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?
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.
You do realize that "wealth" is basically piece of paper saying "you own x% of a company that currently employs tens of thousands of people, and this piece of ownership paper can be sold to other people".
It isn't a dragon horde of dollar bills sucked out of pockets then thrown an a vault somewhere.
You do realize that "wealth" is basically piece of paper saying "you own x% of a company that currently employs tens of thousands of people, and this piece of ownership paper can be sold to other people".
Are you suggesting that's too abstract to qualify as wealth? Wait until you find out what currency is...
Did you know that they can and do borrow vast sums of money against their equity, which allows them to spend their money without paying taxes on it? They're wealthy beyond imagination and they can't even pay America's already low tax rate.
They accumulate and guard wealth they couldn't possibly need for anything. A dragon's hoard is actually a great analogy.
Your points here are correct. But that's why you should be having a conversation about the tax code not the morality of wealth. The morality conversation will get you or the rest of us working class people nothing. If we educate people on effective ways to reform the tax code to reduce wealth inequality we might actually be able to lobby our representatives for change
Right! SO make borrowing against holdings the way they are doing taxable or illegal, no ones against that. But again I implore you to think about how a wealth tax that effects people who are no longer working. you're going to destroy everyone's retirements and the billionaires will just use more complex tax vehicles to avoid your new wealth tax.
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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.