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The usual response to any criticism of Thiel on HN: Actually this rocks!
by vernie 5y ago
The usual response to any criticism of Thiel on HN: Actually this rocks!
- aurizon 5y agoI did not criticise Thiel at all, he did well. That said he did have the ability to capture the entire leap from option pennies into mature trading stock at many many dollars, and roll that over a few times.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- papito 5y agoAny suggestion on HN that Peter Thiel is a shit-tier human and a monster will get you downvotes. The funny thing is, there is never any verbal defense - just downvotes.
- peter422 5y agoI thought his book on startups was very well done and interesting. However this seems quite shady. The rich should still have to pay taxes.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoThey do have to pay taxes. Maybe Congress should not pass laws that exempt them from paying taxes, or require them to pay more taxes.
- papito 5y agoCongress doesn't write laws - people like Peter Thiel do. You sound like these billionaires are innocent virgins. "Oppsies, I made all these billions because the incompetent congress let me do it". Uh huh.
- cinntaile 5y agoIt's a pretty smart loophole but it's not like he came up with this. He has tax specialists for that. Now, it's probably not a good idea for loopholes like these to exist. Articles like these can certainly make a difference to close them. Although it's definitely not black and white, excluding private shares would be too broad imo but maybe a different mechanism to determine the value should be used. More general I'd say Peter Thiel is both loved and hated and everything in between on HN, there is no real consensus.
- jrochkind1 5y agoWhy would excluding private shares be too broad? What portion of non-super-rich IRA's do you think have private shares in them? Probably approaching zero, right? Do people really need private shares to be able to set up retirement accounts? People can buy private shares when they have access to do so, they just can't use their IRA for it.
- cinntaile 5y agoI don't have any experience with the US tax system but where I live we have certain accounts that exclude private shares (and many other things). The main problem is valuing these shares correctly and if this can be done in an appropriate way I think it makes sense to not exclude them. For example... Private shares can be traded and are sometimes relatively liquid even though they're not public, in that case the trading price should be pretty representative of its real value.