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Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes
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- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoHeadline says: >Wealthiest U.S. executives paid little to nothing in federal income taxes Article says: >$13.6 billion in federal income taxes
- poidos 5y ago“… on $401 billion of their wealth.”
- johnrbent 5y agoSo less than 3.4% on average. How much do you pay?
- dwighttk 5y agoWealth is not income
- NovemberWhiskey 5y agoI pay 0% federal income taxes on my wealth; the same as everyone else.
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- adrian_b 5y agoBy stressing "federal income taxes" I assume that you mean that there are local taxes on wealth. I do not know how it is in USA, but in most countries there are taxes on wealth, typically at least on houses, cars and land. Wherever I have seen the amount of those taxes, they were already too high in my opinion. Moreover, the inheritance taxes are also a kind of tax on wealth and they are also quite high in many places. In my opinion taxes on wealth should be reduced, not increased, because I have seen cases when someone happened to be jobless for some time, thus having no income. While without the burden of taxes on wealth they could have lived decently for a longer time, waiting for an opportunity, the necessity of paying the taxes could force them to sell their property at loss and risk becoming homeless. I do not think that is right. On the other hand, when someone owns much more wealth than would be needed to ensure a decent life until dying of old age, then I would accept that it is right to tax the excess wealth. However, I have seen too many cases when the introduction of taxes on wealth was justified as "tax for the rich", but in the actual law the taxation thresholds were so low that the taxes affected mostly the lower end of the middle class, not the really rich.
- dwighttk 5y agoEven worse they have >$13.6 billion in federal income taxes on $401 billion of their wealth, which was tabulated by Forbes. Wealth is not income!
- user3939382 5y agoLet’s pass an exemption for top executives that they permanently owe 0 income tax in consideration of their role in creating countless jobs.
- lifestyleguru 5y agoOne achieving this level of entrepreneurship can decide on their own how to pay back to society through sophisticated layers of charities and offshore businesses. Thank you for 3 EUR plastic Chinese smartphone handler, thank you for the 80k EUR car with 350km range, thank you for self-assembly cardboard furnitures, thank you for operating systems spying on me in real time.
- Aqueous 5y agoI'm a little baffled why there have been all these articles of this category recently. It's not news that you don't pay taxes on invested assets you hold and don't sell. That's how it works for everyone who invests their savings. This isn't a 'tax-avoidance' tactic - it's just what owning something is. Are we really advocating for a world where you are taxed just for appreciation? Maybe we are but at least be honest about it - that this would be a radical change from the current concept of ownership. I'm all for taxing the wealthy more, but I personally don't want to pay taxes yearly on an index fund I've held for 10 years and don't plan to sell until I retire, at which point I will pay taxes on the gains.
- Retric 5y agoExcept property tax is a wealth tax. So we have a wealth tax, it’s just highly regressive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax_in_the_United_Sta...
- LinuxBender 5y agoProperty tax is interesting but probably in a different category as you are sharing space/property with a local government. I hope we have a historian here that knows the background and rationale on property tax. It is interesting that it is tied to the value of the property and not simply based on the size of the lot.
- nickpp 5y agoNot a historian but I suspect that property taxes were originally meant to pay for things like infrastructure, garbage, police, firefighters, schools, etc. Pretty much community costs incurred by the development of the area including and around your property. Of course, without actual transparence and accountability and considering the state of said infrastructure, schools, etc, it is hard to know where these taxes actually go nowadays.
- Retric 5y ago
- zx2391 5y agoCorrupt police men in Indian sprawls know this for a long time. You cannot extract lots from a few rich drivers (in addition, you may face personal consequences as well). The best spots are where you have a many middle class to lower class drivers, who need to be somewhere quickly, and will pay up. Smaller amounts, but continuously.
- Proven 5y ago50% of Americans pay nothing. That's much worse (and a reason behind such inane articles)
- curation 5y agoYes. This is how feudalism works.
- dayk995 5y agoI admit I don't know how this all works. But just a few naive questions: if these folks are taking out loans backed by the shares of their stock, how do you repay that loan without triggering a taxable event (ie selling shares). If we as a society want to prevent this from happening, can the government force the banks to raise the rates on these types of loans so it becomes less attractive for these individuals. The US could then require that some % of that loan to account for taxes.
- germinalphrase 5y agoApparently, you roll the original loan into a new loan until you die?
- camel_Snake 5y agoMy understanding is the essentially take out loans indefinitely using their assets as collateral. Loans to pay back previous loans, etc. The 'grift' is that when they die, their inheritors are able to sell off said collateral to pay off the debt avoiding any cap gains on those sales due to the step-up basis after death.
- imtringued 5y agoCharge a negative interest rate on their bank accounts. If their income is derived from selling assets they will lose a lot from the negative interest rates because they take the loan ahead of time.
- merricksb 5y agoAlready discussed many times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27441277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27441277 (267 points/12 days ago/404 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27432326 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27432326 (1031 points/13 days ago/970 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27434307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27434307 (609 points/13 days ago/568 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27474673 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27474673 (37 points/9 days ago/21 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27435983 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27435983 (28 points/12 days ago/6 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27546005 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27546005 (25 points/3 days ago/8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27465272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27465272 (20 points/10 days ago//21 comments)