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How much would taxes take out of it though? An offer of 2 billion dollars is not equivalent to getting 2 billion in your bank account.

otakucode 12y ago
When you are dealing in billions, you don't pay taxes.
- TrevorJ 12y ago
  Oh come on. Not even gonna bother to ask you to back that up.
  - deciplex 12y ago
    He probably won't, so I will (somewhat, he's definitely exaggerating, but probably not as much as you think): http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls Effective tax rate plateaus at around a half mil in annual income, then starts going down again after around five million. I couldn't find any hard data about brackets above that. Didn't Mitt Romney pay around 15%? Then there's my all-time favorite quote, of Leona Helmsley: >Only the little people pay taxes. But, that's only anecdotal, heh :-)
    - lotharbot 12y ago
      It's worth noting that annual income above five million is almost definitely coming from investment of both labor and capital (ie, working to manage/direct a business you own, and seeing gains from the value of that business -- or working to manage your stocks and seeing gains from their value) rather than just from labor. This comes with very different risks, including the ability to lose your capital, which is why it's taxed in a very different way. It's also worth noting that the tax rate for the very rich is still 15%. As far as I can tell, certain very rich people "not paying taxes" is a myth. Finally, it's worth noting that Notch is not American.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        The UK has a variety of schemes of tax planning[1], tax avoidance[2], and tax evasion[3]. Using such schemes usually requires someone to be wealthy enough to afford accountants and access to the scheme. Rich people do have ways of reducing their tax burden, sometimes to surprisingly low amounts. [1] planning is normal reduction of tax burden and is unlikely to be challenged by tax authorities. [2] avoidance is legal, but sometimes exploits loopholes in tax laws in weird ways and you might risk the Inland Revenue changing the regulations - sometimes retroactively. [3] evasion is just illegally not paying tax.
        makomk 12y ago
        Many of the recent tax avoidance schemes that celebrities have tried to use in the UK were outright fraudulent - for example, one involved them falsely claiming that they were used car dealers and reporting fictious losses which were large enough to offset their income for the year. Another involved reporting that they'd invested money in UK film production when they hadn't.
      - simonh 12y ago
        > This comes with very different risks, including the ability to lose your capital, which is why it's taxed in a very different way. Exactly, there are good reasons for this. The problem is that it would be grossly unfair to tax a small business owner or small investor at say income tax levels because their risks are so much higher. On the other hand a big investor will millions or billions ends up paying the same tax rate as that small business owner or investor, but is able to spread their risk across many investments reducing the overall risk. Yes it would be unfair to tax them at a higher rate for doing fundamentally the same thing - how would we justify one tax rate for one investor in a company, but another rate for this other investor? Taxation is a hard problem.
        icebraining 12y ago
        Why can't a small investor spread their investments? Isn't that what index funds are for?
        12y ago
    - refurb 12y ago
      Mitt Romney also gave a huge amount of his annual compensation to charity, which reduced his tax rate substantially. The big reason why the rich guys can lower their tax rates is because they can use investment losses to offset taxes. It's not a loophole, just a tax deduction you can optimize.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    I'm not sure why he got downvoted so muh. Just read all the threads about Amazon, Starbucks, Google, Vodafone, etc etc who manage to make fucking loads of money while also operating at minimal profit this avoiding / evading large amounts of tax.
- hueving 12y ago
  Wow, you are so brave for bringing forward such a revolutionary and controversial statement. I hope you will bless us with your intelligence at every opportunity you get.
arjunnarayan 12y ago
For US citizens/residents with billions, taxes are pretty much a constant 25%, since 1. almost everything is capital gains (which comes to 23.6%). Note that this was 15% under GWBush, so it was even better back then. 2. You can avoid state taxes by relocating to WA/TX (If I recall correctly, this was Bezos' motivation for starting Amazon in Washington). A lot of billionaires live in 0% state capital gains tax states, except the ones that need to live in CA/NY for the tech/financial sector respectively. If you live in one of those, then think of the total taxes as more like 33% total (federal + state)
- Houshalter 12y ago
  Notch is Swedish isn't he?
  - Joona 12y ago
    His tax rate is probably around 40-50%.
    - T-A 12y ago
      This being essentially all capital gains, it would be taxed at 30%.
    - carlio 12y ago
      He's the 4th largest tax payer in Sweden apparently: https://twitter.com/notch/status/410757753737469952 https://twitter.com/notch/status/410757753737469952
  - bjourne 12y ago
    Ingvar Kamprad is too, doesn't prevent him from not paying any taxes. It's not very hard to find exploits in the tax system. Even in the worst case, the corporate tax is 22%.
  - rmc 12y ago
    IKEA is Swedish as you get, and it's technically a dutch charity.

otakucode 12y ago

When you are dealing in billions, you don't pay taxes.

TrevorJ 12y ago
Oh come on. Not even gonna bother to ask you to back that up.
- deciplex 12y ago
  He probably won't, so I will (somewhat, he's definitely exaggerating, but probably not as much as you think): http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in12ms.xls Effective tax rate plateaus at around a half mil in annual income, then starts going down again after around five million. I couldn't find any hard data about brackets above that. Didn't Mitt Romney pay around 15%? Then there's my all-time favorite quote, of Leona Helmsley: >Only the little people pay taxes. But, that's only anecdotal, heh :-)
  - lotharbot 12y ago
    It's worth noting that annual income above five million is almost definitely coming from investment of both labor and capital (ie, working to manage/direct a business you own, and seeing gains from the value of that business -- or working to manage your stocks and seeing gains from their value) rather than just from labor. This comes with very different risks, including the ability to lose your capital, which is why it's taxed in a very different way. It's also worth noting that the tax rate for the very rich is still 15%. As far as I can tell, certain very rich people "not paying taxes" is a myth. Finally, it's worth noting that Notch is not American.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      The UK has a variety of schemes of tax planning[1], tax avoidance[2], and tax evasion[3]. Using such schemes usually requires someone to be wealthy enough to afford accountants and access to the scheme. Rich people do have ways of reducing their tax burden, sometimes to surprisingly low amounts. [1] planning is normal reduction of tax burden and is unlikely to be challenged by tax authorities. [2] avoidance is legal, but sometimes exploits loopholes in tax laws in weird ways and you might risk the Inland Revenue changing the regulations - sometimes retroactively. [3] evasion is just illegally not paying tax.
      - makomk 12y ago
        Many of the recent tax avoidance schemes that celebrities have tried to use in the UK were outright fraudulent - for example, one involved them falsely claiming that they were used car dealers and reporting fictious losses which were large enough to offset their income for the year. Another involved reporting that they'd invested money in UK film production when they hadn't.
    - simonh 12y ago
      > This comes with very different risks, including the ability to lose your capital, which is why it's taxed in a very different way. Exactly, there are good reasons for this. The problem is that it would be grossly unfair to tax a small business owner or small investor at say income tax levels because their risks are so much higher. On the other hand a big investor will millions or billions ends up paying the same tax rate as that small business owner or investor, but is able to spread their risk across many investments reducing the overall risk. Yes it would be unfair to tax them at a higher rate for doing fundamentally the same thing - how would we justify one tax rate for one investor in a company, but another rate for this other investor? Taxation is a hard problem.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        Why can't a small investor spread their investments? Isn't that what index funds are for?
      - 12y ago
  - refurb 12y ago
    Mitt Romney also gave a huge amount of his annual compensation to charity, which reduced his tax rate substantially. The big reason why the rich guys can lower their tax rates is because they can use investment losses to offset taxes. It's not a loophole, just a tax deduction you can optimize.
- DanBC 12y ago
  I'm not sure why he got downvoted so muh. Just read all the threads about Amazon, Starbucks, Google, Vodafone, etc etc who manage to make fucking loads of money while also operating at minimal profit this avoiding / evading large amounts of tax.
hueving 12y ago
Wow, you are so brave for bringing forward such a revolutionary and controversial statement. I hope you will bless us with your intelligence at every opportunity you get.

arjunnarayan 12y ago

For US citizens/residents with billions, taxes are pretty much a constant 25%, since 1. almost everything is capital gains (which comes to 23.6%). Note that this was 15% under GWBush, so it was even better back then. 2. You can avoid state taxes by relocating to WA/TX (If I recall correctly, this was Bezos' motivation for starting Amazon in Washington). A lot of billionaires live in 0% state capital gains tax states, except the ones that need to live in CA/NY for the tech/financial sector respectively. If you live in one of those, then think of the total taxes as more like 33% total (federal + state)

Houshalter 12y ago
Notch is Swedish isn't he?
- Joona 12y ago
  His tax rate is probably around 40-50%.
  - T-A 12y ago
    This being essentially all capital gains, it would be taxed at 30%.
  - carlio 12y ago
    He's the 4th largest tax payer in Sweden apparently: https://twitter.com/notch/status/410757753737469952 https://twitter.com/notch/status/410757753737469952
- bjourne 12y ago
  Ingvar Kamprad is too, doesn't prevent him from not paying any taxes. It's not very hard to find exploits in the tax system. Even in the worst case, the corporate tax is 22%.
- rmc 12y ago
  IKEA is Swedish as you get, and it's technically a dutch charity.