in cars so you pay no tax ever. You pay tax on the income when you get the share, then on the capital gains once you sell.
How many fucking times do we need to see this? THIS WAS FROM 2021. Post something new, even if it’s some bullshit take atleast let it be new.
Even the comments are the same at this point. I’m with you. Post some damn bullshit.
But if we keep hating the rich we will never have to talk about how we couldn't tax them enough to cover the federal governments spending!
God I hate these posts. First “most” people don’t pay 10-37% of their income to federal taxes. 40% of Americans don’t pay federal taxes. Next the avg individual income in America is 59k, which as a single filer would put you at a 8.8% effective tax rate. I filed married and our household income is around 170k and our effective tax rate is around 12%. Taxing someone on their net-worth is silly. If you want to do something like a luxury tax, maybe that would make more sense. For example would an extra million on a boat, or private plane really stop someone from buying it.
They also never talk about the amount of taxes that business pays and allows employees to pay. People never understand and its routed in jealousy.
170k does not have an effective 12% tax (assuming you mean federal only)
In Nov 1991, congress enacted a luxury tax and Bush 41 signed it. It was a 10 percent luxury surcharge tax on boats over $100,000, cars over $30,000, aircraft over $250,000, and furs and jewelry over $10,000. It didn't raise tax revenue as expected and led to the loss of something like 20k+ jobs in the boating industry. In Aug 1993, it was eliminated by Clinton.
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You realize Biden isn’t in charge of the budget right? That’s Congress…….
Also, why tax the people who actually have ALL THE FUCKING MONEY in America, but whatevs. The poor are oppressing the rich again.
>Imagine adding investments to your retirement savings only for the government to take it out year by year? Imagine?
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Also I am 37 and pay in to social security every year fully expecting to not receive the benefits from it that the government promises (I realize that is not what you meant by retirement savings).
The "we can't tax billionaires because then they'll come for my $75k/year"'argument doesn't really make any sense. Also, you already have to pay taxes on your 401k when you withdraw money. And you have to pay taxes on capital gains when you sell stock. So your example of putting lint away only for the government to take it out is actually pretty standard.
lol yeah he’s the only one responsible. Are you that much of a pussy? Honestly answer the question
Your argument is almost as dumb as Anya’s.
Biden's? Don't you mean trump's mess? Trump ballooned the deficit with his tax cuts, like every republican before him.
Biden’s been in for 4 years and handed over nearly a quarter trillion dollars in assets to other countries. How is that good for the working class?
Are you referring to military equipment sent overseas? That stuff's manufactured in the US, by US workers, so... Replacing it is helping to create a domestic manufacturing boom (along with other policies like the Chips and Sciences Act), creating high paying jobs. Seems good, and all of Europe not being at war means they have more money to import American products. Also seems good.
Because it sure as fuck beats putting our own boots on the ground and it’s been incredibly effective, Oh and by the way all of those “assets” are American made by American workers collecting a paycheck.
Tell me in what world would the “working class” have gotten any benefit from if the money weren’t given away? This hurting the working class rhetoric and the “I suddenly care about the debt” patriots have no other thought on these hot topic issues past their first 3 poorly memorized sentences Also you’re either too ignorant to understand that it’s not even close to a quarter trillion **dollars** given away or you’re just lying
So you're a pro-Russian stooge? Got it. Kinda invalidates everything you say.
The deficit ballooned from covid relief that Congress passed to force business to close.
Uhhh yea, that's 3.6T of it. the other part of it is the 4.8T that he rolled in for a grand total of 8.4T added to the national debt under Drumpf's watch because of his idiotic tax cuts + policies Biden? Non covid debt: 2.2T. American rescue plan? 2.1T for a total of 4.3T. Who fucked us again on the national debt? His name is Trump, and the republicans. Like always. [https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt](https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt)
Lol ok buddy
Homie. It's not just Biden's debt. It's the combined governments debt that's just been going up and up no matter who.
We are taxed on everything Billionaires get breaks on everything they get taxed on
people are intentionally obtuse to justify their middle class life as luxury and I did it all myself There are tons of services we could offer (healthcare, mental institutions, better public transit, better funded IRS) that would involve spending money but wouldhave an incredible reward genius guys like the commenters above would rather the economy stagnate than follow common sense national policy if it helps low income /homeless /minorities
What are you talking about We all want universal healthcar Free education Yes, we can We will never get these things if the billionaire corporations don’t pay their part They do not pay enough employees to have a decent living Come on man
A relevant fact here: Billionaires only become billionaires by taking more than their share from their employees, suppliers, companies they invest in and so on. By doing so they lower everyone's incomes, which in turn lowers everyone's income tax, which in turn then lowers the government budget. Not only are billionaires not paying their share, they also take from everyone else's shares.
Elon pays more tax in ONE YEAR than any of you will ever make in your lifetime and people still want to bitch about it.... WHY GIVE THE GOVERNMENT ANY MORE MONEY? ALL THEY DO IS WASTEFUL SPENDING!
Elon makes more in an hour then people who work hard over their entire lifetimes. Balance the budget like Clinton did and try not to start a 20 year war over.family drama, invade a country over lies, and let self regulation crash the economy. But what do I know, I only lived through it. Go Vote
> Balance the budget like Clinton Clinton's congress, which was Republican controlled. This balance was almost accidental, but of course they take credit afterwards.
Yeah a lot of us lived through it. Clinton balanced the budget because he was forced to work with Newt Gingrich who wanted to put in a spending cap. Almost succeeded too.
Here's the thing... We also want spending to be fixed. For example, the 2.8 Billion Tesla got in subsidies...
you understand the purpise of subsidies and tax breaks right? if the gov't thinks you can be super successful, they'll cut you a break upfront.....with the hope you create tons of jobs and grow the USA GDP. Then all those people and parts and growth are taxed.....and they'll get the political biz win and get a new tax base year over year. Tesla or anyone else isn't just given billions with no strings attached same with 'tax payer funded' sports stadiums.
Tesla was founded in 2003. It's had 20 years. Is it not a successful company yet that still needs government crutches? Wal-Mart gets 6.2 Billion, teaches employees how to file for food stamps. Stadiums generating money has been debunked. Same people, same area, same spending, It only concentrates it. Once you add in the tax breaks the stadium gets for a few years, it becomes a net loss.
and yet he makes more than any one of us will make in 10 or more years alone, quit suckin that boot leather
You don't understand your own metaphor.
What a tired argument already...
As someone who is in no way an expert in finance: would it make more sense to add a tax for when people trade assets or use them as collateral? Say if when Elon put stock in tesla up as collateral for the massive loan to buy twitter, he was taxed on the portion of stock he used as collateral as he would then pay taxes on the value of the shares that he put up as collateral. Essentially, once they use it as a currency or something of value, they get taxed on the value at that time. What are the pros/cons of something like this? Edit: Thanks for all the comments on the pros/cons of a system like this, I appreciate the help understanding it!
This is a good idea. Like a sales tax on the transactions themselves.
Collateral is not trading, there's no transaction. It's like a pending transaction if things go to shit. It's an insurance policy. If things go to shit and they have to cover the costs, I think Elon would have to sell the assets, get taxed, then pay off his debts. Or companies take the assets, sell them (get taxed) and use the money on new assets. You get taxed if you sell assets for new assets as far as I'm aware. I'm not sure there's a "trading assets" as you called it without a middle transaction of buy/sell. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. You make a point though, maybe just stop allowing people to use collateral for buying out businesses? Pay taxes on debt paid? If it doesn't already. I know us regular folks use after tax income to pay our debt, besides student loans that is. I hope the rich don't have some workaround for paying their debt tax free.
Then we would have to pay tax on home, car or student loans. All are the exchange of collateral to purchase something.
What a dumb ass question.
How?? How would you list your net worth on a tax return???
No. No one should pay on net worth.
Just because the number is big to us normies doesn't mean it's big enough to have any effects on the wealthy. A $10,000 gag order breach would cripple my household but Trump racked up more than a dozen because that's like a dollar to him.
Eeehhhhhh, kind of. Trumps actual wealth is the problem. He’s been defrauding some many systems that his actual wealth isn’t really known, probably even to him. He’s got an Amex so his bills get paid and somehow there’s always enough to keep the ball moving, but we know that he doesn’t have the liquid wealth to cover his legal expenses at the moment. $10,000 is like a dollar to him not because he is wealthy but because he’s so removed from the reality of money having value. It’s all literally paper to him.
Funny people complain the wealthiest don't pay enough. Wouldn't it be better to complain that middle class pay too much?
Why not both?
Exactly, one is a direct cause of the other.
such ignorance, yet it won't go away
Bro, I make 139K a year but my net worth is 500K. Yah tax me on my net worth. Send me to prison.
No. BUT they should pay taxes in some way on utilizing their vast fortunes as collateral to secure massive loans at low interest rates, while their fortunes appreciate at a higher rate than said loans, thus allowing them to profit off of just existing and living/paying bills.
I think this is a complicated issue. Because I firmly believe as a business or business person it is your job to save as much money as possible. So I understand the motive. I just don’t understand what changes between 1 billion and 10 billion? Does your life change at all? I’m speaking for myself but my ultimate goal is to be wealthy enough I can support the science and other things that interest me. I’d have people doing research all over the world. I’d be funding physics departments in ways that bring the smartest people back from finance. I’d be pouring money into the schools and institutions in the places that I grew up.
I don’t think it matters in the least what changes, it’s still their money and they can do whatever they want with it. I have no right to anything that any billionaire owns and he doesn’t have a right to anything I own unless I wanted to sell it to him.
I am all for anyone giving the government as little as possible. If the government really was efficient at using tax dollars, people would be donating more than required to the government.
Or maybe everyone only pays 5% tax and we stop sending billions to Ukraine.
No. That would be no different than adding up a homeless persons "wealth" and the gov't taking a percentage of it. The US gov't has a spending problem. The fact that Elon Musk's entire wealth would only sustain the cash burning machine for about a week that it the US gov't is enough proof of that.
Anya is an idiot ideologue socialist. What has she produced for society? Who will society remember?
Wait, are people pushing for taxing *net worth* like income now??
Idiots are, yeah.
Did she use the right term, or just gaff? Is it 4.5% of his net worth, or his profits and income? Should you be taxed on net worth? Probably not. Should you be taxed heavier than the poor and middle class on your income and profits? Probably so.
I guess people who think like this don't understand that you have to liquidate stocks in order to buy stuff with your theoretical wealth, and that you get taxed on all the profit you made on those stocks when you liquidate them.
>I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year but like the year before this one, next year I'll pay none since I'll hide it as unrealized gains -- living off low interest loans I got using these unrealized gains as leverage.
iRS most valuable customer.
Pay your fair share of Saudi Arabia's bombardment of Yemen. Daddy gov needs his money.
No most people pay nothing
I think there is some sense in taxing cash that is stored in a way that isn’t really cycling through the economy, but what money is and isn’t stagnant is debatable, like is the money a bank is very conservatively ( assumedly) investing from your checking; or like properties that have projected that’s won’t do anything for years. But I see no viable reason to tax a person’s entire net worth, it’s not just silly it could actually really hurt people trying to say start businesses or just start there own lives, cause if you save up for a big purchase it would really suck to pay tax paying tax on your capital, then more so the entire time you are just trying to straighten things up, though I know crap all about finance, I’ve been saving for a house for 6-7 years now, and am not sure if this would hurt more before, after or the throughout the entire process of buying a house but I’d probably be arguing to depreciate my house real quick even before taxes over-evaluate it. And doesn’t that make the idea of buying your own home more fun.
You know crap all about finance but wade into the conversation with an asinine take. Well done...
This again? This woman is an idiot.
No because then it opens the door for the government to charge everyone a tax based on net worth, just like how when the 16th Amendment was passed to open the door to tax the income of the rich it also opened the door to tax people making minimum wage. If anyone tells you something will never happen, remind them how often governments willingly roll back policies without a revolution.
Net worth and tax on annual income is not quite the same.
If your income comes from stock collateralized loans, those loans should be taxed as income.
If I'm paying 22%, they should pay 22%... I don't give a shit if that's $11 billion, or $100 billion... If that's 22% of your income, you assuredly aren't missing any fucking meals.
Yes, there should be a wealth tax, but comparing that directly to an income tax bill isn't particularly useful.
This is 3 yrs old. My question is, did he?
I think if you tax the billionaires on their net worth it will trickle down to the millionaires, then hundred thousandaires, then the average man. It’s a slippery slope
How would they pay those taxes? Taking out loans against their assets wouldn't really help them since they'll just have to pay taxes on those same assets the following years. The idea is probably to force them to sell off those assets thereby reducing their net worth and making people happy. Of course, that sell off will tank whatever company's stocks are getting dumped since those shares will not hold value. This will of course make people happier as those ultra wealthy see their net worth tank even farther. Then again, those same people will be bitching up a storm when their 401k drops into the crapper, but hey, at least those ultra wealthy jerks are poorer now.
The people complaining here are basically that 400k meme None of you will ever pay this tax,, but you keep on seeing yourself as a temporarily broke billionaire
anya overman is an idiot
Who the fuck is paying taxes based on their net worth?