Interest rates are almost zero right now (AFR is 0.12% for short term in July), so money is "free" if you're a low enough credit risk, and fully collateralized

Interest rates are almost zero right now (AFR is 0.12% for short term in July), so money is "free" if you're a low enough credit risk, and fully collateralized loans are easy to get at near-AFR rates if you're rich. I'm not so sure people are doing this to avoid taxes, though, as opposed to truly wanting to remain in the market as much as possible. If I was Bezos and I had faith in Amazon, I wouldn't want to exit any of my position, especially since that can send a negative signal to the market, etc. If I could hold my position and still spend money without racking up nearly any meaningful interest, I'd happily do so, you'd kinda have to be crazy not to since there's no downside (the principal keeps on earning for you and there's very little cost to service the debt). Companies do stuff like this all the time, there are a million good reasons to maintain debt even when you have assets you could otherwise liquidate, especially when rates are low. Besides, unless it's given away to charity the bulk of the wealth will be taxed at death anyways via estate tax, so I'm not entirely following the nefarious implications here. I guess people are mad that the borrowed and spent money effectively escapes taxes since it's paid by the estate pre-estate-tax, I guess? I'm reasonably sure that no bank would loan someone in this situation anywhere near their entire net worth, so I can't help but feel like this is a very edge-casey small issue that is only a problem in the rare years where interest rates are so low that it makes sense to do this...