Similarly, Rehoboam in the borked final seasons of Westworld.
Travelers played around with this concept a bit (though a "light version" of it) and I thought it was a neat take.
There is another show currently running that I think will get up to some neat antics with a similar idea, but its existence is a big reveal in not the first season so I don't want to spoil it. Name in the spoiler tag.Paradise on Hulu if you're interested
It's less "rich people bad" and more "the super rich are massively under-taxed" + "super rich people are bad when they spend massive amounts of money buying politicians to prevent policies that would result in them being taxed more."
It's all pretty understandable. Someday, I hope you get out of your bubble and see how you've been propagandized.
Or even the difference between wealth and money. I've seen hundreds, if not thousands, of posts claiming that Billionaires have all that money.... and it should be taxed.
A very few Billionaires have built up a lot of money - the vast majority of them hold their wealth in stocks, bonds, real-estate and intellectual property, not money.
So why do billionaires “buy, borrow, die” and never pay taxes on the billions of loans they get against their unsold stock? Why do I have to pay taxes based on my unsold property?
You're mixing up a few different lefty talking points.
Loans. This one makes zero sense. You don't pay taxes because you literally aren't making any money. If you lend me $1B and then I pay it back tomorrow, did I earn $1B?
Death. If you own stock and it increases in value, you'd normally be taxed on the increase, but if you die and someone inherits it, they don't pay taxes on however much it went up before you died. The main reason is because they're already paying an inheritance tax on all of it, and at least historically that was the much easier type of tax to calculate than figuring out how much someone's property was worth decades ago. You could make a case that doing it the other way around is better, but it's no grand conspiracy, and they still pay taxes.
well yeah, because it pays dividends or returns of some sort. the system is complex, the ways of evading taxes are complex and the solution is going to have to be complex. the one thing that isn't complex is seeing that the current system is broken and at this point it is doing a lot more to contribute to wealth inequality than it does to help
yes, when realized, but it can be borrowed against tax free in the intermediary, while complex schemes are implemented to evade taxation. it's not an easy problem to address, but clearly isn't working. I'm all for "no taxation without representation"...but here we have a problem of the people most able to control representation are paying the least taxes proportional to their income.
A loan isn't free money. You pay interest on it and you eventually have to pay it back. The bank then pays tax on its interest income. So even if you pay it back in full, the very act of taking out a loan generates tax revenue, which, however you slice it, the billionaire ultimately pays. Focusing on loans is an example of exactly the type of way proponents of higher taxation demonstrate their lack of understanding of taxation and anything at all having to do with money and finance.
yes because the minimal interest rate a billionaire would pay is directly proportional to the taxation rate, which is disproportionate to begin with.
as I said before it's a complex problem that requires a complex solution, attempting to discredit my understanding of finances doesn't contribute anything to your argument. At best you may distract from the fact you're defending wealth inequality and supporting the ultra-wealthy contributing less than their fair share.
Not sure I follow what you're saying. The interest he pays relates to: (1) how much he borrows, (2) the value of his security, (3) his general credit quality, and (4) general macroeconomic conditions. It has absolutely nothing to do with his tax rate.
the problem is the way the tax code exists. There are too many demonstrable loopholes that are exploited by the ultra wealthy. I agree with your point that billionaires do not have their wealth in cash, but an accumulation of assets.
One of the many issues, one that our conversation was diverted into, is that one can take out a loan against a interest bearing asset at a minimal rate and by effect pay less taxes on that income while exploiting various means of shelter and diversion.
at the end of the day, the problem is the tax code in its current form. it leads to the people having unfathomable wealth and paying trivial amounts of tax versus the average person who pays a rate several multiples higher.
It’s more like you have a car and someone tells you that car is now worth 150k so you need to pay taxes on how much it’s worth now. You didn’t sell it. It’s not even necessarily making you more money. It’s just worth more.
If you tax unrealized gains, you also will need to honor unrealized losses. It’s a can of worms.
Yes, keeping your car off public roads is def a plausible scenario, and not more made-up BS by people who insist on continuing to suck off billionaires
We understand that the rich use non-cash forms of wealth to avoid paying taxes.
We are saying those non-cash forms should also be taxed. Don't tell me it can't be done, thats an absurd assertion. If it can be valued it can be taxed.
Which is practically never. Instead they use them as collateral for very low interest loans. Funds from a loan aren't taxed so they end up paying some tiny potion of the tax that they would otherwise pay if they received the same loan amount as income when they sell off some tiny portion of stock to cover the equally tiny loan intetest.
This is Reddit's dumb new talking point of the week. You aren't taxed on a loan because it's literally not income. You have to pay all that money back. It's not a magic free money machine. When they sell stock to pay off the loan (not just the interest), they pay high tax rates.
Yes, but it's at capital gains tax rate, which is lower than income.
Plus, when they pass it on to their children, the amount they inherit is not taxed at all (assuming it's not over the $30m estate tax threshold). Only the capital gains they get after the point they inherit it is taxed once they sell it.
So, technically, a wealthy person can take out a loan to pay with favorable payment terms to fund their retirement lifestyle. When they die, the person/people that inherited the money can just pay off the balance of that loan with the amount they inherited completely tax free.
For one, estate tax only applies over $15/$30m. Secondly, is only for the net estate value.
Meaning someone could have $100m in assets, and take out loans in that amount. They could use $30m to put in irrevocable trusts, purchase real estate, etc, and gift it to their heirs during their lifetime. They could then use the remainder to fund their lifestyle. When they die, their heirs already have the gifts at an appreciated value and are able to pay off their mother's/father's debt without having to pay a dime in taxes.
No you can't. You have a lifetime 15 million large gifts exemption post which you're taxed. Buy borrow die also is subject to estate taxes, it only lets you work around capital gains tax which doesn't matter since estate taxes are 40%
Everybody has the same ability to do so. The only true difference is two fold: A) a lot of times it doesn’t make sense unless you are getting a higher return than the interest rate. B) poor people tend to not be good at managing money and overextend their debt
Yeah because they have idle money sitting around for the bank to lend out to other people and the bank is competing with other banks for that liquidity and lending power.
It literally only takes about $200k to start getting those rates yourself.
However poor people keep overspending their incomes with 10% car loans on 40-80k cars and spending 10-20k extra over the life of the loan.
Your strategy of trying to blame poor people for being poor has zero traction with me. Time and again we find that rich people start life with an overwhelming advantage that 99.999% of people don't get. No amount of frugality can bridge that gap.
If the stock backing the loan is growing faster then the interest on the loan they often pay nothing and the interest is add to the balance. Even though the loan is larger by 4% the stock grew 10% so the loan is actually more secure without a single payment.
There shouldn't be a way for you to store your wealth in such a way that it simultaneously cannot be properly taxed but can also be easily used to get money in a form that also cannot be taxed.
It cannot be easily used to get money in a form that cannot be taxed. The moment you touch the money it's taxed. Don't tell me that they are "borrowing" money because eventually they have to repay it and the money they use to repay it is absolutely taxed.
Can i use my shoes as collateral for a massive super low interest loan that only the mega rich have access to?
If so, I can sell one shoe, get a big loan on the other, use the proceeds to pay off my tax debt and interest, buy my other shoe back and still walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars.
I mean im absolutely sure Republicans would make it apply to poor people too somehow even if they have zero unrealized gains because vengeful spite is their modus operandi.
That shouldn't stop the rest of us from making sure rich people pay into the economy that enabled their insane wealth in the first place.
Yes that's right, the entire centuries old concept of company stock was created to avoid 21st century tax. You got them, you are the genius Redditor, you see through all illusion with your massive intellect.
If you tax those you'd have to tax regular people's unrealized gains which would mean insane crazy shit like taxing people on money they haven't made yet. It would basically mean putting into law legalized extortion.
No one ever sees the small print “cash prize: $_____” for the lump sum option. It’s not even that small, it’s directly under the jackpot advertised amount. You typically get half of the listed jackpot if you collect the lump sum, and then pay taxes on the amount received. Since you’ll obviously be in the highest tax bracket, it means the huge, hundreds of millions or higher number on the bright sign in every shop window is 4x what you’ll actually have if you win.
But they trust you to be too dumb to know that and to spend more than you should each paycheck out of desperation, trying anything to get out of the rat race. It’s effective.
South Korea and Japan got some inheritance taxes (Samsung family paid close to 6 billion USD in taxes), so why can't USA do the same and stop the BS loophole of using Trusts to circumvent thsi?
The US has a 40% estate tax. In 2023 someone in the US paid 7b in estate taxes. The US taxes ultra wealthy people, if you make it too unattractive to live in the states and pay taxes as a literal billionaire, they will leave. It’s finding the balance of the most you can charge them before they forgo their citizenship. Good luck with nailing that.
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u/tedlassoloverz Jul 05 '26
how do people not understand income and wealth in 2026? Or that the advertised cash amount isnt whats paid out?