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U.S. Billionaires Faced Tax Rates as Low as 0%: ProPublica
- gruez 5y ago>as Low as 0% Let me guess, it's 0% because it's unrealized gains?
- nopzor 5y agoexactly. it’s amazing to me that the mainstream media (eg cnn) is making such a big issue about this when it’s literally all about unrealized gains (ie not “income”).
- lhorie 5y agoThis seems like an emotional manipulation piece. It quotes various people saying various things, but there's literally nothing that indicates that any accusations of foul play are actually factually true. Most damning: "Rettig said he could not comment on the article directly or on the tax situation of any individual. Federal employees can face prison time for improperly releasing private taxpayer data." As for an occasional 0% tax rate: this is possible if you have enough capital losses on paper one year to offset whatever you may have owed otherwise. This could be from a variety of mechanisms, e.g. say you acquired 100 shares at $5 each 10 years ago, then another 10 at $50 2 years ago. If the shares are worth $48 now, the total portfolio is worth $5280. If you sell any 1 share you get $48 in cash, but _which_ share you sell matters for tax purposes: if you sell one you bought for $50, you incurred a $2 loss, even though you've spent $1000 in total to buy the shares and are now sitting on over $5000 dollars worth of shares (a five-fold increase in wealth).