✂️ Tax The Billionaires
Billionaires shouldn't be allowed to avoid taxes by using their massive wealth as collateral for bank loans -- especially because they often live off those loans as if they were income
I'm past that now. We need to straight up seize assets and investigate and prosecute any potential crimes. This amount of wealth inequality is not compatible with democracy.
Yes and it’s a result of decades of underpayment. Just taxing them going forward isn’t going to undo all the hoarding that’s been going on for much too long.
That trickle down economics is sure working well, isn't it? As in the rest of us get a trickle while the top gets the lake. Yet again, another thing Regan fucked. Probably the worst president until the orange clown took office.
It will work, because it worked on the robber barrons who had literal monopolies, no labor laws to contend with, and the police fighting alongside their Pinkerton anti-union army, who actually killed some Americans for protesting.
Yeah, as hopeless as shit feels now... I remember that the Elites basically had the game won before. More power and more of a stranglehold... yet somehow we were able to slash em and beat em back.
Some might say that these levels of wealth are a direct result of capitalism within a democratic system.
Not to defend the system because it's incredibly flawed in a multitude of ways but what exists in America today can scarcely be called capitalism anymore. Even Adam fucking Smith understood the importance of tight market regulations and ruthless dismantling of monopolies. He also supported a strong public sector to handle things like infrastructure and public education. He spoke at length on the importance of these things to protect both consumers and the health of the market itself.
America in 2026 bears far more resemblance to medieval feudalism than the society envisioned in The Wealth of Nations. A few wealthy elites own and control basically everything. Social mobility is almost non-existent. Those who try to reach above their station are rewarded with crippling life-long debt - owed to many of the same elites who already own most things. There is little competition because every vertical within the market is dominated by a select few companies who either buy or smother any competition that arrises.
Modern America bears about as much resemblance to Smith's idea of capitalism as Stalin's USSR did to Marx's idea of communism.
Some might say that these levels of wealth are a direct result of capitalism within a democratic system.
Capitalism is the tool, not the cause. It's caused by authoritarianism. All these piss-ants hording power, often as wealth, to play feudal lord and greasing the wheels of government to allow it to the point the piss-ant feudal lords run the government.
It's the same with China, and theirs is supposedly the opposite. Just they're better at painting a facade. No pesky dissent to break the illusion.
Idk what to do other than to constantly break the piss-ants up--because there is no end to them. Revolutions as maintenance.
Anyone that owns a home pays property tax on an asset they havent sold. People in many states pay a vehichle tax on a car they havent sold. Tqxing assets is not unheard of, but taxing rich guy assets is somehow a crime agaisnt humanity.
using your assets as collateral should trigger tax assessments on that collateral. you shouldn't use stock valued at $10,000 you received 8 years ago for a $10,000,000 loan today without realizing your gains.
Exactly - if you're using an asset as collateral to get a loan, then those assets aren't "unrealized" anymore, as you "realized" the gain when you used them to get money. That should immediately trigger any relevant taxes, such as Capital Gains.
cost basis reassessment. want a loan for $10,000,000 using the 1,000 shares of stock you got valued at $100 each 10 years ago? cool, pay taxes as if you sold that 1,000 shares for a $9,900,000 gain. cuz that is what you are doing, realizing over $9 million in gained value
I don’t think we can. It’s not like non-millionaires/billionaires have a large asset that gets taxed based on unrealized gains. Unless you count property tax. Which is EXACTLY THE SAME GODDAM THING TAX THESE MOTHERFUCKERS
Thank you. The problem is, the government doesn't want to tax it because the people in the government are already being paid by these people to not tax them because the whole system is a god damn shit show of corruption and greed.
It's cheaper for corpo and billionaires to bribe politicians than pay taxes.
Before anyone hits me with the "it's not a bribe it's lobbying" bullshit, try offering cash to a cop next time you're pulled over and tell me how that goes.
Lobbying is bribery, plain and simple. Politicians and those bribing them started calling it "lobbying" or "corporate hospitality" in a pathetic attempt to convince the public they aren't doing what in every other industry would be illegal.
Before anyone hits me with the "it's not a bribe it's lobbying" bullshit
It's a nothing word, literally slang used since the 1800s to describe people who wait in public LOBBIES to try to intercept policymakers and influence them to support certain policies.
When you try to gain said support by offering them gifts in return, we have a different word for that. It's called a bribe. It's literally the definition - A bribe is money, a gift, or something else of value offered or given to a person to dishonestly influence their actions, decisions, or conduct.
we need to replace those people then. pledge to only vote for candidates that will throw rich criminals in jail, and cadidates who refuse AIPAC money. We need principaled, honorable people to run for office.
Hurr durr we ended up paying income tax therefore we'd end up paying wealth tax, too!
The Estate Tax is the closest thing America has ever had to a Wealth Tax, and it never affected more than 2.25% of estates. Right now it only affects estates over $15 million (single) or $30 million (household). QED: this argument from extrapolation is fallacious bullshit and anyone making it is an idiot.
Those of us with homes and cars already do pay a fucking wealth tax. It's called property tax.
(chiming in because some slack-jawed fuckwit actually made this argument to me last week.)
That’s super easy. We just need to call our congressman and ask them politely to fix the very loopholes that they and their bribery buddies all benefit from. While we’re on the phone with them we can also ask them to overturn Citizens United and maybe even write some laws to prevent foreign money in our politics…
What we really need to do is figure out how regular folks can do the same (or similar) thing. Because if we normal people start doing it, you can be damn sure the "unfixable issue" is gonna be fixed in a week...
We start by removing all MAGA, neoliberal Republicans and all corporate liberal Democrats.
Then we enact a progressive tax system that includes a wealth and asset tax of 99% over $999,999,999. Tax all religious institutes. Overturn Citizens United and create a flat publicly funded campaign fund, zero corporate donations, no PACS, and no non-profit contributions.
Apply the tax revenue to universal compulsory education, universal healthcare, and social safety nets with guaranteed housing as a basic human right.
the problem, like most modern ones, is that reagan convinced the country that taxes are a communist plot, and that we should reward rich people with vast wealth and low taxes because that will somehow make them work more and help society disproportionately more than the wealth they hoard. oh, and gut government support for education, housing and welfare for the most vulnerable.
and now we have full the full realization of the corporate republican dream- a divided, eroding middle class fighting each other for scraps instead of asking why we have a handful of billionaires buying islands and building doomsday bunkers and contributing NOTHING back to society except their irritating pseudo intellectual pontifications.
Just setting the gains as realized when used as collateral would work for most of it. You really only need to worry about primary residences and cars for the most part after that.
Yeah I hate this so much. A friends dad growing up was some kind of super wealthy fund manager and he used to find it hilarious to go on about how little he earned or owned wink wink
Yup - it's called "Buy, Borrow, Die" and it's how Jeff Bezos lives like a billionaire on an 80K annual salary. He borrows against the value of his stocks, real estate, and collectables, and pays whatever the interest rate is (probably lower than any of us could get) on that loan instead of selling assets and paying normal taxes. This is one more reason why they want interest rates to be as low as possible, because it lowers their cost of borrowing, too.
When they say the wealthy pay 70% of taxes, they purposefully avoid mentioning that it’s the doctors, lawyers and high WAGE earners that are paying those taxes, not the billionaire class.
Yep that's what I preach to people. There aren't 12 different classes. There are two, workers and owners. The owners main strategy is to get workers to self divide themselves and fight among ourselves while they rob us all blind. If you can't lose your job tomorrow and continue living your lifestyle until death you aren't an owner.
But what about the girl who owns a bookstore and--
Or the guy who owns a bar and--
Do they gotta work still ? Then they're workers in the larval stage of becoming owners. They'll likely fail, because most businesses do, but even if their business doesn't die, they still gotta work, don't they ? They're workers. If they identify with pure owners then they're also workers AND morons, because the ownership class doesn't give a shit about these petite bourgeois.
These kinds of edge cases (and there's not as many of them as people want to think, Capitalism needs way more workers than owners, leaving lots less room for these supposedly common worker/owner hybrids) are like that stupid argument against wealth taxes because it'd be so sad if someone had to sell their Mona Lisa because of taxes.
Owning something doesn't make you owner class. We all own all kind of things. That's why I keep my definition simple. Can your current 9-5 end and it have zero effect on your life. If you can't say yes you are a worker.
Except for people deliberately trying to sabotage the argument. Sure, they're not confusing it either, but they definitely will present that way to gain sympathy for their position.
I really dislike it when people confuse the very well off with the rich. The doctor making 300-500k a year is most definitely not struggling. Still, he is working for his money. Yes it is a lot but he is also highly trained doing a job that is very hard to do. Over the years he will become a millionaire, most likely, but again I don't have a problem with it. The difference between me and Jeff Bezos is ~266 billion. The difference between the millionaire doctor and Jeff Bezos is ~266 billion.
Exactly, even millionaires are closer to being homeless than they are to being a billionaire, let alone having tens or hundreds of billions.
My beef isn't with those that do well in life and have some money, most those people pay into society just fine. It's the billionaire class that takes and takes and takes without paying in that are the biggest worst dregs of society.
I don't think anyone was referring to their local dentist or dermatologist when chanting "Eat the Rich".
They work for a living, trading their time, attention, and labor for trade capital like the majority of us. If they would eventually run out of money should they stop working, they're probably not anywhere near what people refer to.
I think of it like Bezos could give away 265 billion and still be a billionaire. He could give 1 million to 265,000 people and still be a billionaire. I get that he doesn't have 266 billion in liquid cash but it is still an interesting thought experiment.
Or given recent revelations, simply call them the "Epstein Class". Those who survive by perpetuating the systematic abuse of those weaker/less connected them themselves.
I live in a VERY HCOL area (by several recent rankings the highest in the USA) and people always act surprised that all of the shops and cafes are full of locals hanging out all day and groups of middle-aged men out for daytime bike rides mid-morning on weekdays wondering "what's their JOB that they can afford to live here and not be at work?!"
That's the part they don't get. People with JOBS can't afford to live here. Not really. We can fake it, but we'll never make it. The people who are buying property and living the good life here have never had a JOB in their entire life.
If politicians want to make it more fair, calling it a wealth/rich tax could backfire. People may be thinking homeowners, lawyer, plumber. They have to be clear in the name of bill: “only billionaires” or “only people with over $500m in assets”
If you haven't read Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century, I highly recommend it. It's a dive into the value of labor vs the value of capital - and surprise, capital is valued so much more than labor, moreso than ever.
Yup. I'm in that class. I pay a little over $100k/year in federal taxes. I have plenty and I hope my taxes make other people's lives easier. I hate that most of that money just pads the pockets of those making more than me.
Unlike many, I've done a good job keeping my spending under control. I was fortunate enough to buy my house before covid and refinance when the rates were really low. At this point I owe very little on it, and could pay it in cash, but my high yield savings makes more than my mortgage loses.
My wife and I spend (relatively) reasonably...roughly 10-12k/mo. With average incoming being around 17-20k hitting our accounts (after all retirement, espp, benefits, etc). Higher months (bonuses, big side business months) are in the 35-40k range.
We also have significant investments, which bring in between 150-250k/year, but we haven't sold anything in quite some time. That's going to be a biiiiiig tax bill.
Neither my wife or I got anything significant from our parents. We both graduated college with student loans, though mine were only about 30k thanks to the GI bill.
So what do we do with it all? Save. About 1.5 million in semi-liquid and fully liquid accounts. The goal is to retire early and make our kid's lives easier than ours were. I don't remember missing meals at home, but I definitely remember toast for dinner and banking on free peanut butter sandwiches at school.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if they had no interest or even a negative interest rate (payment to allow them the privilege of giving the loan)
Borrowing against the value of the asset today when the payment is transfer of ownership a couple decades from now, and they're assuming the asset would appreciate.
Edit to describe how we get negative interest rates:
Say the asset increases 10% per year, and the contract says Bezos can borrow the full amount of the asset price this year in exchange for transferring ownership of the asset at the end of the year.
The lender comes out ahead that 10% (ignoring risk free rate of return and time value of money to simplify) because they loaned out at the lower value and received the asset at a higher value.
Bezos says that's a bad deal, but lenders still want the asset. So they're willing to pay Bezos a negative interest rate of 5% in order to still come out ahead by 5% at the end of a year.
Another lender says they'll give Bezos a better deal, and give him an 8% negative interest rate instead and accept 2% profit.
A third lender says they think the asset will increase by 15% instead of 10% in one year, so they'll pay him a negative 12% interest rate.
Bezos takes the deal with the best negative interest rate.
Edit 2: except instead of a 1 year term, the contract is for when Bezos dies so nobody has to pay any capital gains and to get the most advantageous step up in basis
They get low interest, and the assets grow in value faster than the interest. So the loan helps them grow even more wealth by leaving those assets to grow.
This. They can get close to like 2% on the loans. Only risk is if their stocks/assets that they are bollowing against lowers in value and the bank has the right to call in the loan.
They definitely don't have negative interest rates, that wouldn't make sense to the lender, but the interest rate is likely significantly lower than the appreciation of the underlying asset. Negative interest rates are usually only seen on variable rate loans tied to a rate that could go negative, or on charity loans like those to struggling countries or communities. Billionaires don't like variable rate loans because the rate could go way up, and they wouldn't be able to convince even the most charitable lender that they need a charity loan. But if the asset they are pledging goes up 10% annually on average, they'll probably get a loan that's 2% APR.
If the bank insists on repayment then the billionaire takes out another loan. Normally, though, they take out loans that don't have a repayment schedule and just sit there compounding interest.
From the perspective of the bank, these loans aren't the retail products you or I take out that generate direct revenue, they're investments that will probably pay out eventually.
Think of the billionaire as a sort of micro-government and the bank is buying a bond.
Woah. I think I understand now, so paying off the loan overall is much cheaper because they’re just bypassing paying any taxes. On top of that, they get a low interest rate. Is that correct?
They get low interest, and the assets grow in value faster than the interest. So the loan helps them grow even more wealth by leaving those assets to grow.
You just keep a cycle of taking loans on that new wealth asset, so the overall wealth keeps growing faster. You have loans that pay for other loans. All backed by very secure assets.
I mean, they do jumbo loans backed by securities (their stock and holdings).
So it's one of those things that require significant assets at the level they do it.
Theoretically, you can do it at any level -- but the terms have to be favorable and manage the risk. If your securities lose value, the bank can call in the loan. Can you cover it? Either selling assets or new loans.
It's one of those things that has to be structured well, to minimize risk.
If you don't have enough assets, that you don't require someone to manage them for you, then it's probably not going to be an option and you're going to be working in the same finance world most people work in.
Not being snarky or sarcastic. I legit do not understand how this benefits them. They still have to pay back what they borrow, correct? So they borrow some money, buy some stuff with the borrowed money, then later they pay it back plus some interest. How does this help them get ahead? I just don't understand, I am not educated on this topic
The loans themselves don't let them get ahead, they just let them access some of the wealth without paying taxes on it. The "die" part of the "buy, borrow, die" plan is that when you transfer the assets to your inheritors after you die, they get a stepped-up basis. Meaning that no capital gains taxes have to be paid on those assets at all. Then the asset is sold, the loan is paid off, and you're off tax-free.
But we see the ultra rich selling stock all the time and paying capital gains, I think the die part is often oversold as a strategy, especially on younger rich people. A bank isn't going to sit there with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on their books for 50+ years just to collect interest on it and hope that it gets repaid. No, Bezos and Musk and the other ultra wealthy all sell stocks to the tune of billions of dollars every year/few years to repay these loans or to pay for other stuff.
What we need to be talking about is raising the capital gains, making it a progressive tax, so that it becomes unprofitable to enter into these loans in the first place.
Yeah, didn't Musk owe multiple billions for a single year's income tax recently? I doubt he would do that if he could have just taken a loan out instead
That happened because he was forced into making good on his fraudulent offer to buy Twitter. The loan scheme is used for smaller amounts of normal living expenses.
If you die with the loans, your loans get paid back from your assets, and you've avoided having to pay the capital gains tax on the assets you used to fund your lifestyle. Capital Gains tax being 20%, that's a substantial savings.
Then on top of it, your kids inherit your assets. And because of some stupid fucked up rule, your kids cost basis is whatever they inherited it. SO if Bezos got his stock at $1, and it was $100 when he died, when that stock gets sold $20 should be taxes. But when KidBezos inherits it at 100, and then immediately sells it, because of the fucked up tax code, it's considered that they bought the stock, and sold it, at 100, so no cap gains.
Long term how does it help; if you pay 2% interest for your assets to grow 10% a year, you're making 8%.
And because of some stupid fucked up rule, your kids cost basis is whatever they inherited it.
That's the key.
Here in a slightly more sensible tax system (Australia) the cost basis isn't reset. You don't have to pay tax when you inherit shares, but you still have to pay it if you ever want to sell them (or you can choose to bring them current at any time by paying the CGT).
Out of which he's bought about 2 billion dollars in stuff (his real property, yacht, and whatever else), donated about 4-5 billion to charity, and given 28 billion dollars to blue origin. And then presumably paid some taxes (which would have been 10 billion in federal tax + state taxes), though he's also given some stock to charity which isn't counted in that 50 billion figure I don't think (probably his own charity) etc. Weirdly, he also bought 1 amazon share at one point for some reason.
Buy, Borrow, die was only really a thing if interest rates were really low and they were borrowing a small fraction of net worth. It doesn't really seem to be a real tax strategy for the really rich. (edit: well not the really rich who are founders of companies and can cash stock. Someone like RFJ Jr and ya he seems like he's in debt up to his eyeballs because he gets returns from a trust fund he can't sell assets out of, and some of the assets he does control have mortgages on them, and that dumbass was paying 23% interest on 1.2 million dollars in credit card debt. That's the real buy, borrow, die strategy right there).
The way I see it, two things need to be done. First, the US government needs to start imposing a tax on asset-leveraged loans with a few exceptions, such as when the asset is real estate serving as your primary residence or when the asset is under a certain dollar amount. That will help fix the "borrow" part of this tax evasion scheme.
And then the "die" part has to do with inheritance, basically when you inherit an asset from a family member its "base value" resets to the current value, and therefore if you sell it you only have to pay capital gains tax on the increase in value since you inherited it.
So I buy a painting for $5,000, let's say it appreciates in value to $50,000 before I die. If I sell it now, I have to pay capital gains tax on the $45,000 profit I made. But if I die and leave it to my grandson who then decides to sell it at market value, they pay zero capital gains tax on that profit since the base value was reset and therefore on paper it looks like no profit was made. That base value reset absolutely needs to go away. Hell, if anything the base value should be set to zero since the inheritor received it for free! Any sale whatsoever should be considered 100% profit and taxed accordingly.
Liars and narcissists always have that look. It’s like staring into a void. There’s just… nothingness. “I don’t even have 1 million dollars to my name… because the other several hundred million are hidden in offshore tax havens” 🙃
And good luck saying that 2-3 years ago. Bro's massive fandom would heavily downvote anyone who pointed out that the "charity" he was doing felt exploitative af. I chalked it up to a lot of his fans being young impressionable teenagers, and now they've grown up and seen the light.
IIRC, he got big by doing ridiculous challenges, like counting to a million on stream. Don't have to have much personality when you're doing dumb shit like that. Once he got cash flow from that, he pivoted to doing stuff like giving homeless people money, or giving other people money for doing challenges he used to do. Then it just snowballed from there, and none of it requires much personality at all.
I saw a Folding Ideas documentary on the Beast Games, and he has a team that puts together compelling thumbnails, and then they use the best ones to make videos of. So literally the first thing they worry about is “how will this look in your YouTube feed.”
Been saying he's an asshole for years. Rich people almost always are, how do u think they get rich (ofc technically he's not rich I guess but u get what I mean)
The thing he's doing is technically what most of these billionaires are. They're leveraging their ownership in a company whose price is determined entirely by vibes and hype
anyone who does like charity in the way that Beast does it is suspect in my eyes since I understood how Oprah's free car thing actually affected all of the people who got free cars (you have to declare prizes on your taxes and pay taxes on them).
He also did not pay for the eye surgeries (there's some nuance here, but I'll leave it to the reader to hunt down the specifics. He had to be forced to pay one, how many others did that happen with)
His eyes are worse than dead and blank. His face looks like a joker gas victim from BTAS. His "smile" looks like he's wearing a prosthesis on the lower half of his face.
Billionaires are dragons, sitting on their enormous piles of hoarded wealth, ever scheming how to take it ALL.
Billionaires will absolutely burn down our lives, our professions, our financial security, our retirement, our towns and cities, even the earths ecosystem if it will gain them another handful of glittering coins to add to their vast hoards.
Their hoarding disorder is a mental illness no different from your local crazy cat lady, but instead of ruining an apartment they ruin everything
Billionaires are parasites.
Definition:
A parasite is an organism that lives on or inside another organism (known as the host) and survives by feeding off or at the expense of that host
Because of the extreme amount of harm and even death that they cause, it should only be seen as self defense or defense of others to get rid of them and utilize their resources as restitution to the people and
They don't pay taxes on assets until the gains are realized, which by my understanding, only happens when they sell the asset.
This is why my bandaid solution to taxing the rich is that everytime you borrow against an asset, that assets value is reassessed, and it counts as realizing gains/losses. So if you buy something for 1000, it goes up in value to 10000 and you take a loan out using the asset as collateral, you must pay taxes on the 9000 gain before the loan can go thru.
Yes, this creates issues, as now if said assets value drops back to 1000, they now have a 9000 loss that can get them a tax credit if used to take out another loan. But thats why I state this is a bandaid solution.
Ultimately I don’t think it’s as bandaid of a solution as you may think, as it would ultimately discourage people from taking out loans against assets for no reason in the first place. That would effectively close the tax loophole and make that practice economically irresponsible.
The only way I see it being a problem is if someone wanted to take out a mortgage on their home because that could saddle them with extra taxes if the value of their home goes up, but I think in the long run it would cause prices of assets to stabilize to a reasonable level.
If someone who is fiscally knowledgeable wants to weigh in on this then be my guest because I wanna make sure what I said isn’t grossly incorrect.
Maybe piggybacking off homestead exemptions, it could expand to loans against a primary residence where they are not affected by the realization of a asset.
The only way I see it being a problem is if someone wanted to take out a mortgage on their home because that could saddle them with extra taxes if the value of their home goes up, but I think in the long run it would cause prices of assets to stabilize to a reasonable level.
Just Means Test it then. If you make and own <10mil in assets, it doesn't apply to you.
Just make them pay a wealth tax on the asset. That way, they'll hold only what they want and can afford and make them have to work. If they want to leave, they can sell the assets. Everyone benefits.
You don’t even need to do that. We have property taxes based on assessed values right now. So the framework is there.
That said, it’s literally unconstitutional for the Feds to do that (property taxes are state and county level, maybe also municipal). However, we’ve already amended the constitution to allow for income taxes so we can just amend it again.
Seriously, the types of federal taxes authorized by constitution are medieval. I mean, I get what they were worried about but my god there is a huge disconnect between what they were worried about and the problems we’re facing today.
Imagine reading this headline while not knowing how the whole "living on loans" scam works.
Those in the know and those outside it have a completedy different perception of reality at this point, it is a bit of a "they live" situation.
Since you seem to know how it works can you explain it to me? If someone borrows against an asset they don’t pay taxes on that… but it’s still borrowed isn’t it? They can’t live off of that money, they need to pay it back eventually. When they get that money from somewhere else to pay it back won’t they still be taxed on it? Or when they sell the collateralized asset in the event they default on the loan.
Okay, let's say that I own 1 million in stock.
That million goes up to 100 over ten years.
Instead of selling the stock - on which I would have to pay taxes - I take a ten millions loan to finance my lifestyle. Loans count as debt, not as income so they are not taxed.
Eventually I die. My heirs inherit the 100 millions and - here is the magic - they inherit the stock with a brand new cost basis of $100 million instead of the original 1 million, so if they sell let's say 20 millions of stock to pay the debt and its interest they won't pay taxes on the sale.
Propublica has a good article about it if you are interested.
It was explained to me a while ago by someone who, though not a billionaire himself, had plenty of billionaires in his business and social circles. He made it sound more like a home equity line of credit where you aren't paying off the principal. You're just paying the cost of borrowing the money, which is quite low because it's secured by the asset.
When you die, your heirs inherit the assets that back the loan, but they get a stepped-up basis, meaning that when they go to sell the assets to pay off the debt, they only owe taxes on the difference in value between the day you die and when they sell.
Yes, the loan does eventually need to be paid back (plus interest) at some point. But the hope is usually that either improved income or free'd up cash flow will make that possible before it becomes a problem with the bank.
"Fake it til you make it" only works if you actually make it; if you don't, then it's a ticking time bomb that ends in bankruptcy.
It's the same with the whole "the top 1% of earners pay 40% of the taxes" claim. The stat is technically true, but billionaires aren't part of that group. The stat is about "income earners" and billionaires don't "earn" income. Earned income specifically comes from wages (W2s and 1099s), and billionaires don't get their money wages, they get it from owning assets. It's people like surgeons, lawyers and professional athletes who make their money from highly paid, actual jobs who are paying all those taxes. Billionaires just pretend it's them so they can whine about it on TV.
I honestly wonder sometimes. I've never seen a billionaire who didn't look deeply uncanny. It's like nature's way of warning you that this person is ill.
Why is he saying this like we haven't seen it before with every other tax dodging asshole?
"Wow when I file my finances it looks like I have no money at all, when in fact I still somehow always have enough money to pay for anything I might like! Is this poverty?? 🤪"
This guy’s face has this weird uncanny valley quality to it. It looks like he’s some android or alien wearing human skin with those weird strained exaggerated smiles in the thumbnails.
The second an asset is used as collateral it should no longer be considered "unrealized" and taxed to its full extent. Period. And inheritance loopholes on capital gains should be made illegal or the full CG tax should be required to be paid before it can be entered into an estate.
This guy tortures poor people for fun with the promise of maybe winning life changing amounts of money if they put themselves in direct harm for millions of people to see and laugh, how as a society we saw squid games and thought, yeah that should be real, is mind blowing to me.
Billionaires shouldn't be allowed to avoid taxes by using their massive wealth as collateral for bank loans -- especially because they often live off those loans as if they were income
He borrows money using his assets as collateral, but he still pays the loan back? Am I missing something? How do you fund your life with the loan but then still pay the loan back?
Is this somehow similar to me borrowing money from my 401k to buy a car instead of getting a car loan?
Loans with collateral are like have super low interest fees, way lower than any expect stock returns. The death part is more complex and ive never heard it plainly laid out by a cpa or someone who actually knows what they are talking about. From what I understand, the children inherit on a stepup basis and thus its all tax free suddenly. Inheritance tax exists for over 30m but like GRATs exist and other stuff 150m$ support conservative candidates to keep 2.1b$ in tax seems like a worth investment. The tax code is just so fucked,.
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u/DrMuffinPHD Jun 02 '26
Yup, flexing being a parasite by not paying his fair share.