Report: Tax Returns of the Top 25 Wealthiest in America

[Glorious Leader]

Because I won't share details of my personal finances on a public forum... ok, sure I lose

because you won't produce evidence to back your arguments

[Draco-Onis]

The selling of millions of Amazon stocks to cover billions in a tax bill that is actually 20% larger than it appears on its face because it doesn't factor in capital gains... and they want to double capital gains... that doesn't have an effect on its valuation or anyone else who might own Amazon stock?

It would have zero effect because it is for tax purposes not because it is an exit strategy or because the company is failing nor is it a new issuance of stocks. The CEOs of companies sell large portions of their holdings all the time especially when they are fired or move onto another company.

[Bodakane]

Everything they're allowed sure. I do too. Do you just make unsolicited donations to the government? I don't see how that's an argument.

Ok.

1. Doing everything you can to lessen your income tax burden is not the same thing as making unsolicited donations to the government.

2. If you understand they are doing this, then you've proven you don't understand our argument at all, which is that we believe people of that kind of wealth should not be allowed to circumvent income taxes to the degree they do. So when you drone on and on about how stocks work, you should stop because the issue isn't about how stocks work, but how the the ultra billionaires who benefit more from government services than literally anyone should even be allowed to use those loopholes in the first place.

3. If you understand they are using these loopholes, then your entire argument falls apart. So does your non-researched critique of the ProPublica article.

[Endus]

Bribery isn't legal typically first off.

If we're talking "bribery" of a game developer, then it wouldn't legally be called "bribery" in the first place. Those laws only cover public officials.

There's a few laws that might cover a bribe offered to a private individual, but it's more about that individual's conduct and how it violates contractual obligations to their employer, not the briber's intent, who likely isn't guilty of anything.

Because I won't share details of my personal finances on a public forum... ok, sure I lose

No, because you offered no evidence whatsoever, and demanded that we accept your "nothing" as debunking the large amount of evidence ProPublica offered.

That's why it's not an "impasse". You offered no counter-evidence. It isn't about why you chose to keep your personal details private, it's that you had no other evidence to call on and refused to provide what you did have. Sure, by all means, keep your personal details secret, but gather actual evidence. Your personal finances can't possibly be that special, and would only be anecdotal anyway even if you did provide details, so I'm not even suggesting that changing your mind would be all you need. It would be shitty, incomplete evidence that would fail to back up your claims. But it's also all you've even implied that you're working off of.

[D3thray]

Well, you haven't. A lot of your counter arguments don't hold up. The idea that you can't just sell stocks, for instance. That's just bafflingly wrong on its face.

I never said you couldn't sell stocks. I said the whole system only works if the majority aren't being sold at any one time. Because its like an over leveraged bank. Its a couple pages back. Ask yourself how much value do those stocks have if everyone is selling and no one is buying? I was trying to illustrate the fundamental difference between hard assets and liquid assets in an economy that doesn't barter. Does it mean you can't sell stocks for money? No. Does it mean they can't be used for collateral? No. Does it mean the stock market isn't just a piggy bank you can raid whenever you need to raise lots of money? Yes.

That depends.

Do you only see the value of stock as a tax-free play chit you can trade around with others to try and build wealth without having to pay taxes on it? Then I can see why you might have an issue with this, but your attitude is the exploitative problem that needs to be fixed; as a counter argument, this is kind of in the "laws against pedophilia make it harder for pedophiles to fuck 8 year olds" category of complaints. Yes. That's the intended outcome.

If you see the value of stock as an investment into the company and the ability to share in its profits? Not much change, really.

And given that we're talking about a wealth tax, this is only affecting the uber-rich to begin with. If that means a shift in stock trading to the average consumers rather than the uber-rich, how is that a negative, again?

Not going to respond on the comparison of billionaires to pedophiles, but how exactly do you think investment banking works? Where exactly do new companies or new ideas find investors to fund them? Do you particularly like anything you get from Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft... how about new technologies in solar and wind? New drugs for fighting disease? Covid-19 Vaccines? The stock market thru IPO's facilitated direct funding to those companies that then came up with those technologies because that's how investment banks make their money. They provide funding upfront and then get first dibs on stocks. Crowdsourcing is a kind of new thing and maybe it becomes the preferred method of the future but at the moment investment banking still rules.

If the stock market is a game played by the rich to make themselves all more rich at the expense of everyone else, then the stock market should crash, because it's an exploitative system which only serves the wealthy at the expense of the poor.

If it isn't, then I disagree it could turn out that way, and really don't see the argument.

Not sure what you mean but the stock market is also the primary way most Americans have retirement income apart from Social Security.

ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years.

Yes, you're wrong. You wouldn't even have had to dig; that's the start of the third paragraph in.

Like I said; you're knee-jerking about an article regarding a study, and condemning its findings, and you didn't even read the article, let alone the study itself, to know if you actually had an argument first.

I did read it. Its still 25 people even if its alot of data on 25 people. Also it was probably illegal and I called their conclusion bogus for all the above stated reasons.

- - - Updated - - -

It would have zero effect because it is for tax purposes not because it is an exit strategy or because the company is failing nor is it a new issuance of stocks. The CEOs of companies sell large portions of their holdings all the time especially when they are fired or move onto another company.

In the millions sure. A billion is alot larger than a million i.e. the amount of tax they are suggesting to collect and again which is potentially even 40% larger than advertised.

- - - Updated - - -

Ok.

1. Doing everything you can to lessen your income tax burden is not the same thing as making unsolicited donations to the government.

2. If you understand they are doing this, then you've proven you don't understand our argument at all, which is that we believe people of that kind of wealth should not be allowed to circumvent income taxes to the degree they do. So when you drone on and on about how stocks work, you should stop because the issue isn't about how stocks work, but how the the ultra billionaires who benefit more from government services than literally anyone should even be allowed to use those loopholes in the first place.

3. If you understand they are using these loopholes, then your entire argument falls apart. So does your non-researched critique of the ProPublica article.

I guess I'll just directly post it instead of just the link. From February 3rd this year taken from just released IRS tax data.

https://taxfoundation.org/publicatio...ncome-tax-data

The data shows that the U.S. individual income tax continued to be progressive, borne primarily by the highest income earners.

In 2018, 144.3 million taxpayers reported earning $11.6 trillion in adjusted gross income (AGI) and paid $1.5 trillion in individual income taxes.
Tax year 2018 was the first under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The number of returns filed and the amount of income reported grew in 2018 yet average tax rates fell across every income group and total income taxes paid decreased by $65 billion.
The share of reported income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers fell slightly, to 20.9 percent in 2018 from 21 percent in 2017. Their share of federal individual income taxes rose by 1.6 percentage points to 40.1 percent.
Since 2001, the share of federal income taxes paid by the top 1 percent increased from 33.2 percent to a new high of 40.1 percent in 2018.
In 2018, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.1 percent of all individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.9 percent.
The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (40.1 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (28.6 percent).
The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.4 percent average individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.4 percent).

Reported Income Increased While Taxes Paid Decreased in Tax Year 2018

Taxpayers reported $11.6 trillion in adjusted gross income (AGI) on 144.3 million tax returns in 2018, the year the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) took effect. That is just over 1 million more returns filed than in 2017 and $627 billion more in AGI reported than in 2017. Average AGI rose by $3,806, or 5 percent.

While the number of returns and amount of AGI rose, total income taxes paid fell by $65 billion. Altogether, taxpayers paid $1.5 trillion in income taxes in 2018, down about 4 percent from 2017. The average individual income tax rate for all taxpayers fell from 14.6 percent to 13.3 percent.

The share of AGI reported by the top 1 percent fell slightly to 20.9 from 21.0 percent in 2017, while the income tax burden share increased by 1.6 percentage points to 40.1 percent from 38.5 percent in 2017.

As you can see, data from the IRS, the top 1% had 20.9% of adjusted gross income in 2018, down slightly from 2017 before the Trump tax cut and paid a larger share of the income tax revenue at 40.1% up from 38.5% in 2017

And then a particularly egregious fudging of the numbers for Michael Bloomberg from the ProPublica article

In 2018, he reported income of $1.9 billion. When it came to his taxes, Bloomberg managed to slash his bill by using deductions made possible by tax cuts passed during the Trump administration, charitable donations of $968.3 million and credits for having paid foreign taxes. The end result was that he paid $70.7 million in income tax on that almost $2 billion in income. That amounts to just a 3.7% conventional income tax rate. Between 2014 and 2018, Bloomberg had a true tax rate of 1.30%.

I mean he only made charitable donations totaling $968.3 million on his reported income in 2018 of $1.9 billion, but who is counting. Such a scrooge, he owes more to society.

[Endus]

I never said you couldn't sell stocks. I said the whole system only works if the majority aren't being sold at any one time. Because its like an over leveraged bank. Its a couple pages back. Ask yourself how much value do those stocks have if everyone is selling and no one is buying?

Where did you get the idea that no one is buying?

And if the value is only in trading stocks, not holding stocks, then you're explaining why the stock market is not beneficial or tenable as a system in the first place.

I was trying to illustrate the fundamental difference between hard assets and liquid assets in an economy that doesn't barter. Does it mean you can't sell stocks for money? No. Does it mean they can't be used for collateral? No. Does it mean the stock market isn't just a piggy bank you can raid whenever you need to raise lots of money? Yes.

And yet, the only explanation for that is "stocks are different". Even though they are vastly easier to liquidate than, say, real estate.

And we're not talking about everyone trading stocks all the time desperately trying to sell everything. That's a straw man you made up.

Not going to respond on the comparison of billionaires to pedophiles, but how exactly do you think investment banking works? Where exactly do new companies or new ideas find investors to fund them?

This is all speaking against a wealth tax. The one big proposal out there now is the Sanders/Warren proposal. Which was just 3% for billionaires.

If you're not making better than a 3% return on your investments, you're doing a pretty shit job of investing. Most government savings bonds can do better than that, and they're about the safest investments around.

So I expect investment to continue exactly as it always had.

Not sure what you mean but the stock market is also the primary way most Americans have retirement income apart from Social Security.

Which is a problem, given volatility.

I did read it. Its still 25 people even if its alot of data on 25 people. Also it was probably illegal and I called their conclusion bogus for all the above stated reasons.

So, straight-up lying, now?

I literally quoted you the exact passage where they state that their data covers thousands of individuals.

They used the top 25 people to get into the worst excesses of the problem, in their initial analysis.

Any illegality in the sourcing of the material would be on whoever leaked it, not ProPublica. So not relevant to the discussion.

And your arguments do not hold up. You misrepresent and attack straw men.

- - - Updated - - -

I guess I'll just directly post it instead of just the link. From February 3rd this year taken from just released IRS tax data.

https://taxfoundation.org/publicatio...ncome-tax-data

As you can see, data from the IRS, the top 1% had 20.9% of adjusted gross income in 2018, down slightly from 2017 before the Trump tax cut and paid a larger share of the income tax revenue at 40.1% up from 38.5% in 2017

And then a particularly egregious fudging of the numbers for Michael Bloomberg from the ProPublica article

This is focusing exclusively on income tax.

Why are you ignoring the entire point of ProPublica's article?

I mean he only made charitable donations totaling $968.3 million on his reported income in 2018 of $1.9 billion, but who is counting. Such a scrooge, he owes more to society.

Yes. He does. Particularly given how "charitable donations" are often self-serving. By way of example; donating to things like the opera which are primarily enjoyed by the wealthy, donating to universities who again serve the upper class, giving to policy advocacy lobby groups to push your political interests, not to mention straight-up corruption. https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...quality-taxes/

Plus, that figure falls well short, anyway.

[D3thray]

Where did you get the idea that no one is buying?

And if the value is only in trading stocks, not holding stocks, then you're explaining why the stock market is not beneficial or tenable as a system in the first place.

And yet its one of the primary ways of protecting against inflation as imperfect as it is. You see as one of those wage slaves my money continually has less value year after year due to inflationary policies pursued by my government so the only real way to actually save money is to put it into non-liquid assets as I don't realistically see either party actually trying to pay for anything any time soon.

And yet, the only explanation for that is "stocks are different". Even though they are vastly easier to liquidate than, say, real estate.

Dunno if you're tried selling a house lately

And we're not talking about everyone trading stocks all the time desperately trying to sell everything. That's a straw man you made up.

It's not your favorite logical fallacy to slap onto everything, we were talking about a wealth tax on billionaires who only hold that status by virtue of stocks and who presumably would have to sell them to cover any tax burden... come on man

This is all speaking against a wealth tax. The one big proposal out there now is the Sanders/Warren proposal. Which was just 3% for billionaires.

If you're not making better than a 3% return on your investments, you're doing a pretty shit job of investing. Most government savings bonds can do better than that, and they're about the safest investments around.

So I expect investment to continue exactly as it always had.

What. You're joking right. Maybe in Canada they get that high but government bonds never get that high in the US.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_10..._interest_rate

Basic Info. US 10-Year Government Bond Interest Rate is at 1.61%, compared to 1.62% last month and 0.67% last year.

----------------------------------------

So, straight-up lying, now?

I literally quoted you the exact passage where they state that their data covers thousands of individuals.

They used the top 25 people to get into the worst excesses of the problem, in their initial analysis.

Any illegality in the sourcing of the material would be on whoever leaked it, not ProPublica. So not relevant to the discussion.

And your arguments do not hold up. You misrepresent and attack straw men.

Is 25 a small number picked to support your argument or not? That's the context of that statement. I know I'm answering lots of people but I'm not arguing in bad faith.

[Jastall]

The big problem is that, generally, those with the compassion, self-awareness, and ethical sense to contribute back to their workers and community in concrete ways, those people never become wealthy. They're the Mom & Pops that everyone loves and which cannot possibly compete with Wal-Mart, because Wal-Mart doesn't give a shit and will nickel and dime their staff to save $0.02 on the price point of Kraft Dinner, because they know it'll drive sales to their stores and away from that Mom & Pop.

You find a few exceptions. The folks behind Costco are apparently pretty decent, and I haven't heard nightmare stories from Costco staff. There's Dan Price, the guy who decided to pay all his staff at least $70k/year at his payment company. But in general, particularly at the lower end where pennies matter, the big boys use economies of scale to flatten anyone less cutthroat than they are.

- - - Updated - - -



And to make the point; wealth inequality today is worse than at the point that the French Revolution kicked off, largely over that issue.

Some of us argue this strenuously about political change by adjusting policy approaches because we're well aware that there's a looming alternative correction pattern; one that centrally relies upon the guillotine. Maybe we should correct course before people start recalling why that thing was invented.

As someone who works at a Cotstco central depot, I can confirm that treatment of employees is pretty good. Pay is quite decent for your work/required education, being fired after your initial 3 months are up requires some really serious mess-ups on your part and practically never happens, great benefits, bosses are by and large reasonable and those that aren't can't do too much damage due to company policies not overlooking employees. Of course it's not perfect at all and of course some people still complain, but TBH some do while never having worked anywhere else. I have and I know a company that treats its employees like pawns when I see it. Costco ain't one of them. I met the Canadian branch director once and he was a totally swell guy, looked and spoke nothing like a suit, felt like I could have gone and had a beer with him over a BBQ easily.

Of course Costco also has a special business model. They don't give a fuck about higher margins on their products (and don't push sales at all costs) because the vast majority of the company's profits come from memberships. Company's profitable even if nobody buys anything in any of its shops so long as they pay their card, last I heard. It's why the one department that is pushed more than others is customer service in shops.

[D3thray]

This is focusing exclusively on income tax.

Why are you ignoring the entire point of ProPublica's article?

I'm not, I've just discussed it at length already. They define income tax differently than the IRS. I disagree with their premise. I've given plenty of reasons why.

When someone says that the wealthy don't pay the majority of taxes they're just wrong. That's who I was responding to.

Yes. He does. Particularly given how "charitable donations" are often self-serving. By way of example; donating to things like the opera which are primarily enjoyed by the wealthy, donating to universities who again serve the upper class, giving to policy advocacy lobby groups to push your political interests, not to mention straight-up corruption. https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...quality-taxes/

Plus, that figure falls well short, anyway.

Hah 'donor industrial complex' I like it. Interesting read, I wasn't aware of potential issues in philanthropy, not really my wheelhouse.

[Ivanstone]

Bribery isn't legal typically first off. Secondly arguing that having money gives you an outsized influence, yes I'd agree, which is exactly why campaign finance, the revolving door of lobbyists, and the hand in glove relationship with many politicians and the corporations they worked for (or will). Are all problems. That Trump rescinded the ban on lobbying for government employees 5 years after leaving really pissed me off. That Biden didn't immediately re-enact it is also telling. My question to you is how does a wealth tax fix any of that?

Not all bribes are straight out bribes. It usually isn't the case and even when it is the regulatory bodies involved are either underfunded and/or led by people with malicious intent.

Complaining about the undue influence of money in politics doesn't mean anything. You do understand that a corporation's executives are required to maximize shareholder's gains right? Its their duty to make more money and that includes reducing their tax burdens. Always assume they'll do the greediest thing possible and work from there.

This thread isn't about a wealth tax. Its merely a suggestion and its even used in some countries (Switzerland with its higher per capita billionaires says "hi"). The wealthy will typically attack every tax they reasonably can. Income, payroll, property, sales, capital, corporate, estate. They're attacked on all fronts constantly.

To me the most concerning thing about the article is the wealthy's ability to borrow relentlessly against their wealth since they're freed from the usual constraints of having to constantly service their costs of living.

[D3thray]

Not all bribes are straight out bribes. It usually isn't the case and even when it is the regulatory bodies involved are either underfunded and/or led by people with malicious intent.

Complaining about the undue influence of money in politics doesn't mean anything. You do understand that a corporation's executives are required to maximize shareholder's gains right? Its their duty to make more money and that includes reducing their tax burdens. Always assume they'll do the greediest thing possible and work from there.

This thread isn't about a wealth tax. Its merely a suggestion and its even used in some countries (Switzerland with its higher per capita billionaires says "hi"). The wealthy will typically attack every tax they reasonably can. Income, payroll, property, sales, capital, corporate, estate. They're attacked on all fronts constantly.

To me the most concerning thing about the article is the wealthy's ability to borrow relentlessly against their wealth since they're freed from the usual constraints of having to constantly service their costs of living.

I mean you're not wrong with the leveraging concerns but in the end that still has to be paid back. You or I could do the same thing but we have a lot less collateral and our income still has to service the loan. Which theirs does too obviously unless we want to sell anything but that applies to them as well. It's not that I'm not concerned so much as I'm not certain how big of a concern it is.

[Zan15]

Their entire incomes are reported. That you’re choosing to redefine income in your head doesn’t change that fact.

Yup missed the entire point of the last 60 pages and the entire point of the article/investigation.

Even the money supply isn’t constrained by the number of dollars because of systems like fractional reserve banking. In fact fractional reserve banking is the entire reason we’re having this discussion at all. We for the most part do not barter anymore so the entire contention is over the proportion of the money supply controlled by individuals. Jeff Bezos for example does not have 144 billion dollars to spend because Jeff Bezos does not have 144 billion dollars in loans or hard currency. He couldn’t by definition or his net worth would be zero. The idea that he could even realistically leverage that much money as an individual is ludicrous, no bank would do it because he wouldn’t be able to service it if only due to the capital gains tax taking 20% off the top of anything he’d sell to cover payments.

Net worth is a fun number to look at on paper, but wealth is not a useful metric when talking about taxes and control of an economy because there is no realistic way for the ultra-rich to even be able to leverage that amount of money. Which is why wealth taxes as proposed are missing huge amounts of nuance. We should be talking about the velocity of money anyway not total amount of wealth or money supply.


.

They wouldn't have to liquidate a single thing. He could use the 144 billion dollars as collateral for a 20 billion dollar loan @ ridiculously low interest rates. He can then continue to have wealth gain as his "asset" continues to grow. All 144 billion dollars of it. Hell he can probably borrow at a multiple on the 144 and leverage it to borrow more than 144 billion, say if he wanted to buy out another company with his own wealth.

Since he would not have to sell anything he would not be charged any tax.

I mean this was all covered in the article, did you read it?

[D3thray]

Yup missed the entire point of the last 60 pages and the entire point of the article/investigation.





They wouldn't have to liquidate a single thing. He could use the 144 billion dollars as collateral for a 20 billion dollar loan @ ridiculously low interest rates. He can then continue to have wealth gain as his "asset" continues to grow. All 144 billion dollars of it. Hell he can probably borrow at a multiple on the 144 and leverage it to borrow more than 144 billion, say if he wanted to buy out another company with his own wealth.

Since he would not have to sell anything he would not be charged any tax.

I mean this was all covered in the article, did you read it?

Ok, he takes out a 20 billion dollar loan with say 2% interest with a 20 year pay period. His monthly payments then are 101.18 million. He earned 4.22 billion in income over a 5 year period. Let's assume an equal amount per year so he earned 844 million per year. On that he owes 312.24 million in federal income tax at 2020 rates for simplicity before deductions. Washington state where he lives has no state income tax. Let's say he gets a similar amount of deductions as reported in the article and he pays two thirds of that so 209.10 million. Therefore he has roughly 634.90 million left to work with. His monthly payments on that 20 billion dollar loan total 101.18 million. Therefore he still needs to pay 579.22 million above what he earns in a year just to service the loan that year. The loan you said was free. Ok fine so he liquidates some stock to cover it. Remember he needs 20% more than that (for simplicity) to pay capital gains tax so he liquidates 724 million in stocks a year just to cover the loan. Over 20 years all else remaining the same he pays an additional 2.90 billion on top of the interest on this 20 billion dollar loan for a 'true' interest rate (I can do stupid things like ProPublica too isn't it fun?) of about 3.35% or two thirds more than the advertised rate.

Now he's not asked to pay 20 billion, just 5.7 billion with the proposed wealth tax so he'd be able to cover the 346 million payments on his income alone... for the first year anyway. Remember he'd have to do this every year if you're proposing he take out a loan to pay. By the end of the terms of the first loan he'd be making 6.92 billion a year just in loan payments or 8.65 billion worth of stocks liquidated to cover it if he chose not to use his income.

You... you don't work for a bank do you? The banks seem like they're making a pretty sweet deal in this scenario.

[Shadowferal]

[Endus]

Ok, he takes out a 20 billion dollar loan with say 2% interest with a 20 year pay period. His monthly payments then are 101.18 million. He earned 4.22 billion in income over a 5 year period. Let's assume an equal amount per year so he earned 844 million per year. On that he owes 312.24 million in federal income tax at 2020 rates for simplicity before deductions. Washington state where he lives has no state income tax. Let's say he gets a similar amount of deductions as reported in the article and he pays two thirds of that so 209.10 million. Therefore he has roughly 634.90 million left to work with. His monthly payments on that 20 billion dollar loan total 101.18 million. Therefore he still needs to pay 579.22 million above what he earns in a year just to service the loan that year. The loan you said was free. Ok fine so he liquidates some stock to cover it. Remember he needs 20% more than that (for simplicity) to pay capital gains tax so he liquidates 724 million in stocks a year just to cover the loan. Over 20 years all else remaining the same he pays an additional 2.90 billion on top of the interest on this 20 billion dollar loan for a 'true' interest rate (I can do stupid things like ProPublica too isn't it fun?) of about 3.35% or two thirds more than the advertised rate.

Now he's not asked to pay 20 billion, just 5.7 billion with the proposed wealth tax so he'd be able to cover the 346 million payments on his income alone... for the first year anyway. Remember he'd have to do this every year if you're proposing he take out a loan to pay. By the end of the terms of the first loan he'd be making 6.92 billion a year just in loan payments or 8.65 billion worth of stocks liquidated to cover it if he chose not to use his income.

You... you don't work for a bank do you? The banks seem like they're making a pretty sweet deal in this scenario.

I mean, you seem to be complaining that his wealth wouldn't be sustainable.

And that's the deliberate intent of such a tax.

Complaining about the desired and intended outcome is . . . not an argument.

[Zan15]

Ok, he takes out a 20 billion dollar loan with say 2% interest with a 20 year pay period. His monthly payments then are 101.18 million. He earned 4.22 billion in income over a 5 year period. Let's assume an equal amount per year so he earned 844 million per year. On that he owes 312.24 million in federal income tax at 2020 rates for simplicity before deductions. Washington state where he lives has no state income tax. Let's say he gets a similar amount of deductions as reported in the article and he pays two thirds of that so 209.10 million. Therefore he has roughly 634.90 million left to work with. His monthly payments on that 20 billion dollar loan total 101.18 million. Therefore he still needs to pay 579.22 million above what he earns in a year just to service the loan that year. The loan you said was free. Ok fine so he liquidates some stock to cover it. Remember he needs 20% more than that (for simplicity) to pay capital gains tax so he liquidates 724 million in stocks a year just to cover the loan. Over 20 years all else remaining the same he pays an additional 2.90 billion on top of the interest on this 20 billion dollar loan for a 'true' interest rate (I can do stupid things like ProPublica too isn't it fun?) of about 3.35% or two thirds more than the advertised rate.

Now he's not asked to pay 20 billion, just 5.7 billion with the proposed wealth tax so he'd be able to cover the 346 million payments on his income alone... for the first year anyway. Remember he'd have to do this every year if you're proposing he take out a loan to pay. By the end of the terms of the first loan he'd be making 6.92 billion a year just in loan payments or 8.65 billion worth of stocks liquidated to cover it if he chose not to use his income.

You... you don't work for a bank do you? The banks seem like they're making a pretty sweet deal in this scenario.

Well your first mistake is assuming the 20 billion dollars would cover just a single year taxes, so he wouldn't have to do this every year.

Even worst case, Warren's tax would be 3%, or 4.3 billion dollars.

Then he is still sitting on 144 billion which has been appreciating at greater than 2% each year. Even a 10% growth rate which is substantially under amazon's stock rate in any measurement would result in him netting an additional 14.4 billion dollars each year. Even @ 2% to match his interest on his loan his asset would gain 2.88 billion dollars in value.

He could then sell just the gain in value to cover his loan payments/taxes while still increasing his net work by billions each year.

This does not even assume any other income in the mix.

[Bodakane]

I guess I'll just directly post it instead of just the link. From February 3rd this year taken from just released IRS tax data.

https://taxfoundation.org/publicatio...ncome-tax-data



As you can see, data from the IRS, the top 1% had 20.9% of adjusted gross income in 2018, down slightly from 2017 before the Trump tax cut and paid a larger share of the income tax revenue at 40.1% up from 38.5% in 2017

And then a particularly egregious fudging of the numbers for Michael Bloomberg from the ProPublica article



I mean he only made charitable donations totaling $968.3 million on his reported income in 2018 of $1.9 billion, but who is counting. Such a scrooge, he owes more to society.

Sigh.

You admit you understand they do everything they can to pay as little as possible by showing as little standard income as they can, then turn around and harp on and on about the tax they pay on their standard income, which is sans the loopholes.

Its either batshit insane or intellectually dishonest on your part.

[Shadowferal]

[Zan15]

I mean, you seem to be complaining that his wealth wouldn't be sustainable.

And that's the deliberate intent of such a tax.

Complaining about the desired and intended outcome is . . . not an argument.

it still would be, based on his asset growth even if he took out huge loans to pay his new tax bills.

That was the point of the investigation, that these billionaires can sustain asset growth by never having to spend their assets and use money from loans to buy/pay for the things they want/need.

They could pay the 3% wealth tax and still see their wealth grow each year by leaps and bounds.

[Endus]

it still would be, based on his asset growth even if he took out huge loans to pay his new tax bills.

That was the point of the investigation, that these billionaires can sustain asset growth by never having to spend their assets and use money from loans to buy/pay for the things they want/need.

They could pay the 3% wealth tax and still see their wealth grow each year by leaps and bounds.

I'm just pointing out that the typical refrain is "but it would be more difficult for these uber-rich to maintain their wealth level and ownership of the means of production, year after year!"

When that's not by any measure a negative, and indeed, is a desirable outcome in pretty much every respect. One of the goals of a wealth tax.