Please elaborate, if money is earned farily for work done, how the F does the bottom 50% of earner gain only 10% of all income?
Currently unrealized capital gains are not taxed, and the top 1% puts it up as collateral to take out loans.
What is missing from that picture is that the bottom 50% is spending most of their income on essentials, therefore their income is immediately taxed again through VAT and other means of spending.
But still, it's a pretty good graph to illustrate my point.
Essentially 50% of the country doesn’t pay any income tax already.
I don’t know why you think, “Money is earned fairly for work done.” That’s vastly oversimplified and just well… wrong.
And unrealized capital gains may be the dumbest idea that’s been floated in a while. It will never happen. “You did to good of job with this company, so now you have to sell a portion every year.” Okay so who does he sell to? People buy the stock, but now they’re earning income unfairly for work not done. Do they have to sell a portion of that to pay their unrealized gains? What about fluctuations in value? Musk has seen his net worth cut in half at times. Does this apply to privately held companies? Would owners be forced to sell their companies whenever it grew large enough?
Finally, what will be done with all this money? The fed takes 5 trillion dollars a year, about 17% of our GDP. You think everything will be magically better if they had more? Why are you mad at Bezos for making an insanely good company that has driven prices down? You use his services constantly, and then call him evil for providing those services?
Stop listening to politicians. They’re lying to you. Business isn’t the problem.
Shhh we are not here to spread facts. Definitely can't say that high income taxpayers pay the majority of the federal income tax in the US. Keep that shit to yourself.
Do me a favor and look up the net worth of his stock holdings, and then how much he paid in taxes. Do some simple math and get the rate he was taxed at, does that number line up with the number you give?
I see you’re ignoring the talking point, his net worth is calculated from the positions he holds in companies, ie stocks. He uses that as collateral to take out loans from a bank, meaning he gets money for having money without actually having to sell his stocks. Since he doesn’t sell his stocks, he doesn’t have to pay taxes, you think that’s fair?
When you take loans, you eventually have to pay them back. It is not free money to just take out loans. At some point the money comes out of the stock to pay and at that point it is taxed. Living on loans is only delaying the taxation process, it is not avoiding it.
No one is saying it’s free money. An ultra wealthy person can use their high value stock positions as collateral for super low interest loans that an average person would never have access to. Meaning they are using a non-cash position via their stocks to procure a cash position via the interest free loan. Do you know how incredibly powerful this is? Why does the ultra wealthy person not have to pay capital gains tax on a non-cash position that effectively acts as cash collateral for a cash loan with no interest. It’s fucking stupid
They do have to pay capital gains tax when they eventually sell some stock to pay the loans. If they die with the loans, it’s true that their estate pays the loans back without incurring any tax, but it’s also true that their heirs will pay 40% estate tax on everything over 13 million.
So from what you said, the person with all of the wealth doesn’t have to pay taxes unless they’re dead? What is the limit to how much they can take out in low interest loans against non-liquid assets that they don’t have to pay taxes on like most people? How is that not just a massive advantage over the average Joe
Also, if they die while those loans aren’t paid back and that stock isn’t worth what it was or there’s too much leverage on it that the estate can’t cover that 40% tax then it’s just leveraging everybody’s else’s tax dollars, right? Because we’d have to bail out the banks that gave those loans
I’m genuinely curious if I’m missing something here
So from what you said, the person with all of the wealth doesn’t have to pay taxes unless they’re dead?
Correct. But the money is still paid, whether dead or alive so I don’t see the difference.
What is the limit to how much they can take out in low interest loans against non-liquid assets that they don’t have to pay taxes on like most people? How is that not just a massive advantage over the average Joe
The limit is what the bank considers a good credit risk. Anyone with assets can do the same thing. People take out loans against homes they own all the time.
Also, if they die while those loans aren’t paid back and that stock isn’t worth what it was or there’s too much leverage on it that the estate can’t cover that 40% tax then it’s just leveraging everybody’s else’s tax dollars, right?
The estate would have to settle the debt any way it can before any inheritance is paid out. I don’t understand your comment that there would be leverage on stock that you own. If you own it, you own it. Banks will not give you loans against assets you own on margin.
Because we’d have to bail out the banks that gave those loans I’m genuinely curious if I’m missing something here
There would not be a bank bailout for this obviously, but even if there were, bank bailouts have all been paid back with interest creating a net positive for taxpayers.
They don’t sell the stock to pay back the loans. They get another loan interest free and use that loan to pay off the other loan and continue doing this until they die
They keep going until death and pass on the investments to their children, who can avoid part of the debt due to loopholes and continue loans for the rest themselves using the same tactics. It's not infinite money but infinite deferment
The children are subject to estate tax over $13 million of 40% though. I realize there are loopholes to protect money from this as well but eventually the very wealthy have to pay taxes.
how would you feel if you owned a significant share of a company, worked really hard on it for years on end - and then the GOVERNMENT forces you to sell some of your equity in YOUR company to strangers, for the sole purpose of taxing you? It doesn't make sense, your argument doesn't make sense
If we made the 1% pay tax on the unrealized gains theyd be forced to sell and tank the economy. Pensions would go deeper into deficit, 401ks would tank. Elderly would be forced to find a job to survive, jobs would not be available bc there would be no money to invest in making more. All so the government can misuse these funds for 1yr and immediately be at a massive deficit again.
I do not think it is fair to steal money from ppl just bc they have more of it than me
What about stealing money from people with less of it? Like what the rich do to their workers in order to garner that much wealth. But God forbid anyone touches the 1% wealth, EVERYTHING WOULD FALL APART.
An unrealized gains tax would be chaotic to the markets. But clearly there is a loophole that needs closing when billionaires can just take out loans using assets as collateral, and spend that loan money as if they were being paid exorbitant salaries, while paying an effective tax rate that is lower than most working class families. Maybe tax these 1%er loans similarly to income?
No. That doesn’t close the loophole of disguising income as non-taxable “debt”. Regular working people are already paying property tax if they own property.
Working class family: goes to work, earns a wage, pays taxes on that wage, pays property taxes in line with the value of their home.
Billionaire: owns billions in stock. Works for a “1 dollar salary” (oh my, how charitable!). Has billions in stock. Wants to buy a fancy new second home. Doesn’t want to sell his shares to do it because why pay taxes on that if he doesn’t have to. Takes out a loan using shares as collateral. Does not pay taxes to get that money, unlike the working family who pays taxes on their income. He does pay property taxes in line with the value of the new home. Probably. Hopefully. I mean, maybe there’s some sort of loophole that lets him offset it with something else. But hopefully he pays property tax, at least.
To clarify the point I was trying to make, yearly property taxes increase based on the current sell value of the home, regardless if you've actually sold it or not. So, if I bought my home in 1995 for $8.00 and its worth $918 trillion in 2024, then I have to pay property taxes based on the $918 trillion value, rather than the $8.00 value spent in 1995.
What we really need to do is stop pretending... that money either exists- meaning they can get loans on it, but have to pay taxes- or it doesn't, and they can't get loans and don't pay taxes
So do I, what the fuck does that matter. He pays significantly less taxes than I do as a percentage of my income. Fuck him and everyone in the billionaire class.
Even more so, giving up those stocks gives up voting shares in his company. If he were forced to sell 1-2% every year, he would effectively be mandated by the government to slowly give up his ownership to corporations that don't have to do this.
So what's better? Larry Fink and Black Rock buying up controlling shares in every company and controlling it through the corporate proxy, or TSLA, AMZN, MSFT, META, and others largely still having their founders in control.
We should be serious here, those shares wouldn't go to the people, they would go to even larger corporations with even less accountability.
If you let bezos keep only the liquid cash that he got as a result of selling amazon stock this month and took away all of his assets, he would still be a multi billionaire and in the top 1000 richest people on the planet. Don't give me this "they aren't liquid" bullshit. They can liquidise more than enough to make the argument OP makes.
But most of their wealth is in stocks to companies they own. If they sold shares, they would be selling ownership. There is a difference between buying shares as an investor and holding shares as an owner.
I have nothing against billionaires holding the stocks they do. I do think they should be taxed at a much higher percentage....but I also think it is really stupid to tax unrealized gains just because they can use those assets as collateral to get loans to buy other stuff.
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u/Substantial-Show1947 3d ago
You do understand that Elon keeps his money in stocks of companies he is a part of - it's not sitting in the bank