3 ms·

Maybe this is controversial but I'm not even worried about the people making $2 million per year. At the end of the day that's the salary equivalent to about 27

Maybe this is controversial but I'm not even worried about the people making $2 million per year. At the end of the day that's the salary equivalent to about 27 average employees, a small office worth. I'm more worried about the people making (net worth increasing) $100 million per year, 1351 times the average income, or as much as an entire town. Or $2 billion per year, which would take twenty seven thousand years for someone to earn at a median wage. If you're earning as much every year as the average person earns in 27000 years of working, perhaps we should raise taxes on that a bit and not allow reduced-rate capital gains and tax-free loans.

Eumenes 3y ago
Sundar Pichai's total comp is like $220 million but $2 million of that is in salary and the rest is in stock. I agree that capital gains should be taxed more - its strange how income (work) is taxed higher than money sitting in accounts, doing nothing.
- gottorf 3y ago
  Capital gains are taxed like ordinary income, except long-term capital gains, which have lower rates because we as a society decided that it's overall beneficial to encourage investment into productive capacity. You could argue that maybe that's wrong, but plenty of thought did go into it through the legislative process. > income (work) is taxed higher than money sitting in accounts, doing nothing It's not money just sitting in accounts. It's just the paper value of the stock that Pichai or whoever owns, which ultimately is a fractional share of Google the company, which presumably is engaging in productive enterprise[0]. And stock grants are taxed; you definitely can't dodge the tax man that easily. [0]: Now, you could definitely argue that the value that Google provides to the world is less than what its market capitalization would indicate, and I certainly have a sympathetic view to that. But it's individual market participants that decide what that value is.

Eumenes 3y ago

Sundar Pichai's total comp is like $220 million but $2 million of that is in salary and the rest is in stock. I agree that capital gains should be taxed more - its strange how income (work) is taxed higher than money sitting in accounts, doing nothing.

gottorf 3y ago
Capital gains are taxed like ordinary income, except long-term capital gains, which have lower rates because we as a society decided that it's overall beneficial to encourage investment into productive capacity. You could argue that maybe that's wrong, but plenty of thought did go into it through the legislative process. > income (work) is taxed higher than money sitting in accounts, doing nothing It's not money just sitting in accounts. It's just the paper value of the stock that Pichai or whoever owns, which ultimately is a fractional share of Google the company, which presumably is engaging in productive enterprise[0]. And stock grants are taxed; you definitely can't dodge the tax man that easily. [0]: Now, you could definitely argue that the value that Google provides to the world is less than what its market capitalization would indicate, and I certainly have a sympathetic view to that. But it's individual market participants that decide what that value is.