1438
Did you pay your taxes? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works
116 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Related: Robert Reich posted earlier today that Tesla paid ZERO taxes on $5 billion in sales (earnings?), so that’s just fucking great.

Microblog post saying “so funny how the US govt desperately needs 25% of the $2500 I made on a small creative project, but won't tax any of jeff bezos $239.4 billion”
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 35 points 9 months ago (8 children)

The issue afaik is that Jeff bezos's $200B is in assets like stocks, and the buy borrow die strategy of getting loans using assets as collateral lets rich people spend money without actually cashing in said assets which would trigger capital gains taxes. Idk how to stop this prevalent strategy but between that and the corporate tax system ignoring money that goes back into the company letting corporations invest their profits to ignore taxes that's why so few taxes are collected on those groups. Feel free to correct anything inaccurate.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 30 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    Seems pretty simple to me. Tax the collateral loans as income. And don't allow the interest repaid to be tax deductible.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Be better to ban loans on financial assets. These are loans against stocks/bonds etc that they commonly use. In order to get a loan it has to be against a physical asset. Also set firm limits to how much any physical asset can be leveraged.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    You’re kind of suggesting two different things there. Should loans on financial assets be banned, or should the amount able to be leveraged be limited?

    Either would have massive unintended consequences. Mortgages on homes as well as secured car loans would have to be either discharged and re-applied or the terms redrawn. They could also be forgiven, but then every financial institution would go bust or the government would have to step in and shell out insane amounts of money. It would at least cause another GFC, if not a global depression, if done quickly.

    I’m not discounting the idea necessarily, but it’s always important to consider the unintended consequences of a simple idea.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    Tax wealth the same way it's already taxed with estate and inheritance taxes. If the person doesn't have enough liquidity, they can sell the assets, like regular people already have to do often to pay the estate taxes.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent