5 ms·

Gary’s story is dystopian: jail and slavery to a big corporation. Based move would be to get min wage job or live off benefits and do open source work.

dmurray 3y ago
Getting a job that pays cash in hand, or largely in non-cash benefits, would be the other obvious approach. Huge tax rates are generally counterproductive for society (even if you like big government and think the state is a better steward of money than the individual) because at some point people are no longer motivated to produce anything.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Or start a start up. You can pay yourself minimum wage with wealth tied up in the startup that wont be realised for a decade or more.
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    The best would be a business that purchases his things for him. E.g. he starts an LLC, profits stay in the company, company provides meals, vehicle, and phone+plan for the execs, plus travel expenses, and he gets a low salary from which I guess he still has to pay his rent.
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Can't the LLC rent some flat as "company apartment" for "employees traveling on business", that happens to be in the same town as the HQ, and, since the LLC has only one employee... Or just plain rent it and sublet it to the CEO for peanuts. (This is all fun speculation, but Nintendo lawyers aren't idiots - the actual settlement likely covers LLCs, startups, benefits, and all other obvious workarounds. Hell, it probably makes Nintendo entitled to the 30% of unreported cash income and proceeds from crime as well.)
      - Ekaros 3y ago
        And in some countries these kind of benefits are taxed as income. And limited in amount that can be provided. But that requires sensible legistlation.
      - dmurray 3y ago
        I assumed it was an order imposed by a judge and that there was some kind of standard process here. It's not abnormal for a judge to order you to pay X% of your salary capped at Y dollars a month, for example in child support. It's unclear from the article what the nature of the payment is. It's described as a "fine" rather than "damages" but also mentions an "agreement with Nintendo".
    - singleshot_ 3y ago
      Couldn’t I just sue his interest in the LLC in rem and now his creditors own the LLC, which they could liquidate? He might be one tick better if someone else owned the LLC?
  - callamdelaney 3y ago
    Seems pointless because he will have to pay nintendo when he gets that wealth. Draconian.
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      The idea is to moonshot: you succeed and paying nintendo is nothing. you fail and you’ve paid nintendo nothing!
- mattmanser 3y ago
  Haha, who told you that, billionaires by any chance?
  - Hendrikto 3y ago
    You know that billionaires don‘t have salaries in the billions of dollars, right? They are largely paid in stocks, which are not taxed until sold. And you know they don‘t sell them if they can avoid it, because they don‘t want to pay high taxes?
    - bn-usd-mistake 3y ago
      Any source for not being liable for income taxes at the time of receiving stocks? That seems like a very obvious gap (which is not present in many EU countries at least, here we are definitely liable for income tax when RSUs vest). I thought the reason for delaying selling of stocks is to avoid capital gains tax, not income tax. I did a quick google, and most sources seem to support that taxes are due at RSU vesting time, e.g. > With RSUs, you are taxed when the shares are delivered, which is almost always at vesting. Your taxable income is the market value of the shares at vesting. https://www.schwab.com/public/eac/resources/articles/rsu_facts.html https://www.schwab.com/public/eac/resources/articles/rsu_fac... Why would this be different for the salaries of rich people? Isn't it more that they usually get large amounts of stocks at low prices if they stick with the company for a long time?
      - Hendrikto 3y ago
        There are different types of stock options. > ISO – no tax liability for exercising the option. You pay capital gains tax when you sell your contract or sell the stocks in your option. > As you can see, there are tax benefits to going with the ISO – you don’t pay any ordinary income tax at any point. ISO = Incentive Stock Option https://www.vectorvest.com/blog/options/how-are-stock-options-taxed/ https://www.vectorvest.com/blog/options/how-are-stock-option...
        filoleg 3y ago
- Yoric 3y ago
  I'm surrounded by people who produce lots of things, researchers, writers, developers, teachers, ... While money matters, I'm pretty sure it's secondary in their lives. So, not convinced about the "motivation" angle. Maybe it's a US thing?
  - Gustomaximus 3y ago
    I think it depends what you mean by 'money matters' Some people clearly like consumption. Many are probably like me where income has gone up reasonably career progression but largely live the same lifestyle as where comfortable many years back. Any increasing excess goes onto the mortgage and savings type deal. For me I'm happy wearing whatever clothes vs designer and actually like driving an older/cheaper car for zero care factor type thing and have few things I wish to splurge on. At the same time money really matters as I never want to think about it. Once over a threshold it's low on my motivation and I'd generally choose more interesting work. Below the threshold I will become very motivated with it.
  - heywhatupboys 3y ago
    > Maybe it's a US thing? no. communism, wherever introduced, has never worked
    - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
      Huh? No one said anything about communism.
      - heywhatupboys 3y ago
        he said that only in the US would work be disincentivized by high taxation. That is not the case.
        Yoric 3y ago
        Well, I was talking of "producing", not "work". At least in my mind, they're really not the same. Also, I'm sure that I did not mention communism. I do believe that the US has a very unique manner of looking at money, though. By the way, can you think of a country in which taxation is so high that work is disincentivized?
Aeolun 3y ago
Move somewhere Nintendo doesn’t reach and go live your life again? I hear Russia’s nice this time of the year.
- trosi 3y ago
  There are lots of places where you can work illegally without a contract and therefore without declaring an income.
ada1981 3y ago
Get a job he has to pay money to work at and invoice Nintendo.

dmurray 3y ago

Getting a job that pays cash in hand, or largely in non-cash benefits, would be the other obvious approach. Huge tax rates are generally counterproductive for society (even if you like big government and think the state is a better steward of money than the individual) because at some point people are no longer motivated to produce anything.

quickthrower2 3y ago
Or start a start up. You can pay yourself minimum wage with wealth tied up in the startup that wont be realised for a decade or more.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  The best would be a business that purchases his things for him. E.g. he starts an LLC, profits stay in the company, company provides meals, vehicle, and phone+plan for the execs, plus travel expenses, and he gets a low salary from which I guess he still has to pay his rent.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Can't the LLC rent some flat as "company apartment" for "employees traveling on business", that happens to be in the same town as the HQ, and, since the LLC has only one employee... Or just plain rent it and sublet it to the CEO for peanuts. (This is all fun speculation, but Nintendo lawyers aren't idiots - the actual settlement likely covers LLCs, startups, benefits, and all other obvious workarounds. Hell, it probably makes Nintendo entitled to the 30% of unreported cash income and proceeds from crime as well.)
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      And in some countries these kind of benefits are taxed as income. And limited in amount that can be provided. But that requires sensible legistlation.
    - dmurray 3y ago
      I assumed it was an order imposed by a judge and that there was some kind of standard process here. It's not abnormal for a judge to order you to pay X% of your salary capped at Y dollars a month, for example in child support. It's unclear from the article what the nature of the payment is. It's described as a "fine" rather than "damages" but also mentions an "agreement with Nintendo".
  - singleshot_ 3y ago
    Couldn’t I just sue his interest in the LLC in rem and now his creditors own the LLC, which they could liquidate? He might be one tick better if someone else owned the LLC?
- callamdelaney 3y ago
  Seems pointless because he will have to pay nintendo when he gets that wealth. Draconian.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    The idea is to moonshot: you succeed and paying nintendo is nothing. you fail and you’ve paid nintendo nothing!
mattmanser 3y ago
Haha, who told you that, billionaires by any chance?
- Hendrikto 3y ago
  You know that billionaires don‘t have salaries in the billions of dollars, right? They are largely paid in stocks, which are not taxed until sold. And you know they don‘t sell them if they can avoid it, because they don‘t want to pay high taxes?
  - bn-usd-mistake 3y ago
    Any source for not being liable for income taxes at the time of receiving stocks? That seems like a very obvious gap (which is not present in many EU countries at least, here we are definitely liable for income tax when RSUs vest). I thought the reason for delaying selling of stocks is to avoid capital gains tax, not income tax. I did a quick google, and most sources seem to support that taxes are due at RSU vesting time, e.g. > With RSUs, you are taxed when the shares are delivered, which is almost always at vesting. Your taxable income is the market value of the shares at vesting. https://www.schwab.com/public/eac/resources/articles/rsu_facts.html https://www.schwab.com/public/eac/resources/articles/rsu_fac... Why would this be different for the salaries of rich people? Isn't it more that they usually get large amounts of stocks at low prices if they stick with the company for a long time?
    - Hendrikto 3y ago
      There are different types of stock options. > ISO – no tax liability for exercising the option. You pay capital gains tax when you sell your contract or sell the stocks in your option. > As you can see, there are tax benefits to going with the ISO – you don’t pay any ordinary income tax at any point. ISO = Incentive Stock Option https://www.vectorvest.com/blog/options/how-are-stock-options-taxed/ https://www.vectorvest.com/blog/options/how-are-stock-option...
      - filoleg 3y ago
Yoric 3y ago
I'm surrounded by people who produce lots of things, researchers, writers, developers, teachers, ... While money matters, I'm pretty sure it's secondary in their lives. So, not convinced about the "motivation" angle. Maybe it's a US thing?
- Gustomaximus 3y ago
  I think it depends what you mean by 'money matters' Some people clearly like consumption. Many are probably like me where income has gone up reasonably career progression but largely live the same lifestyle as where comfortable many years back. Any increasing excess goes onto the mortgage and savings type deal. For me I'm happy wearing whatever clothes vs designer and actually like driving an older/cheaper car for zero care factor type thing and have few things I wish to splurge on. At the same time money really matters as I never want to think about it. Once over a threshold it's low on my motivation and I'd generally choose more interesting work. Below the threshold I will become very motivated with it.
- heywhatupboys 3y ago
  > Maybe it's a US thing? no. communism, wherever introduced, has never worked
  - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
    Huh? No one said anything about communism.
    - heywhatupboys 3y ago
      he said that only in the US would work be disincentivized by high taxation. That is not the case.
      - Yoric 3y ago
        Well, I was talking of "producing", not "work". At least in my mind, they're really not the same. Also, I'm sure that I did not mention communism. I do believe that the US has a very unique manner of looking at money, though. By the way, can you think of a country in which taxation is so high that work is disincentivized?

Aeolun 3y ago

Move somewhere Nintendo doesn’t reach and go live your life again? I hear Russia’s nice this time of the year.

trosi 3y ago
There are lots of places where you can work illegally without a contract and therefore without declaring an income.

ada1981 3y ago

Get a job he has to pay money to work at and invoice Nintendo.