Wealth TAX??? Is this even America anymore?

Quote: billryan

The Founding Fathers, among many others.

Gotta protect the slave states.

Wait, what year is it?

Never mind.

Quote: AcesAndEights

Sure you could. And he would owe capital gains tax on that sale too.

I thought doing that was very illegal because it would devalue the stock and could potentially destroy the company...

Quote: TigerWu

I thought doing that was very illegal because it would devalue the stock and could potentially destroy the company...

Estate tax does this already, yes?

Quote: Dalex64

Estate tax does this already, yes?

I don't know... I guess so?

So if I'm Jeff Bezos' heir, and he croaks tomorrow, I have to cash out tens of billions of dollars of Amazon stock just to pay the government the estate tax? That sounds like it could have disastrous financial consequences for the company.

Quote: TigerWu

I don't know... I guess so?

So if I'm Jeff Bezos' heir, and he croaks tomorrow, I have to cash out tens of billions of dollars of Amazon stock just to pay the government the estate tax? That sounds like it could have disastrous financial consequences for the company.

I didn't do much of a search, but what I found said generally estate taxes must be paid within 9 months.

Quote: Dalex64

I didn't do much of a search, but what I found said generally estate taxes must be paid within 9 months.

Okay, well, I just looked it up and Amazon's market cap is over $800 billion, so I guess if Jeff Bezos' heir had to liquidate $50 billion to pay an estate tax, I guess that wouldn't be as much of a shock as I thought it would be, especially if spread out over 9 months.

There's got to be more to it than that, though. I know billionaires don't play by the same rules the rest of us proletariat do.

Quote: TigerWu

There's got to be more to it than that, though. I know billionaires don't play by the same rules the rest of us proletariat do.

They don't.

https://www.ctj.org/ultra-wealthy-dodge-billions-in-taxes-using-grat-loophole/

Quote: Hullabaloo

They don't.

https://www.ctj.org/ultra-wealthy-dodge-billions-in-taxes-using-grat-loophole/

Haha... I was thinking about this earlier, how they dodge taxes, and I just knew trust funds had to be involved somehow....

Quote: Steverinos

Gotta protect the slave states.

Wait, what year is it?

Never mind.

This canard again? Look it up, and you'll find that most of the features of the electoral college exist to protect from the slave states. And frankly, this is easy enough to find out on your own, even if you weren't taught it, that I can't imagine it's not the case that a huge chunk of the people who perpetuate this nonsense know this, but keep it up because they know the way the map looks today makes it sound plausible to the masses that slept through history.

One reason why the estate tax is a failure. Ralph Wilson owned the Bills. He paid a pittance ($250,000) for it years ago. On his death it was worth $1,400,000,000. So his estate had to pay hundreds of millions in estate taxes. But they did not have hundreds of millions. So to pay the taxes they had to sell the team. You may not consider this a tragedy (we got a better owner!) but to me it is inherently wrong that because an owner died his heirs have to sell the fruits of the departed owners labor.

This argument is clear. To me the estate tax is just wrong. To others it is one of the best taxes.