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A noble idea, but the logistics of it are difficult. How would you actually do that tax? For example, take Jeff Bezos. His income isn't all that much, so you

A noble idea, but the logistics of it are difficult. How would you actually do that tax? For example, take Jeff Bezos. His income isn't all that much, so you'd probably want to tax his wealth. Luckily, most of his wealth is from a public company, so we can skip the difficulty of valuing it (something a lot of other billionaires would have to deal with). But now how do you collect the tax? Do you make him sell 95% of his shares of Amazon? That would certainly tank the stock, and then you would owe him a big refund for overtaxing him. Or does the government just take his Amazon shares? So now the government would be the biggest shareholder of Amazon. Is that good? What does the government do with that stock? Does it start giving shares to government workers instead of paychecks? Does it pay off its debts with Amazon stock? Would the government's vendors even take that as payment? I agree that wealth inequality is a problem, and we need to do something about it. I'm not exactly sure what or how though.

ysofunny 3y ago
I would start by leraning more about how public markets really work that's were the solutions need to be implemented but I find it impossible to have good conversations about this. the last time I was able to discuss this I ended up concluding that somehow euler's constant is basically the same as the gravitational constant but people tell me I'm misscalibrated, so my only retort is I'm mister calibrated....
gottorf 3y ago
> I agree that wealth inequality is a problem, and we need to do something about it. Why? Wealth isn't zero-sum. Most of the American super-wealthy got that way by providing value to others. I'd argue that the bigger problem to societal stability is jealousy and envy, and the idea that rich people got that way by taking from the poor. The hugely inflated net worth numbers of the likes of Bezos and Musk are fake anyway, in the sense that their assets could not be converted to that amount of dollars; and the Fed should take a large share of the blame here, because ZIRP made it so that investors could only really put their money in growth tech companies.
- notpachet 3y ago
  > Wealth isn't zero-sum. Of course it is. We live on a planet with finite resources; everything here is zero-sum. I don't buy the myth that we can create value from nothing. Some people are just better at socializing their harmful byproducts.
  - Negitivefrags 3y ago
    So if I have some wood, and I create a chair out of it, would you would say that nothing of value was created? Previously we had some lumber worth $10 and now we have a chair worth $250 dollars. Where did the $240 dollars come from? Was it stolen from somebody else?
    - notpachet 3y ago
      Where did the wood come from? Where did the calories you used to make the chair come from? Where did your tools come from? Who trained you? Who owns the property where your workshop is located? How much marketing effort did you have to spend convincing another human that the chair is actually worth $250? What potentially carcinogenic chemicals did you treat the wood with, and how much grant money is your government giving to doctors to treat the consequences of those carcinogens in the larger population? All of those factors have hidden externalities baked into them that erode the net value you're creating. My argument is that it's all just a shell game where we're passing costs down the line to future generations while telling ourselves we're creating something valuable from nothing because it's what we need to do to sleep at night. We just don't perceive the longer-term externalities in a lot of cases.
      - Negitivefrags 3y ago
        I'm not going to claim that all externalities are priced. There is certainly a lot more that we could do. But many of them are. The cost of the calories, the tools, the training, the property, and the marketing are certainly all priced. But let's just say that you priced all of the externalities perfectly. In this hypothetical example, can you really make an argument that all of that adds up to more than, say, 100 dollars? And if you can't, then you still have a lot of "value" to account for.
dubcanada 3y ago
The logistics are just more difficult because WE let it be more difficult. "Oh it's so difficult to tax a billionaire". No it isn't. If we wanted to do it, we could. We just do not care, and we let them get away with it. Shares are not money, shares are a percentage you own of a company, that's it. It's when you sell said shares and turn it into money that it becomes taxable. It's not rocket science. If you hold the shares forever, that's fine. But as soon as your future son sells them, they get taxed. I really don't know why everyone always says stuff like that, it's really not a difficult concept. Money is money, stuff that is not money is obviously not money. A house worth 1 million is not equal to 1 million until someone gives you 1 million for it. Before that it's just a pile of wood. Now this would promote not selling shares, but maybe transferring them. Okay you can't transfer shares. We just don't try, there is no attempt at anything. If we wanted too, we could. I am not saying we'll get everything, but even 1% more of what we get right now is worth probably the same tax we collect from all of the poorer tax payers. I personally don't think we should tax income, I am a proponent of a higher sales tax and zero income tax personally. I think that's easier. You want to buy a jet? Ya you're paying 40% tax, but you get to keep all of your millions.
- gnaritas99 3y ago
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varelse 3y ago
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yowzadave 3y ago
> Do you make him sell 95% of his shares of Amazon? That would certainly tank the stock Why would it tank the stock if the ownership of those shares was transferred from Bezos to a social wealth fund?
- jedberg 3y ago
  Because the market is irrational and fears change. The stock dropped when he got divorced and some of the shares transferred to his ex-wife, even though he still had a controlling share. Stocks always drop when the biggest holder sells for any reason. People don’t understand the nuance they just see the headline.
  - asadotzler 3y ago
    If this were a real example, he'd have been selling small amounts for a long time and your concern would never come to fruition.
  - yowzadave 3y ago
    But in this hypothetical, Bezos was legally compelled to sell--there is no signal for the market that "maybe Bezos is losing confidence in the company."
    - jedberg 3y ago
      Like I said, people don’t understand. When he got divorced he was legally compelled to transfer to her. Stock dropped anyway. When the CEO of Netflix had to sell because his options expired, the stock still dropped because the headline said he sold.
- kwhitefoot 3y ago
  Why would it matter if it did?
FireBeyond 3y ago
> But now how do you collect the tax? Do you make him sell 95% of his shares of Amazon? That would certainly tank the stock, and then you would owe him a big refund for overtaxing him. Apropos of anything else, the IRS bases things on the calendar year, and then gives you to April to "settle up". It wouldn't owe him a refund in this situation, then, but his next year tax bill might be lower.
- jedberg 3y ago
  If the law didn’t have a way to get a refund for a loss in value when you sold to pay the tax then you could potentially owe more than you have. I was assuming such a law would have to have a provision for that. If you get assessed at 100 billion, start selling off the assets and when you get to 50 billion you have nothing left because of the loss of value, you’d still owe 45 billion? That wouldn’t be fair at all.

ysofunny 3y ago

I would start by leraning more about how public markets really work that's were the solutions need to be implemented but I find it impossible to have good conversations about this. the last time I was able to discuss this I ended up concluding that somehow euler's constant is basically the same as the gravitational constant but people tell me I'm misscalibrated, so my only retort is I'm mister calibrated....

gottorf 3y ago

> I agree that wealth inequality is a problem, and we need to do something about it. Why? Wealth isn't zero-sum. Most of the American super-wealthy got that way by providing value to others. I'd argue that the bigger problem to societal stability is jealousy and envy, and the idea that rich people got that way by taking from the poor. The hugely inflated net worth numbers of the likes of Bezos and Musk are fake anyway, in the sense that their assets could not be converted to that amount of dollars; and the Fed should take a large share of the blame here, because ZIRP made it so that investors could only really put their money in growth tech companies.

notpachet 3y ago
> Wealth isn't zero-sum. Of course it is. We live on a planet with finite resources; everything here is zero-sum. I don't buy the myth that we can create value from nothing. Some people are just better at socializing their harmful byproducts.
- Negitivefrags 3y ago
  So if I have some wood, and I create a chair out of it, would you would say that nothing of value was created? Previously we had some lumber worth $10 and now we have a chair worth $250 dollars. Where did the $240 dollars come from? Was it stolen from somebody else?
  - notpachet 3y ago
    Where did the wood come from? Where did the calories you used to make the chair come from? Where did your tools come from? Who trained you? Who owns the property where your workshop is located? How much marketing effort did you have to spend convincing another human that the chair is actually worth $250? What potentially carcinogenic chemicals did you treat the wood with, and how much grant money is your government giving to doctors to treat the consequences of those carcinogens in the larger population? All of those factors have hidden externalities baked into them that erode the net value you're creating. My argument is that it's all just a shell game where we're passing costs down the line to future generations while telling ourselves we're creating something valuable from nothing because it's what we need to do to sleep at night. We just don't perceive the longer-term externalities in a lot of cases.
    - Negitivefrags 3y ago
      I'm not going to claim that all externalities are priced. There is certainly a lot more that we could do. But many of them are. The cost of the calories, the tools, the training, the property, and the marketing are certainly all priced. But let's just say that you priced all of the externalities perfectly. In this hypothetical example, can you really make an argument that all of that adds up to more than, say, 100 dollars? And if you can't, then you still have a lot of "value" to account for.

dubcanada 3y ago

The logistics are just more difficult because WE let it be more difficult. "Oh it's so difficult to tax a billionaire". No it isn't. If we wanted to do it, we could. We just do not care, and we let them get away with it. Shares are not money, shares are a percentage you own of a company, that's it. It's when you sell said shares and turn it into money that it becomes taxable. It's not rocket science. If you hold the shares forever, that's fine. But as soon as your future son sells them, they get taxed. I really don't know why everyone always says stuff like that, it's really not a difficult concept. Money is money, stuff that is not money is obviously not money. A house worth 1 million is not equal to 1 million until someone gives you 1 million for it. Before that it's just a pile of wood. Now this would promote not selling shares, but maybe transferring them. Okay you can't transfer shares. We just don't try, there is no attempt at anything. If we wanted too, we could. I am not saying we'll get everything, but even 1% more of what we get right now is worth probably the same tax we collect from all of the poorer tax payers. I personally don't think we should tax income, I am a proponent of a higher sales tax and zero income tax personally. I think that's easier. You want to buy a jet? Ya you're paying 40% tax, but you get to keep all of your millions.

gnaritas99 3y ago
[dead]

varelse 3y ago

[dead]

yowzadave 3y ago

> Do you make him sell 95% of his shares of Amazon? That would certainly tank the stock Why would it tank the stock if the ownership of those shares was transferred from Bezos to a social wealth fund?

jedberg 3y ago
Because the market is irrational and fears change. The stock dropped when he got divorced and some of the shares transferred to his ex-wife, even though he still had a controlling share. Stocks always drop when the biggest holder sells for any reason. People don’t understand the nuance they just see the headline.
- asadotzler 3y ago
  If this were a real example, he'd have been selling small amounts for a long time and your concern would never come to fruition.
- yowzadave 3y ago
  But in this hypothetical, Bezos was legally compelled to sell--there is no signal for the market that "maybe Bezos is losing confidence in the company."
  - jedberg 3y ago
    Like I said, people don’t understand. When he got divorced he was legally compelled to transfer to her. Stock dropped anyway. When the CEO of Netflix had to sell because his options expired, the stock still dropped because the headline said he sold.
kwhitefoot 3y ago
Why would it matter if it did?

FireBeyond 3y ago

> But now how do you collect the tax? Do you make him sell 95% of his shares of Amazon? That would certainly tank the stock, and then you would owe him a big refund for overtaxing him. Apropos of anything else, the IRS bases things on the calendar year, and then gives you to April to "settle up". It wouldn't owe him a refund in this situation, then, but his next year tax bill might be lower.

jedberg 3y ago
If the law didn’t have a way to get a refund for a loss in value when you sold to pay the tax then you could potentially owe more than you have. I was assuming such a law would have to have a provision for that. If you get assessed at 100 billion, start selling off the assets and when you get to 50 billion you have nothing left because of the loss of value, you’d still owe 45 billion? That wouldn’t be fair at all.