We're doing the tax thing again....

[Trunkage]

So, not suprising anyone

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.

www.propublica.org

The big take away... the top 25 billionaires with almost 2 trillion dollars combined paid a total of 2 billion in income taxes. COMBINED

While the average slub, whose combined wealth is now where near a trillion, paid over $140 billion in taxes

So... They're definitely paying their fair share

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Jeff Bezos got a $4000 child tax credit. Oh my god.

What kind of absolute asshole do you have to be to make 10s of millions of dollars and decide "due to math, I deserve $4000 in taxes back"

 

[Thaluikhain]

Jeff Bezos got a $4000 child tax credit. Oh my god.

What kind of absolute asshole do you have to be to make 10s of millions of dollars and decide "due to math, I deserve $4000 in taxes back"

Got to wonder if he knows about that. I mean, in the time it'd take to tell some underling to get him that $4000, how much undeserved money would he be raking in anyway?

 

[Cheetodust]

Only good billionaire is a dead one.

 

[tstorm823]

So, not suprising anyone

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.

www.propublica.org

The big take away... the top 25 billionaires with almost 2 trillion dollars combined paid a total of 2 billion in income taxes. COMBINED

While the average slub, whose combined wealth is now where near a trillion, paid over $140 billion in taxes

So... They're definitely paying their fair share

a) These people are mostly rich based on the assessed value of their business. It's not 2 trillion dollars in liquid assets, it's mostly value they can't convert to money, making the wealth assessment nearly meaningless. Articles like this exist only to piss people off, it's not an honest assessment.
b) The billionaires don't have billion dollar incomes as defined. Their income that they pay taxes on is the tiniest fraction of their real income. If you want to complain about capital gains taxes, that's totally fair, but we'd need an assessment that includes capital gains taxes to consider that case. Pro Publica here are just being douchebags:

Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell...
We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period...
The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.

They know what they're doing. They say it to your face: the wealth statistics we're using aren't taxed through federal income taxes... so now we're going to compare those two numbers that we already told you are almost entirely unrelated.

Now, tell me how much they're paying in capital gains, property taxes, sales taxes, etc, and we can begin to do a real assessment. I think it would still seem somewhat unfair to the benefit of the rich if we were to take all forms of taxation into account, and it is rather silly to have a really progressive income tax system and then define the richest people's stock profits as something different than income (provided they own it for a certain amount of time before selling), but this is not that assessment. This piece isn't trying to do a fair analysis of the rate of taxation on individuals. This piece is only meant to piss people off because it gets them clicks.

 

[bluegate]

a) These people are mostly rich based on the assessed value of their business. It's not 2 trillion dollars in liquid assets, it's mostly value they can't convert to money, making the wealth assessment nearly meaningless. Articles like this exist only to piss people off, it's not an honest assessment.

Would be sweet if this stopped property tax from being a thing.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Really hoping this hits home for enough people this time around instead of everyone getting distracted by the next load of trivial bullshit like how the panama papers leak just disappeared under a tide of insidious fuckery.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Really hoping this hits home for enough people this time around instead of everyone getting distracted by the next load of trivial bullshit like how the panama papers leak just disappeared under a tide of insidious fuckery.

I hope you're not hoping too hard, because you are, no doubt, going to be disappointed.

 

[Agema]

a) These people are mostly rich based on the assessed value of their business. It's not 2 trillion dollars in liquid assets, it's mostly value they can't convert to money, making the wealth assessment nearly meaningless. Articles like this exist only to piss people off, it's not an honest assessment.

It's not a dishonest assessment, either.

Jeff Bezos really is tens of billions of dollars richer and has paid (proportionally) virtually fuck all tax. That is an entirely valid perspective on the matter.

And whilst I'm well aware of the fact he can be taxed on capital gains eventually if he sells up (blah blah blah) I'm also highly aware this is so riddled with loopholes that the practical reality is that these gains, or a large part of them, potentially will never be taxed. Or at least, not directly. It is flagrantly outrageous for the richest to go effectively untaxed whilst the likes of you and I get clobbered for 20, 30% or whatever.

If we didn't quite twig onto this, we can of course also consider inheritance tax or whatever it's called in the USA for which the limit goes up, and up, and up just to make sure that the rich are as blissfully untroubled in their ability to hand vast wealth to someone else as possible, and which the Republicans are agitating to erase in its entirety. Less government revenue that has to be made up by public service cuts (which poor-middle rely on more) or tax increases (for the poor and middle).

Much of this can be done via financial trusts. Under the hood of the US economy, US states have been busy trying to outdo each other deregulating the crap out of trusts in a massive rush to become the places where the global rich stash their money. What it means that this money starts to become untouchable - by legal proceedings (lawsuits, divorce)... and a lot of tax. Funny thing, a major part of the UK breaking the dominance of the aristocracy a few hundred years ago was shackling what could be done with trusts, because the aristocracy used them heavily to protect their interests. It says a lot about where we're going that they are being vigorously unshackled in many jurisdictions.

 

[stroopwafel]

It's not a dishonest assessment, either.

Jeff Bezos really is tens of billions of dollars richer and has paid (proportionally) virtually fuck all tax. That is an entirely valid perspective on the matter.

And whilst I'm well aware of the fact he can be taxed on capital gains eventually if he sells up (blah blah blah) I'm also highly aware this is so riddled with loopholes that the practical reality is that these gains, or a large part of them, potentially will never be taxed. Or at least, not directly. It is flagrantly outrageous for the richest to go effectively untaxed whilst the likes of you and I get clobbered for 20, 30% or whatever.

If we didn't quite twig onto this, we can of course also consider inheritance tax or whatever it's called in the USA for which the limit goes up, and up, and up just to make sure that the rich are as blissfully untroubled in their ability to hand vast wealth to someone else as possible, and which the Republicans are agitating to erase in its entirety. Less government revenue that has to be made up by public service cuts (which poor-middle rely on more) or tax increases (for the poor and middle).

Much of this can be done via financial trusts. Under the hood of the US economy, US states have been busy trying to outdo each other deregulating the crap out of trusts in a massive rush to become the places where the global rich stash their money. What it means that this money starts to become untouchable - by legal proceedings (lawsuits, divorce)... and a lot of tax. Funny thing, a major part of the UK breaking the dominance of the aristocracy a few hundred years ago was shackling what could be done with trusts, because the aristocracy used them heavily to protect their interests. It says a lot about where we're going that they are being vigorously unshackled in many jurisdictions.

How many people can say they are going to space in their own rocket?

Jeff Bezos will fly to the edge of space with his brother next month

Bezos Bros in space

www.theverge.com

to make sure that the rich are as blissfully untroubled in their ability to hand vast wealth to someone else as

Not just ''someone else'', their children. What else is Junior going to do? Get a job?

 

[Trunkage]

a) These people are mostly rich based on the assessed value of their business. It's not 2 trillion dollars in liquid assets, it's mostly value they can't convert to money, making the wealth assessment nearly meaningless. Articles like this exist only to piss people off, it's not an honest assessment.
b) The billionaires don't have billion dollar incomes as defined. Their income that they pay taxes on is the tiniest fraction of their real income. If you want to complain about capital gains taxes, that's totally fair, but we'd need an assessment that includes capital gains taxes to consider that case. Pro Publica here are just being douchebags:

They know what they're doing. They say it to your face: the wealth statistics we're using aren't taxed through federal income taxes... so now we're going to compare those two numbers that we already told you are almost entirely unrelated.

Now, tell me how much they're paying in capital gains, property taxes, sales taxes, etc, and we can begin to do a real assessment. I think it would still seem somewhat unfair to the benefit of the rich if we were to take all forms of taxation into account, and it is rather silly to have a really progressive income tax system and then define the richest people's stock profits as something different than income (provided they own it for a certain amount of time before selling), but this is not that assessment. This piece isn't trying to do a fair analysis of the rate of taxation on individuals. This piece is only meant to piss people off because it gets them clicks.

So, you're cranky that these journalist don't report on things that they cant get access to?

 

[Agema]

How many people can say they are going to space in their own rocket?

No idea, but something makes me feel each and every one is in some way kind of a twat. I kind of understand the twattiness of it all, mind, as if I had that kind of money I might gift myself a orbital trip too. But this little mini space race is really about Tech Bro Egos. It's the new "must have" for any aspiring tech billionaire.

Not just ''someone else'', their children. What else is Junior going to do? Get a job?

Well, I'm open to the possibility it goes to nieces, nephews, "pool boys", etc. as well.

But junior will have already benefitted from a superbly expensive education, their pick of university (admission lubricated with donations if grades were mediocre), and a whole host of business opportunities opened up by people who really just want the cachet of access to dad, or that of course there's easy money available on the celeb circuit, given that "celebrity" is such an extraordinarily broad thing these days that you can pick up millions basically just for happening to have the right relative.

Let's not be too prejudicial. Some of them no doubt will convert into wastrels, fuck ups and so on who would be thoroughly stuffed if they didn't have mum and dad's dosh to fall back on. But I see no compelling reason they should be insulated from skid row when the rest of us plebs end up with social housing in a ghetto and food stamps for the same.

 

[Seanchaidh]

 

[Baffle]

How many people can say they are going to space in their own rocket?

I'd make them all go in a Musk rocket, because they're shit and they blow up.

 

[Seanchaidh]

a) These people are mostly rich based on the assessed value of their business. It's not 2 trillion dollars in liquid assets, it's mostly value they can't convert to money,

Have you heard of the concept of buying and selling?

Sure, they might get somewhat less if they just dumped all their stocks all at the same time. Though that would arguably contradict the efficient market hypothesis... EMH is dumb.

In any case, they have so much that you need to ask the question why would they ever do that? Bezos farts on 100 million dollars, it's practically nothing to him. And what is he going to buy for more than that other than stocks? You'd have a better case arguing that they have no way to really spend their money on tangible goods and useful services-- it wouldn't be a very good point, but it'd not be as dumb as a whine about their valuable (and evaluated) claims to the profits produced by others not also being legal tender.

 

[SilentPony]

I mean I hate to be that guy, but the rich haven't paid taxes in like...ever. Like the French Revolution and the third estate? Roman colonies vs the nobility? That whole thing with the wealthy paying 90% during WW2 was a fluke.

 

[09philj]

It's not a dishonest assessment, either.

Jeff Bezos really is tens of billions of dollars richer and has paid (proportionally) virtually fuck all tax. That is an entirely valid perspective on the matter.

And whilst I'm well aware of the fact he can be taxed on capital gains eventually if he sells up (blah blah blah) I'm also highly aware this is so riddled with loopholes that the practical reality is that these gains, or a large part of them, potentially will never be taxed. Or at least, not directly. It is flagrantly outrageous for the richest to go effectively untaxed whilst the likes of you and I get clobbered for 20, 30% or whatever.

Long term capital gains tax (The tax paid on assets held for more than one financial year) is also much lower than income tax.

 

[stroopwafel]

So, not suprising anyone

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.

www.propublica.org

The big take away... the top 25 billionaires with almost 2 trillion dollars combined paid a total of 2 billion in income taxes. COMBINED

While the average slub, whose combined wealth is now where near a trillion, paid over $140 billion in taxes

So... They're definitely paying their fair share

Very interesting read. I guess the question is can unrealized gains really be taxed as wealth? It's pretty much speculative value that serves to earn investors trust. That billionaires get to game the system by borrowing against their stock isn't without fault of the central banks who flood the financial markets with 'free' money and suppress the interest rates. The covid crisis have proven that theory; the central banks have opened the money presses yet the only ones who are profiting are billionaires and the stock/financial market. I think it's actually a snowball effect; billionaires hold on to their inflated stock so they get richer and richer(atleast on paper) while credit lines are free inflating the stock prices even further. At what point is the unrealized gains 'wealth' and at what point is it simply inflation? Another adverse effect would be if billionaires' unrealized gains are taxed that they would dump their stock and plummet the stock price so other investors(including pension, insurance and mortgage funds) would take massive losses on their portfolios with mostly middle income clients.

Unrealized gains are so embedded into the financial system that they would need to be untangled first before they could even be taxed. Indirectly their massive wealth also facilitates inflated stock prices, 'free' debt, housing bubbles and investors trust so I think ultimately much more people simply profit from the status-quo than just the handful of billionaires. Governments need the cheap credit to keep the state deficits manageable so what are they going to do.

It's unfair but at this point the government(any government) have dug themselves so deep in the hole that they would be the last to advocate a tax on unrealized gains. The system is just completely stuck at this point. There would need to be some giant breakthrough in robotics/A.I. to move past it. Anything really that breaks the monopoly of financial wealth.

 

[tstorm823]

So, you're cranky that these journalist don't report on things that they cant get access to?

No, I'm cranky that these journalists don't report honestly. "The income taxes that we can access for these people is this low, and the rest of their taxes are hidden in a mire of nonsense policies full of loopholes" is perfectly valid. They chose instead to give "federal income taxes/wealth" the title "true tax rate", which is just nonsense.

It's not a dishonest assessment, either.

It is. It is a dishonest assessment. They're putting numbers together that have nearly no relation to each other, and declaring it meaningful data. It obfuscates the truth in a really, really unhelpful way, and is 100% dishonest.

 

[Agema]

It is. It is a dishonest assessment. They're putting numbers together that have nearly no relation to each other, and declaring it meaningful data. It obfuscates the truth in a really, really unhelpful way, and is 100% dishonest.

Wrong.

They're putting the numbers together in a way that doesn't make sense in terms of the current tax system. But if the point of the article is to argue that the current tax system needs to change because of the truly stupendous amounts of wealth people are amassing whilst incurring barely taxes, they're justified in doing so.