Hacker News

points by etcetcetcetceta 1 day ago | 0 comments

Tax on wealth - or in reality tax on unrealised gains is absurd, it's a tax on a cat in a box.

Is it though? Those same unrealized gains are used by those same alleged paper-billionaires to borrow money and live lavish lifestyles ("Buy, Borrow, Die").

They literally get to eat their cake and have it too.

[–] etcetcetcetceta 1 day ago

this is principally why banking exists at all, farmers needed to borrow against a harvest that hadn't yet been planted.

I'd suggest some controls or limits to it, but the lenders assume the risk ( except for all the times the public has had to bail them out) and they're grown up corporations who can decide for themselves.

I should add, that the money they borrow does get taxed when it is spent on the indulgences you make reference to.

[–] alistairSH 1 day ago

Yes, but it isn't taxed federally as income tax, which is the problem we're probably trying to solve.

IE, every dollar I earn gets taxed twice - as income, then as sales tax. Rich guy only pays the sales tax.

And there's a fundamental difference between "borrow to keep the business running smoothly" and "borrow to buy a mega-yacht". Legally, not so much, as you say, but hell's bells, the super yacht market really shouldn't exist.

[–] etcetcetcetceta 1 day ago

Counter point: the (super) yacht industry employs a huge number of skilled workers who take immense pride in their craft (pun intended).

[–] alistairSH 1 day ago

Sure, and there's plenty of opportunity to build regular yachts (which are still massively expensive). When I say super-yacht, I mean the 100 meter monstrosities preferred by the likes of Bezos and Zuckerberg. I take no issue with the type of yacht owned by "mere millionaires".

[–] lucaspm98 1 day ago

Any normal person can implement the same strategy in any brokerage account.

Regardless, if that's the actual anti-social behavior we should change that tax treatment specifically, versus a broad paper wealth tax with unintended consequences.

[–] alistairSH 1 day ago

Only theoretically. Normal people don't have the assets to pull it off.

[–] nullocator 1 day ago

If Elon musk can spend $500 million dollars every election year (in addition to everything else he does) the gains aren't unrealised and he can pay $500 million in taxes every year. Really the amount he can afford to pay and should fairly pay, imo at least 3%, would be much higher than $500 million.