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I don't think you're missing anything - the sense I get is that it's primarily a knee-jerk political response. I suspect people like to take cynical negative vi

I don't think you're missing anything - the sense I get is that it's primarily a knee-jerk political response. I suspect people like to take cynical negative views of things because it's both easy and a common method of trying to signal wise-ness, rarely is it applied consistently though. Bezos is just extremely visible and people take the positive space stuff as an excuse to 'well, actually' be 'contrarian' and negative. Irony though is this seems to be the mostly conventional political position anyway. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demands-for-rigor/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand... On the specific tax stuff, you can borrow against holdings and then pass them on when you die (I think people that inherit it get the cost basis 'stepped-up' to whatever level they get it at). This means some of that tax value on gains isn't collected. It's all tied up in unrealized gains for the most part and since it's typically associated with massive non-zero-sum wealth creation - I'm not sure why it matters. If people want to go after inheritance rather than taking wealth from people that actually created it, I suspect there would be a lot more support.

ironrabbit 5y ago
Interesting. Resetting cost basis upon inheritance does seem like a massive tax avoidance loophole, I can't quickly think of a reason why this should be allowed. I agree also that this would probably be a popular (and sensible) modification to the tax code.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Part of me wonders if the same group of people trying to take away the wealth created by others have both not created much of their own and stand to inherit a lot from their parents. I don't know - but I have a hunch that a lot of these voices are often trust fund kids, or kids of wealthy parents. It'd be an interesting paradox if they're suddenly against policy that may affect their inheritance. Currently though inheritance is protected up to fairly extreme monetary amounts (in the US anyway) so the change would have to be fairly dramatic.

ironrabbit 5y ago

Interesting. Resetting cost basis upon inheritance does seem like a massive tax avoidance loophole, I can't quickly think of a reason why this should be allowed. I agree also that this would probably be a popular (and sensible) modification to the tax code.

fossuser 5y ago
Part of me wonders if the same group of people trying to take away the wealth created by others have both not created much of their own and stand to inherit a lot from their parents. I don't know - but I have a hunch that a lot of these voices are often trust fund kids, or kids of wealthy parents. It'd be an interesting paradox if they're suddenly against policy that may affect their inheritance. Currently though inheritance is protected up to fairly extreme monetary amounts (in the US anyway) so the change would have to be fairly dramatic.