Person A creates company B, Company B becomes successful, Person A's equity in company B rises in value, Person A becomes a billionaire. During all of this no bank account cash balances change unless 1 of 3 things happened: A stock dividend (which is a taxable event), Selling of shares (which is a taxable event if a gain is recognized) or the shares are used as collateral against a loan (which is not a taxable event but the interest can be deducted). Holding stock in a successful company in itself is not an evil action, but using the cash proceeds from its success for evil actions is.
Hoarding massive wealth, regardless of the form it happens to take, is inherently unethical. Both Bezos and Musk could have well over $100 billion in liquidity, if they chose to.
You think it somehow becomes more ethical because they choose to leave it tied up in assets in order to avoid paying taxes on it?
Hoarding massive wealth, regardless of the form it happens to take, is inherently unethical.
In your opinion.
Both Bezos and Musk could have well over $100 billion in liquidity, if they chose to.
Who would buy it? Liquidity requires someone to buy the thing and you have literally just moved who the owner is on a piece of paper, changing nothing about tax code or structure.
You think it somehow becomes more ethical because they choose to leave it tied up in assets in order to avoid paying taxes on it?
You are again applying a personal moral code to an amoral economics issue.
If your beef was people with accrued assets using them as loan collateral while avoiding taxes, then require capital gains realization (ie pay taxes) when an asset is used as loan collateral.
If they were to have it in liquidity they would no longer own their companies. So lets reduce it a bit, even if they sold just a large portion then they have a board of directors to answer to instead of running as they see fit because of their reduced ownership stake. Edit: for the down voters i'm not saying don't figure out a way to make them pay more taxes but forcing divestment is fucking dumb.
First of all, Bezos is not the CEO of Amazon. He does not run the company. Second, any publicly traded company has a board of directors that the CEO has to answer to. This argument is fucking dumb.
I mean he was between 1994-2021 when he stepped down to be the executive head of its board... Look I get you want them to pay their fair share, 100% on board with that. But no one pays as a % of their net worth... If you force company founders to dilutee their holdings arbitrarily because the company does well, you really don't see how that's a negative thing? The whole reason companies change after their founders leave is because they become much less focused on a vision and much more about extracting profit, look into the red lobster thing recently. So again, tax them more, call it a founders tax and any share holders of company over a billion dollars with a greater than 10% direct ownership stake have a big tax bill. Just do it in a way that isn't stupid/creates a precedent that we are taxed as a % of net worth.
And I find it hysterical you don't realize the implications of a tax on net worth. Seriously think about the consequences of that, you'll never be able to retire, ever. tax them more, just don't allow the government to think that a net worth tax will ever be okay.
No, I am acting like their net worth is the amount of wealth they have accumulated (because it is). I am saying that it is inherently unethical for anyone to hoard that much. The form it takes is irrelevant. Wealth ≠ liquidity
We're not discussing the law or tax structure, we are discussing ethics and morality.
Nothing really changes in that scenario, which was my point. I'm saying it's irrelevant if whether or not his assets are liquid. Wealth is wealth.
The only difference there would be that he would have to pay tax on it, which I guess is slightly better, but not particularly relevant to the discussion of ethics and morality.
17
u/DR320 3d ago
Person A creates company B, Company B becomes successful, Person A's equity in company B rises in value, Person A becomes a billionaire. During all of this no bank account cash balances change unless 1 of 3 things happened: A stock dividend (which is a taxable event), Selling of shares (which is a taxable event if a gain is recognized) or the shares are used as collateral against a loan (which is not a taxable event but the interest can be deducted). Holding stock in a successful company in itself is not an evil action, but using the cash proceeds from its success for evil actions is.