[HN Gopher] Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use ...
___________________________________________________________________
Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore
banking [pdf]
Author : gbrown_
Score : 220 points
Date : 2021-05-08 19:16 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.brookings.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.brookings.edu)
| cletus wrote:
| So here's several things I'm in favor of:
|
| 1. A loan is treated as repatriating any offshore foreign income
| that you might have;
|
| 2. We need to eliminate it at least tackle transfer pricing /
| profit shifting. One way to do that is to apportion profits based
| on revenue.
|
| 3. Residential units owned by corporations need to be taxed
| higher; and
|
| 4. Owning property in a country or state should make you a tax
| resident of that jurisdiction.
| oriettaxx wrote:
| Best is 4.
|
| << In the 1981 Mel Brooks comedyHistory of the World, Part I,
| King Louis XVI, reflectingon his outrageous privilege, exclaims,
| "It's good to be the King!" Mr. Brooks was ontosomething >>
|
| great!
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The comments here are like a bad reddit thread. For shame HN!
| tasssko wrote:
| This is a complex problem and I think the best we can hope for is
| to close any loopholes and manage with taxes and laws for the
| effects of negative externalities from high net worth
| individuals.
| wazoox wrote:
| "Elite"? You mean kleptocratic oligarchy, right? Or robber
| plutocracy, maybe?
| sprash wrote:
| So a report by the elite (Brookings is essentially Rockefeller)
| is telling us how elites are evading taxes.
|
| Sorry, I expect this PDF to be full of BS.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I think the Rockefellers became so powerful that material
| wealth doesn't mean much for them.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| That's why i'm against high taxes.
|
| We get a bunch of random political parties, promising to "tax the
| rich" and stuff, we get new laws... and what happens?
|
| - The poor already pay very little tax - no change there
|
| - The rich avoid the tax by doing shady stuff (who remembers the
| panama papers.. or this.. or many other stories like these)
|
| - I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get
| fucked hard, and not in fun way.
| [deleted]
| trentnix wrote:
| > I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I
| get fucked hard, and not in fun way.
|
| And predictably, the responses are whether or not you are
| actually middle class. Because somehow if you're not, you
| _deserve_ to be f**d hard I guess...?
| MattRix wrote:
| These taxes affect people who are making $400k+, so yeah,
| they can handle paying more taxes.
| trentnix wrote:
| Otherwise known as "the people who employ and invest".
|
| In the same way corporate taxes trickle down to the
| consumer (otherwise known as "everybody else"), the same is
| true of taxes on wealthy incomes.
|
| And even our discussion over who pays taxes and how much
| they pay is moot since the problem is actually spending.
| The best thing that could happen is that _everyone_ has a
| real tax burden and _everyone_ pays it directly (not via
| payroll deduction). Because then more people might be
| interested in how their taxes are being spent.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| I'm not from US, so these taxes don't affect me.
|
| I'm talking about earning 2x-3x national average pay and
| getting fucked by that here, in a small EU country.
|
| 5k(eur) gross monthly here (current gross average is
| ~1950eur), after taxes and social/medical (they're a "tax"
| here, divided between worker and employer) gives me 2922eur
| net, and I cost my employer 5805eur. With VAT (22%) our
| customers pay 7082eur, for me to get 2922eur, and the
| government gets 4160eur. That's without any actual cost, my
| chair, my computer, toilet paper, office rent,...
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| This is a really bad argument. There's probably a very large
| segment of the population that would avoid paying any taxes no
| matter how low you set them. What you're arguing for is
| basically a pay what you want model for the rich, where if they
| feel like they're getting taxed too much they can just utilize
| these loopholes.
| conception wrote:
| It may feel this way but it's easy to see that this isn't the
| case by looking at tax revenues. They dropped a lot after the
| bush tax cuts and again after the trump tax cuts. Saying that
| tax policy doesn't matter is simply not true.
|
| During Clinton we were set to be debt free in 2013... the bush
| passed his cut. Tax policy matters.
| cletus wrote:
| Focusing in tax rates is a distraction because no matter what
| they are the rich don't pay them.
|
| Until you can get to a point where the rich actually pay taxes
| then we can talk about rates.
| therockspush wrote:
| You're right. Considering we just budgeted about 750 billion
| for the military, more than the next 7 or 10 countries combined
| depending on who you ask, me thinks even if they do get their
| hands on this money its not going to end up in the right place.
| throwaway77388 wrote:
| IMO the high taxes should be only for people worth tens of
| millions of dollars or more.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Those high taxes were never about revenue, they were all
| about keeping corporate managers from looting the companies
| that employed them.
| throwaway77388 wrote:
| I think I should have said 'very high taxes'.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Doesn't matter even with the high marginal tax rates of
| the 1940's the amount of revenue generated from those
| taxes was small. Most wealthy people choose to reinvest
| profits rather than converting them to personal income.
| devmunchies wrote:
| for the same reason i believe that entertainment companies
| should have reasonable prices/practices if they don't want me
| to pirate movies, governments should keep taxes low if they
| want the rich to pay them.
| kokx wrote:
| I don't think we should count on the rich to not try to find
| loopholes anyway while keeping their taxes low. I'm pretty
| sure they would do so whether their taxes are low or not.
|
| Trying to stay on their good side hoping they will "do the
| right thing and pay more taxes", won't really make that much
| of a difference.
| devmunchies wrote:
| it's a bell curve, taxes too low and govt doesn't make
| enough, taxes too high and people are disincentivized to
| pay taxes, invest, start businesses, etc.
|
| > won't really make that much of a difference
|
| is that you hunch or you have data? I remember seeing the
| bell curve in an undergrad business class.
|
| I'd imagine a 20% vs 45% tax will absolutely have different
| outcomes.
|
| If someone is _already_ dodging taxes then they will
| probably continue but the next generation of millionaires
| should never start.
|
| That's why I think it's related to pirating movies, it's a
| similar dynamic.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| YES!
|
| If the politicians actually wanted to tax the rich then they'd
| be closing loopholes, not raising the marginal rates.
| adav wrote:
| It's funny how everyone thinks that the threshold for any tax
| on the rich should always be a bit higher than their own
| circumstances!
| dguaraglia wrote:
| So what you are against is rich people not paying the taxes
| they are supposed to be paying, not against 'higher taxes'.
|
| I used to think like you, until I realized that the people
| sinking millions of dollars in every electoral campaign to push
| candidates friendly to 'lower taxes' are the ones who are
| already taking advantage of every loophole.
| baccheion wrote:
| Need to save at least 50% of take-home salary into a high-yield
| investment account. One-way street. Even during retirement,
| you'd be scraping out only the interest/DRIP. Further, always
| pay cash (ie, avoid debt). Even for a car. Even for an
| education. Even for a house.
|
| Then you can see the truth.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| That's because "tax the rich" usually begins and ends with
| income taxes. More creativity, such as a financial transaction
| tax, increased capital gains taxes, or a wealth tax paired with
| capital controls, would let us capture more from the big boys
| and less from the high earning engineer/small business owner.
| estaseuropano wrote:
| That's not a result of high taxes but of either badly
| designed/balanced taxes or of lack of enforcement.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| But the conversation is always towards higher taxes rather
| than fixing enforcement, design, etc.
|
| Edit: I think I hit a nerve.
| _djo_ wrote:
| Not really. The Biden administration's proposals include
| more funding and organisational reform for the IRS.
| Democrats have been talking for some time about how the
| steady defunding of the IRS has resulted in less tax
| collection from the rich and powerful.
| nostrebored wrote:
| Reforming the IRS as an organization doesn't work when
| it's tax law that's the problem.
| _djo_ wrote:
| It's part of a solution, not the entire solution. But
| even if you improved tax law you're still going to need a
| well-resourced and highly skilled IRS capable of properly
| auditing multinationals and the very wealthy.
| ABCLAW wrote:
| Tax law has issues, but deficient analysis, audit and
| enforcement against richer, more complex files is a huge
| issue.
|
| Why fail to fix one over the other?
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| What leads you to believe increased funding would be
| directed toward regulating the richest and most powerful
| people/companies (i.e. the biggest financiers of
| political campaigns on both sides of the aisle)?
| insert_coin wrote:
| Which high taxes are part of.
|
| Raising taxes is an admission that current tax policy, and
| the other side of the coin, the government spending policy,
| are awfully designed.
|
| Of course there has never been a competent design since taxes
| always need to be higher to "reduce" the ever increasing
| wealth gap higher taxes were supposed to be tackling in the
| first place.
|
| Just for once we could try something different maybe?
| trappist wrote:
| I understood parent's point to be that we obviously can't
| trust them to do better than this. In any case it seems clear
| that this is exactly why high tax rates hurt the middle class
| more than the rich. And everyone know it, and yet it
| persists.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Typically it's because taxing the super rich wouldn't be
| enough, so you tax a broad swath of the population.
|
| Billionaires (put together) in the US hold something
| similar to 1 year of federal tax receipts, for example. Tax
| them into the ground and you get 1 year of revenue.
| mazteraz9 wrote:
| This is one of the more interesting points that gets lost
| in the "tax the rich" talk. I believe this is because
| people's general political point of reference is their
| individual situation and not the overall system - but
| from the system point of view it truly is just a drop in
| the bucket.
| Closi wrote:
| Eh, the top 1% of earners are responsible for c15% of
| income. Bear in mind that these will be on a higher tax
| band too, so a figure of c25% of income tax revenue is
| pretty likely - hardly a drop in a budget.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| For the US it doesn't so much matter who is taxed or how
| much. We cannot break even if you take into account
| unfunded liabilities.
| internetslave wrote:
| I made a post about this yesterday and got torn apart for it.
| It's the hard working professional class that suffers from high
| taxes. The people who do everything right. The rich evade
| Swizec wrote:
| > I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes
|
| Fwiw we feel like middle class but we're really in the top 5%
| or higher. We're the rich people these taxes and politicians
| talk about.
|
| The ultra rich/wealthy are a red herring, there's only a few
| 10k of them of them. Only 614 people are billionaires.
|
| 7 figure income (salary) puts you in top 0.35% ... that's
| 1,120,000 Americans. Not a whole lot.
|
| edit: top 10% starts at $125,000 salary
| odiroot wrote:
| Being a software engineer in a EU country, you're definitely
| not a classically rich person. In USA, maybe? In EU not so
| much. There's so many professions (quite common at that) that
| earn more, or even much more than us.
| aantix wrote:
| Why aren't software engineers valued more in EU?
| euengthrowaway wrote:
| Here's a thread with 900+ replies on that question:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25766884
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Most people accept it's just another job which pays a bit
| (somewhere a lot more) better compared to alternatives.
|
| Also the companies who employ these engineers aren't
| making that much money to burn. That's just my hunch, I
| haven't done a thorough research.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| it's only the US (AFAIK) that pays developers so highly,
| and even then it's primarily in cities and companies
| amenable to venture capital. It's not about how valued
| the career is, it's about how profitable it is - and when
| you can take 10s or 100s of millions in investment to
| build a software platform using a couple dozen devs, it
| becomes pretty clear why they're paid so high in those
| areas.
|
| I value the service of my local council's binmen more
| than most developers' output (including my own). Doesn't
| mean they get paid the big bucks.
| brianwawok wrote:
| I have asked this several times. I think the answer is
| because they can.
|
| If you want to make more money you become a manager.
| Developers are just like electricians or brick layers.
|
| They also don't have the FAANG to create tons of value
| from software.
| adflux wrote:
| Matter of scale. A team of engineers working on building
| a Dutch marketplace has a potential customer base of 18
| million. An American company doing the same can reach 300
| million. Assuming equal complexity, the American engineer
| can deliver far more value because his target audience is
| much larger.
|
| Scale can be like a force multiplier for engineers. Makes
| them deliver more value and employers are able to pay
| them more.
| bosie wrote:
| What is value in this context though?
|
| Seems for Google the value is actual money and for a
| startup it is a potential future earning? Yet the startup
| developer in San Francisco is still (presumably) paid
| 200k or more? If that startup fails, was the developer
| overvalued?
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| No, it just means the startup's investors made a bad bet
| [deleted]
| tfehring wrote:
| More than 1% of US households (something like 1.5M households
| with a total of ~3M people) have >$10M in household net
| worth. The primary target is that class, irrespective of its
| members' earned income, in part because they can reliably
| earn mid-six-figures per year in returns to capital alone.
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/22/the-
| number...
| legolas2412 wrote:
| I don't think so. It seems to me that are policies are very
| clearly targeted to tax income earners, not capital owners.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Great, but there are many _more_ mid-six-figure earners who
| _don 't_ have >$10M in household net worth. And if you tax
| mid-six-figure earners, you get them, too. If you want to
| target wealth over $10M, _tax wealth over $10M_.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Are you excluding primary residence? A lot of paper
| millionaires due to lucky real estate
| dalbasal wrote:
| I'd prefer it excludes nothing. No matter what the rules
| are, they will be unfair or harsh on some people in some
| circumstances. This is true of every kind of tax. It's
| true of simple rulesets, and complex ones. It's certainly
| true of the current de facto ruleset around capital gains
| and corporate income taxes.
|
| $10m is a substantial bound. Above that threshold, we can
| expect financial fortitude.
| CPLX wrote:
| > paper millionaires
|
| Is there some other kind of millionaire?
| seangrogg wrote:
| I'd imagine in this case it's more a matter of liquidity.
|
| It's one thing to say you have a million dollars to your
| name. The difference is that one person has to sell
| everything they own to command that value while someone
| else just calls their broker to have it liquidated from
| their rainy day fund.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| Wealth taxes are the real answer here, and for that
| reason they are unlikely to happen in the anglosphere
| unless there is some major political shift. In fact the
| United States does the opposite of a wealth tax, by
| taxing capital gains at a _lower_ rate than regular
| income. Because the ruling class gets essentially all of
| their income from capital gains, they don 't actually
| care about the tax rate on regular income. They can
| support progressive income taxes as a form of left-wing
| posturing, or as a way to pit high- and low-income
| workers against each other, knowing that the taxes won't
| hurt them. Raising the capital gains tax rate (even just
| to match the regular income tax rate) is never seriously
| discussed, and any suggestion of a wealth tax is
| completely out of the question.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| How do you tax their offshore wealth?
| dalbasal wrote:
| The same way you tax everything else, with the IRS.
| dalbasal wrote:
| IMO, the strategy is to tax the net worth itself.
| Salaries are sufficiently taxed. It's almost
| disingenuous, at this point, to think of salary taxes as
| indistinct from income taxes broadly. With a salary,
| people actually pay the tax rate.
| SvenMarquardt wrote:
| You need to reframe it. How many $ do the top 0.35% own vs
| the next 5%.
| tarsinge wrote:
| > The ultra rich/wealthy are a red herring, there's only a
| few 10k of them of them. Only 614 people are billionaires.
|
| Have a look at what inconveniencing just 400 of them would do
| (they would still be billionaire after)
| https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
| bpodgursky wrote:
| To save other people time, this is nothing but a gimmicky
| html box showing what a stack of money looks like compared
| to other stacks of money.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| Do you mean data visualization?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "there's only a few 10k of them of them."
|
| And they own half the country.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > Fwiw we feel like middle class but we're really in the top
| 5% or higher.
|
| I think middle class is about where your money comes from
| than the amount of your money. If you are primarily deriving
| your income from from working for a company you don't
| control, then I think you are middle class.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If you are primarily deriving your income from from
| working for a company you don't control, then I think you
| are middle class.
|
| That's the classic definition of _working_ class.
|
| Having a roughly equal (in terms of importance) split
| between capital and labor dependence for income (such as by
| applying your labor to your own capital as an independent
| small-business owner or yeoman farmer) is the traditional
| middle class.
| Swizec wrote:
| What if you're one of those AI research folks making, say,
| $500,000/year in salary. Are you middle class?
|
| What if you invest 70% of those 500,000 because your CoL is
| only 150,000. Still middle class?
|
| Cold hard cash is an asset if you use it like an asset.
| Well okay, your cold hard lucrative skills are the asset in
| this case.
| jahewson wrote:
| No, no, earning a salary is for poor people. Real rich people
| _own_ things. They also happen to own _most of the things_.
| brianwawok wrote:
| * own things that make money
| mrkurt wrote:
| Middle class engineers make 7 figure salaries?
| [deleted]
| Swizec wrote:
| No, that's the top 0.35%
|
| Where does the middle class top off? $125,000/year
| individual income puts you in top 10%. Pretty normal for a
| software engineer. Is that middle class?
| dataflow wrote:
| > Where does the middle class top off? $125,000/year
| individual income puts you in top 10%. Is that middle
| class?
|
| Depends on the location and cost of living?
|
| And no I'm not saying you should just offset income by
| _exactly_ the CoL. Obviously being in a prime location
| has its own benefits too. But you can 't just assume the
| benefits cancel the extra cost of living either; they
| certainly don't cancel for everybody. The balance is
| somewhere in between. (I don't have a formula.)
| guerrilla wrote:
| This doesn't seem to make much sense: You're against a policy
| because someone lied and didn't implement it when they said
| they would? You can be for taxing the rich and against people
| who do otherwise simultaneously.
| macinjosh wrote:
| I think the point is that beyond total and complete global
| totalitarianism there isn't a great way for any government to
| truly tax the rich to the extent desired because there were
| always be another safe haven for it overseas.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > there isn't a great way for any government to truly tax
| the rich
|
| The burden of proof is on you then. For you to be able to
| say that, you'd have to enumerate all possibilities and
| then provide evidence why each wouldn't work. In the
| meantime, it seems obvious things could be better without
| needing to be perfect.
| Mulpze15 wrote:
| It is harder and harder for US persons to put their money
| abroad. All foreign banks must declare US Persons to the US
| authorities.
|
| I am sure some figure out ways, but you have to go in
| dodgier places.
|
| This is a new development is the last 10-20 years, so there
| is progress. It should help people trust the system is
| getting fairer.
|
| If one is against taxes, and uses lack of enforcement as a
| reason, I smell dishonesty.
| syops wrote:
| Can't you make it expensive to move money overseas by
| taxing such moves?
| Shacklz wrote:
| > I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I
| get fucked hard, and not in fun way.
|
| You will be fine. Just like everyone else in pretty much the
| entirety of the rest of the civilized world.
| gzer0 wrote:
| Unless you are making more than $400,000, the new tax proposals
| would not affect you.
|
| What is your definition of "middle class"? Someone making $400k
| is most certainly in the top 1%.
|
| What tax changes have occurred so far in the past few decades
| that are significantly affecting you? I would genuinely like to
| know
| sokoloff wrote:
| In my state (MA), it takes $473K in individual income to
| crack the top 1%. Household, the figure is $678K to make top
| 1%. Figures for CA seem only slightly lower.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Not OP, but the removal of the SALT deduction hurt.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Can you expand on that please?
| mattnewton wrote:
| The 2017 "tax cuts" partially eliminated deductions for
| state and local taxes, capping them at 10k. This means
| people in high cost of living, high tax states
| effectively get taxed on income multiple times instead of
| being able to discount the money they already paid to
| state and local taxes above 10k.
|
| https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/salt-deduction/
| cortesoft wrote:
| SALT is "state and local tax"... you can deduct state and
| local taxes from your federal taxes, but a few years ago
| they put a cap on it so you can only deduct $10,000. This
| really hurt tax payers in higher tax states.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Let's be precise here. It only hurt tax payer whose
| itemized deductions exceeded the (new) standard deduction
| of $12k. There were more them in higher tax states
| because SALT was part of their itemized deduction. It had
| no impact on tax payers whose itemized deductions were
| below $12k, or who did not itemize.
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| I pay more now because of the SALT cap, but I still
| support the idea - why should residents of low tax states
| subsidize residents of high tax states, all other things
| being equal?
| toast0 wrote:
| Yeah that was a good one; promise a tax cut for the rich,
| and give a slight tax cut to the rich in low tax states and
| screw people in high tax states (which happen to mostly be
| were the proposer of the tax cut didn't get votes anyway).
|
| On the plus side, between the limit on SALT deduction and
| the increased standard deduction, the mortgage interest
| deduction is almost effectively dead; which _is_ something
| that has needed to get removed, but nobody wanted to do it.
| Now it 's technically there, but almost useless, so best of
| both worlds.
| ixacto wrote:
| Why should people in states that do not have an income
| tax have to effectively subsidize the SALT tax deduction?
|
| Maybe it will make ca/ny think twice about having such
| high tax rates...
| sokoloff wrote:
| Except for the fact that landlords still have the full
| mortgage interest deduction (as is proper for any
| business loan in a system that taxes income/profit)
| meaning it's harder for owner-occupants to bid against
| them for housing.
| lend000 wrote:
| The fact that there are people making 10,000 times as much as
| the highest bracket in a single year suggests whoever is
| proposing these tax laws does not actually want to solve the
| problem. There should be brackets going up to a billion
| dollars, adjusted every time someone makes an order of
| magnitude more than the highest bracket.
|
| Also, making 400K does not make you rich. In California, you
| are actually bringing home around 200K with high cost of
| living in areas where an engineer might make that much,
| whereas the top 1% (measured by household wealth instead of
| income) still has a net worth of ~$10M.
| aceazzameen wrote:
| I see multiple people in this thread talking about high
| taxes without knowing how tax brackets actually work in
| reality. I wish people understood them. It's very easy to
| senationalize high taxes.
|
| I'll make up some numbers to make it simple. Let's say
| there's 2 brackets. Everyone who makes under $399,999.99
| pays 0% tax. And everyone who makes over $400k pays 90%
| tax. You make $400k. How much do you owe the taxman? Did
| you know it's only 90 pennies out of $400k? The first
| $399,999.99 you make is in the 0% bracket. It will always
| be taxed at that rate. Only the amount over that ($1) will
| be taxed in the next bracket.
|
| Now in reality, we have 7 tax brackets. This is how much
| you really pay, assuming filing single for 2020.
|
| $9875 of $400k @ 10%
|
| $30,250 of $400k @ 12%
|
| $45,399 of $400k @ 22%
|
| $77,775 of $400k @ 24%
|
| $44,049 of $400k @ 32%
|
| $192,649 of $400k @ 35%
|
| You wouldn't even make enough to pay anything into the 7th
| bracket @ 37%.
|
| Personally, I believe yes, we need to raise taxes on the
| uber rich just to slow their growth. NO, it will not affect
| you who make $400k (which is already wealthy compared to
| most of America!) And add more brackets while we're at it.
| There was a time in America where the uber rich had a 94%
| tax bracket. I'm not saying we need to go that high. But
| 37% and too many deductions is a joke.
| lend000 wrote:
| I don't think anyone on either side of this thread is
| confused by this simple concept. But perhaps in writing
| your own comment you realize how unprogressive these tax
| brackets are. You start paying pretty close to the top
| rate on income over 44,000. And then it stops increasing
| at a tiny fraction of the incomes of the truly wealthy
| (the wealthiest of whom don't need help from offshore tax
| gymnastics -- they just pay the highest rate on the
| capital gains bracket which is even LESS progressive).
| Not to mention people making ~400K are also significantly
| affected by employment taxes (social security and
| medicare) which are extremely anti-progressive.
|
| So a tax increase at 400K will indeed affect someone who
| makes 400K (or maybe ~450K, or someone who files jointly)
| now or in the ensuing years when they get raises to
| combat inflation. The brackets never keep up with
| inflation, because the government uses CPI to pretend
| like there isn't much inflation. The highest bracket in
| 1913 was 1 million dollars (NOT ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION).
| rhacker wrote:
| Are you serious? 400K definitely makes you rich. As if you
| do that for 10 years you have 4M dollars, 20 years? $8M I
| get that COL lowers that, but if you are making 400K you're
| not renting.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| This is the problem. Income and cost-of-living is a
| spectrum and varies wildly from place to place. And
| everyone wants to put some kind of hard line on tax
| rates, etc. To me, this just underscores that income tax,
| as a concept, is completely fucked. You can offshore your
| earning and shelter them if you're savvy enough. If you
| earn your income from capital gains, you're paying lower
| rates regardless, from whatever percentage of those gains
| happen to fall in your particular jurisdiction.
|
| A federal sales tax with exemptions for basic necessities
| (food, rent, school supplies, etc.) would make so much
| more sense, as already exists in 7 states at the state
| level.
|
| In this way you don't have to worry about whether income
| was earned offshore or onshore, if you're buying stuff or
| services here or importing stuff, you get taxed on it.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Sales taxes are completely regressive, because the rich
| do not spend much of their income.
|
| Even with the exemption for basic necessities, a person
| who earns 100x what you do will probably spend on the
| order of 5-10x more than you, thus making the tax very
| regressive.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Not at all, especially if you exempt basic necessities.
| Poor would still pay low to zero tax because those costs
| are a greater percentage of their income. And you could
| even subsidize the taxes with a universal monthly payout.
| foresterh wrote:
| If you make 400K after taxes and don't spend any of it,
| you'd have 4M after 10 years...
| rhacker wrote:
| It seems like even with taxes... at some point people are
| sitting on a multi-million dollar property that typical
| far exceeds the taxes they spent.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Moreover you can slum it by scraping by on $100k and bank
| the remainder every year. Most Americans don't have that
| luxury.
| lend000 wrote:
| It's all relative. But no, making 400K after 10 years
| does not result in $4M. If you make that 400K as an
| engineer in a coastal tech hub and put all the savings in
| the bank after taxes and expenses, you have 1M after 10
| years. Not much more than the median price of a home in
| LA county, and far below the median in SF.
|
| In other words, you have accumulated 1/10000 the wealth
| of your FAANG employer.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| If you are making $400k in California, in places where
| you are likely to make that much, quite a lot of that is
| going to taxes and expenses. Sure, you might be able to
| save $2M over a decade, which makes you well off for
| sure, but "rich" is a bit of a stretch when all it
| affords you is paying a mortgage on a mid-century
| formerly middle-class house vaguely within commuting
| distance.
|
| Calling that lifestyle "rich" just serves to muddy the
| water. This is soundly in the category of upper-middle
| class and decades away from being financially
| independent.
| CPLX wrote:
| This is a staggering lack of perspective. The average
| American takes around ten years to make that amount of
| money.
|
| Tell them at the end of the year you're going to give
| them the next nine years of paychecks as a Christmas
| bonus and then ask them if they feel financially
| independent.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| This is a bizarre take. The average American is more
| likely to live in the equivalent of Flyover, Kansas than
| Sunnyvale, California. I've lived in both, more the
| former than the latter. I'm sure the person living in
| Sunnyvale would love to pay $55k for a nice brick two-
| story house (current price for one I grew up in) but that
| doesn't seem to be an option in Sunnyvale.
|
| Tell that hypothetical average American to buy a mediocre
| house in Sunnyvale and see what reaction you get.
|
| Nobody cares what lifestyle $400k can buy in Mississippi
| because very few people are making that much in a locale
| that cheap.
| [deleted]
| CPLX wrote:
| > The average American is more likely to live in the
| equivalent of Flyover, Kansas than Sunnyvale, California.
|
| Or, 90 minutes from Sunnyvale, an amount of time they are
| keenly aware of as they commute there every day to clean
| the clothes, cook the food, and maintain the real estate
| of the "not rich" people you are describing.
|
| > Tell that hypothetical average American to buy a
| mediocre house in Sunnyvale and see what reaction you
| get.
|
| They would say I'm sorry I can't, because the prices of
| those houses have been bid up by the rich people who
| currently live there and make $400k a year.
|
| > Nobody cares what lifestyle $400k can buy in
| Mississippi
|
| People in Mississippi do. They also get a say in setting
| tax policy for the U.S. which is the topic of current
| discussion.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| But in your previous post you noted the idea that you
| could _save_ $2M in a reasonable time frame.
|
| This is completely independent of CoL. There are very,
| very few Americans who will ever be able to seriously
| consider doing this.
| SilasX wrote:
| Except the tax code doesn't care if that was a one time
| thing vs something that actually does happen for 10
| years.
|
| If you make $50k plus COLA for your entire career but one
| year your stock options materialize and pay $400k, are
| you rich?
| SvenMarquardt wrote:
| For most, newfound income does not materialise itself as
| wealth but rather an increase in living standards.
|
| $400k can buy you an entry-level home in cash, or a 10%
| deposit on that $4M mansion across town. Most choose the
| latter.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| There's quite a few of us here making more more than
| 400k/year but less than Billion dollar money.
|
| My effective tax rate between state and federal is something
| like 55% before including sales taxes.
|
| These Billionaires find ways to pay basically nothing in tax
| because their wealth comes from capital gains and not from
| RSU + salary compensation which are taxed as normal salary.
|
| The bulk of the burden of new tax increases will fall on
| people like me who make more than 400k but make it in easy to
| tax ways instead of changing the law and making it easier to
| heavily tax people in the 100M/yr+ category
|
| These aren't complaints, just facts.
| MattRix wrote:
| There should definitely be efforts made to figure out how
| to tax those billionaires (and there are!), but that
| doesn't mean that those making $400k shouldn't be taxed way
| more as well. Let's be honest, your life won't change in
| any meaningful way because of this.
| jcheng wrote:
| > My effective tax rate between state and federal is
| something like 55% before including sales taxes.
|
| That seems extremely high, what state is this? Do you mean
| the top marginal rate, or is that literally the effective
| rate when you file your 1040?
| codeecan wrote:
| This is the best lie ever told, "don't worry, these taxes
| wont affect YOU!". Every new tax inevitably falls onto the
| middle class, because they can't hire people to restructure
| their wealth and the poor pay no taxes.
|
| Lower taxes makes it less expensive for the rich to pay the
| government.
|
| Look at housing and food costs to see how the middle class
| are affected, they don't get welfare, social housing, or food
| stamps.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| >Every new tax inevitably falls onto the middle class,
| because they can't hire people to restructure their wealth
| and the poor pay no taxes.
|
| That might be true of new taxes/tax increases created by
| those doing the bidding of the truly wealthy. In fact, it
| _is_ true.
|
| But that's true of all possible new taxes, and increasing
| taxes on those with earned income over $400k will have ZERO
| impact on those who earn less (in terms of their own
| taxation).
| mhh__ wrote:
| Aren't you completing dodging the fact that the comment/s
| above you are pretty obviously talking about income taxes?
|
| If you are in between (say) my salary and 400k, no amount
| of increase in the price of food is going to be a problem
| for you unless you are ludicrously bad with money. I'm not
| in favour of wanton taxes aimed at "the rich" as a
| political manoeuvre, but let's not be blinkered here.
| hnitbanalns wrote:
| Nailed it.
| briandear wrote:
| > Unless you are making more than $400,000, the new tax
| proposals would not affect you.
|
| Someone making over $400k might want to invest some of that
| money. The businesses in which that person would have
| invested would hire people. And pay wages. And taxes. If you
| take more of the "rich" money. They won't invest as much. And
| thus won't create value. Giving that money to the government
| doesn't create value -- or if it does, there is still the
| issue of deadweight loss. The private sector always spends
| more efficiently than government.
|
| Every rich person I know doesn't put their money under the
| mattress; they invest it in something.
|
| As far as tax changes that affect me: well the very high
| rates of California taxation led me to moving my residence
| and business to Texas. When I lived overseas, the Biden-
| supported, Obama-signed FACTA legislation (which was
| ultimately a tax law) had a very significant impact. I
| couldn't open business bank accounts in the UK which led me
| to not being able to expand my (then) consulting business
| because our potential client required a UK company and that
| company needed a UK bank account in order to get anything
| done. Since I wasn't a UK resident, it made it even harder. I
| am not super rich so Barclays and friends weren't going to go
| through all the FATCA hoops just for my PS100k per year in
| turnover.
|
| And in terms of tax changes that helped? The Trump tax cuts
| resulted in a significant amount of savings that led to
| buying an airplane and significant production equipment, for
| example, being able to deduct a significant amount on an
| aircraft purchase -- an aircraft that we wouldn't have been
| able to afford without the change in the tax laws. That
| aircraft enabled my business to expand into smaller markets,
| which benefited those smaller markets in which we entered
| (they could get our product cheaper and resell it at a
| greater profit.) We could also target smaller towns that
| would have otherwise required flying commercial and then
| driving all day -- then there was the issue of moving cargo
| quickly. Also the tax savings on equipment purchases allowed
| us to not have to pay copackers and instead set up our own
| bottling facility. Which lowered our cost per unit, allowing
| us to lower our wholesale prices, which led to our customers
| being able to make a larger profit. (Our business is making
| specialized fitness cleaning products and our customers are
| small boutiques and fitness studios.)
|
| It's very short sighted to see taxes that are paid only by
| "someone else." If you run any sort of business at all, the
| effects of tax policy can be immediately evident. The typical
| wage worker doesn't see it because they limit themselves to
| their immediate viewpoint: they fail to see the chain of
| transactions that lead to them having a job in the first
| place. An employed person has more economic impact than an
| unemployed person. That's just a fact.
|
| So yes, tax policy is felt by everyone, even those that don't
| pay taxes.
| pmorici wrote:
| "Unless you are making more than $400,000, the new tax
| proposals would not affect you."
|
| That's not true. If your combined income with your spose is
| more than 400k the tax increase will affect you. so it will
| affect individuals making as little as 200k if you assume
| income is divided equally between two spouses.
| prestigious wrote:
| Canadian here can't really comment on US taxes but our PM
| Justin Trudeau elected on demonizing the 1% but then promptly
| cut tax credits on children sports, public transit, child
| credits, etc while doing nothing to his billionaire buddies
| so certainly sounds familiar from up here.
| cperciva wrote:
| Don't forget "raised taxes on the highest income Canadians
| while claiming that he was raising taxes on the wealthiest
| Canadians". He has been repeating that lie for five years
| now.
| SvenMarquardt wrote:
| Those taxes will be passed onto the majority in the form of
| price hikes.
|
| Further, with current inflation rates, $400k will be solidly
| middle-upper class in a few years from now.
| closeparen wrote:
| Owns a reasonable home in a decent school district with a
| commute around 30 minutes. Eats out a few times a month.
| Takes 1-2 vacations a year. If _upper_ middle class, savings
| adequate to gradually upgrade housing, send kids to
| University of State, etc. If regular middle class, home will
| be maintained against entropy and kids will take out student
| loans. Either way, will retire at the usual time.
|
| In some places $400k can give 8 families this life. In others
| not even one. It depends.
| EB66 wrote:
| > In some places $400k can give 8 families this life. In
| others not even one. It depends.
|
| Ummm, where exactly in the world is $400k per year not
| enough to survive? Monaco?
|
| If you earn $400k year after year, then you are earning
| enough to be "rich". But true, it's still possible to live
| beyond your means regardless of how much you earn and incur
| financial difficulty.
| gzer0 wrote:
| > _In some places $400k can give 8 families this life. In
| others not even one. It depends._
|
| Can you name a place, anywhere in the world, where $400k/yr
| is not enough to survive for one family?
| cameldrv wrote:
| You could also just fund enforcement and have real penalties
| with teeth. You get a few hundred multi millionaires going to
| prison and the problem will go away. When you're at that level,
| it's simply not worth taking the chance if the risk is real.
| odiroot wrote:
| > The poor already pay very little taxno change there
|
| And in many developed nations also (naturally) get the biggest
| net benefits.
| trentnix wrote:
| And the taxes they take from you get spent as poorly as
| possible. And the solution is always more taxes.
| Guest42 wrote:
| My impression is that GWB and DJT delivered some very large
| tax breaks and that the "more" taxes would be more accurately
| described as a return to normal taxation levels, provided how
| much one agrees that post-Reagan establishes the level of
| normalcy.
|
| I do agree though that the spending could be improved. That
| position varies group by group.
| trentnix wrote:
| "normal taxation levels" - a word salad without peer.
|
| Those tax breaks happened to catalyze massive tax receipts
| nonetheless, but taxes are politically justified by who
| they poleaxe, not by the consequences that result.
| [deleted]
| tigershark wrote:
| Better that spending them golfing in your golf courts while
| grifting tens of millions per year by forcing the secret
| service to stay there paying an exorbitant price...
| trentnix wrote:
| If you're arguing our elected officials receive exorbitant
| benefits on the taxpayer dime, you've got a friend in me.
| But unfortunately that is but a drop in the bucket of the
| grift involved in entitlement fraud, tax fraud, foreign aid
| fraud, military-industrial hustle, and the Trillions of
| other ways our "representatives" by favor and votes with
| other people's money.
| milofeynman wrote:
| Direct PDF wasn't working for me. Here's the page with summary
| and link to PDF: https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-lies-
| beneath-evidenc...
| weeboid wrote:
| > I conclude with recommendations on how reporting requirements
| need to change to improve the ability of regulators and the
| research community to detect and counter illicit finance.
|
| LOL
| Trias11 wrote:
| >> the customers of offshore banks are likely to be from the
| wealthiest segment of whichever society they come from.
|
| What a surprising discovery.
|
| Governments with the most abusive tax policies still cannot
| realize that they cannot tax their way to prosperity.
|
| Most creative and productive people, entities and businessed did,
| do and will use any tools at their disposal to escape barbaric
| tax racket and turn their attention toward jurisdictions where
| they treated better than in their own home country.
|
| Trillions of dollars of wealth escaped and will continue escaping
| away from economies where ruling politicians cannot get their
| heads out of their bottoms.
| DSingularity wrote:
| Come on. The ultra-rich don't pay their fair share. You know
| this and everyone knows this. Wealth inequality is obscene.
| Full stop.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Could you define "fair share" please in a way that everyone
| is agree with?
| airstrike wrote:
| I'll throw a range out there for the sake of argument, and
| I'm really low-balling it: 25-30%
| kwere wrote:
| and its still a lot
| Trias11 wrote:
| So what would be a single reason for person with $100MM
| of wealth to give $25MM away to wasteful, corruptive
| government?
|
| What kind of benefits the person is gaining by buying
| $25MM worth of taxes?
|
| I thought so too.
|
| Give that person a chance to reinvest these money into
| local economy, growing productive businesses instead of
| slapping the "filthy rich" label and suddenly there is a
| lots of capital are used for everyone's benefits instead
| of escaping.
| lttlrck wrote:
| They are contributing to the long term stability and
| prosperity of the society that provided the very
| environment that enabled them establish their wealth in
| the first place. Pay it forward as it were.
|
| Unfortunately many people don't appear to think like
| that. Or are willfully blind/ ignorant. Take your pick.
| Trias11 wrote:
| These all are good words but you cannot sweet talk
| millionaires and billionaires into investing and keeping
| money in the country.
|
| A bit of simple math is needed to supplement decisions in
| terms of return on investment.
|
| Overbloated government spending and useless wars are not
| a good arguments either.
|
| If government cannot manage their budgets well, why would
| people who can manage their budgets better should listen?
| wishinghand wrote:
| If they're reinvesting money, that money is not getting
| taxed. If they still have obscene amounts afterward,
| c'est la vie.
| throwaway_kufu wrote:
| The $100MM is the benefit. So they are giving back some
| of the benefit they already received. Yeah they call it
| waste when they have to give back but the true waste is
| the policies that allowed the $100MM in light of the
| overall inequality.
|
| People who make $100MM are no smarter than those that
| don't, I mean Einstein didn't make that type of money
| right? It's not merit either, it's simply money...under
| our system money makes money, concentration of capital
| doesn't benefit everyone it benefits the person with the
| capital.
|
| Consider wealth management itself, you want to diversify
| your investments, you would never put 90% of your wealth
| into .1% of the assets you own. The rich know and live by
| this rule, well that same rule applies to society, you
| don't want .1% controlling 90% of the wealth so
| investment is determined by .1% of the population. You
| want the wealth diversified and in the hands of many so
| no single person controls investment.
| modo_mario wrote:
| >What kind of benefits the person is gaining by buying
| $25MM worth of taxes?
|
| Hmm there's so many hypotheticals there.
|
| Perhaps they may fund the roads this persons company
| uses. Or the foodstamps this persons underpayed workers
| rely on. Perhaps they sustain the people that pay into
| his rentseeking scheme.
|
| Perhaps that's not the question you should be asking
| because not a whole lot of people give a damn about this
| persons 25 million staying in his pocket. (This person
| him/herself being part of this 'not a whole lot of
| people')
|
| and a whole lot of people on the other hand would rather
| this person be incentivized to avoid these taxes by
| investing in R&D and/or increasing the wages of the
| people he depends on so as to benefit society and to
| stimulate the economy.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > What kind of benefits the person is gaining by buying
| $25MM worth of taxes?
|
| Avoiding guillotines?
| Trias11 wrote:
| I mean carrots, not sticks.
|
| People would be happy to pay 100% in tax to avoid
| guillotine but how much of a prosperous and productive
| society can be built with this approach?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| To-may-to, to-mah-to.
|
| The carrot is "you get to live in a prosperous, stable
| society made possible in part by your contributions via
| taxes".
|
| The stick is what happens when you don't.
| Trias11 wrote:
| >> The carrot is "you get to live in a prosperous, stable
| society made possible in part by your contributions via
| taxes".
|
| The reality is that wealthy person can choose both (live
| where he wants and keep money safe from tax robbery) and
| poor can neither.
|
| Inequality is brought by high taxation and not by filthy
| rich who refuses to obey government stupid policies.
| insert_coin wrote:
| There is that of course. That is also the reason why they
| leave and take their money with them.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If you fully want to renounce US citizenship, sure.
| You'll pay a hefty exit tax in doing so.
|
| You can already do this, though. Monaco exists. That
| folks like Bezos, Musk, and Gates stick around in the US
| indicates some intangible benefits here that justify
| paying some tax.
| insert_coin wrote:
| Keep mentioning guillotines and you'll see how quickly
| those benefits disappear.
| rsgrn wrote:
| To add $25MM to anti-corruption budgets? Sure,
| governments are to varying degrees, quite corrupt, but
| isn't that in part due to the people with leverage and
| power (aka money)?
|
| Example: Rich people > Shit newspapers > Misinformed
| populace > Shit political choices > Shit government >
| Corruption > Rich people now have more money.
| djbebs wrote:
| So significantly less than what they currently pay? Sure,
| I'm all for it!
| jonas21 wrote:
| So a little bit less than they pay right now in the US?
| The latest CBO data has the average Federal tax rate at
| around 31% for both the top 1% and top 0.01% cohorts [1].
|
| [1]
| https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2020-10/56575-Household-
| Inc...
| ficklepickle wrote:
| Everyone is unlikely to agree, but I'm pretty sure we could
| find a range that the majority of people agree with.
| Trias11 wrote:
| When majority is agrees on something it doesn't make this
| automatically the right thing.
|
| Especially if this is a majority of non-productive, lazy
| individuals unwilling to get educated, work and prefer to
| live by selling their votes for printed money of
| government grants.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| It's not the productive people who annoy me, its the
| people who live off investments they dont even have the
| skills to make themselves. They hire money managers and
| sip on trust funds while trying to combat the resultant
| boredom with drugged up sex parties. Their money is
| productive, not them.
| frenchman99 wrote:
| > When majority is agrees on something it doesn't make
| this automatically the right thing.
|
| In a democracy, yes it does.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Prior to the 1860s, the majority agreed to some things
| that we find abhorrent today.
| wiz21c wrote:
| Tax avoidance should be punished, that's all.
|
| Oh, and in my country, it is punished, it's just that the
| team which must find about the culprit are totally under
| staffed, what-a-surprise.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| > Tax avoidance should be punished, that's all.
|
| Tax avoidance and tax evasion are distinct things. Tax
| avoidance is (deliberately) legal. Why do you think it
| should be punished?
| Trias11 wrote:
| You're mistaking tax avoidance with tax evasion.
| throwaway_kufu wrote:
| The top .1% own as much wealth as the bottom 90%.
|
| For better or worse the only way that type of inequality
| happens is as a direct result of the policies of the
| country they live in, thus they should be grateful and
| thankful for living in a country that not only allows but
| promotes that type of concentration of wealth.
|
| In exchange for the benefit of living in such a country
| that promotes such wealth inequality, they should pay a 90%
| tax rate to reflect the wealth inequality itself. They will
| bitch and moan of course, but they will still be far richer
| and better off than everyone else, and everyone else will
| be better off not living in a country with such high
| inequality and a country with tremendous national
| resources, as opposed to a country that is $28T in debt
| further decreasing the quality of life of those without the
| personal wealth to not need public services.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| The top 1% pay 6x more tax than the bottom 50%! It's
| _obscene_ how much they pay and how a small group of
| individuals is forced to carry the entire country. Much,
| _much_ more should be expected from the bottom 50%.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| I am sorry for being rude but this comment is borderline
| idiotic.
|
| Do the words 'top' and 'bottom' perhaps mean something?
| Have you ever bothered to look at the distribution on
| wealth and income?
|
| The top 1% has more more wealth than the bottomn 50%, it is
| impossible for the bottom to contribute more than the top
| modo_mario wrote:
| >The top 1% pay 6x more tax than the bottom 50%!
|
| And yet their share of wealth keeps on growing and growing
| for decades. Curious.
| djbebs wrote:
| Because despite it not being popular to say, poor people
| are poor for a reason.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Primarily because their unique value add to society has
| been growing (due to technology), and the unique value
| add of the bottom 50 percent has been decreasing (due to
| technology and globalization).
|
| Take JK Rowling as an example. Her work added significant
| value to the lives of hundreds of millions, and she got a
| slice of all that value creation (say, 30 percent of it).
| Nobody is worse off. Everyone is better off. Her value
| proposition was magnified by the scale afforded to her by
| modern day distribution and movie deals, which is why she
| got so fabulously wealthy compared to what an author
| could've achieved (relative to their surrounding
| population) 100 years ago.
|
| The poorest people inside developed countries on the
| other hand have had a decreasing value add to society.
| This is partly because of automation and partly because
| of globalization and the fact they now have to compete
| with 1 billion Chinese who work harder than them and for
| less.
| coldcode wrote:
| Why not just kill all the poor people then, or let them
| starve to death. Leave the land for Gates and Bezos and
| Musk, clearly they are worth more than me because they
| have more money. The value of a human is not measured by
| how much money they "earned" or how cheaply they can be
| "worked". You could bring back slavery so that poor
| people work for free and the rich get more rich and thus
| more valuable.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| I _expect_ more from them - I think it 's less than ideal
| that there are people who take from public goods and
| contribute nothing or very little. They're effectively
| leeching off the backs of others. That doesn't mean I
| want them dead, they're contributing what society has
| demanded from them (nothing) and that's the fault of
| society's low expectations.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Redistributing wealth is _not_ the primary purpose of
| taxes.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Redistributing wealth is not the primary purpose of
| taxes
|
| Yes it is. Also of government, more generally (well,
| power, of which wealth is a subset.) Before the modern
| era, this was pretty consistently upward redistribution,
| aka concentration.
| [deleted]
| wishinghand wrote:
| It's not that their forced, it's that they get to. That's
| the reward for doing so well. It's also happens to be the
| cost of not getting eaten.
| haolez wrote:
| Why do you want access to other people's riches?
| celticninja wrote:
| Why does one person need $1bn?
|
| If we can ensure that no single individual has to live
| below the poverty line then I'm less worried about
| individuals who attain huge stores of wealth.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| Who needs a TV?
|
| Who needs more than one pair of shoes?
|
| Who determines what other people need?
|
| Maybe we should forget we are adults and have a governing
| body tell us why we need so we don't have to think about
| it?
| Trias11 wrote:
| Instead of chasing the person with $1Bn, wouldn't it be
| more productive to learn from that person and educate
| others how to earn good money and live a good, productive
| lifestyle?
|
| Otherwise many are under the impression that looting and
| robbing is a way to go.
| wishinghand wrote:
| > wouldn't it be more productive to learn from that
| person and educate others how to earn good money and live
| a good, productive lifestyle?
|
| It might be, or at least a step in the right direction,
| if those billionaires were teaching free wealth
| acquisition classes as a full time job after they attain
| three commas.
|
| Many of the wealthy are born into wealth and have family
| and institutions that help them maintain it. The poor
| won't have a start like that, so we might have to setup
| pools of money donated from these billionaires for the
| poor to start out with. It could even have a catchy
| slogan too. Something like, "No exploitation without
| education."
| celticninja wrote:
| You can't learn to be a billionaire. And the way
| capitalism works not everyone can be a billionaire, more
| importantly not everyone needs to be a billionaire. I
| would go so far as to say no one needs to be a
| billionaire. But if we are going to put an upper limit on
| personal wealth then $1bn seems like a good starting
| point.
| okasaki wrote:
| Educate them on what? How to be on top of a pyramid
| scheme?
| Trias11 wrote:
| >> Educate them on what?
|
| "...educate others how to earn good money and live a
| good, productive lifestyle".
|
| You may add to that many other educational resources and
| lots of them are free. People who are willing to learn
| will learn.
|
| People who are unwilling to learn and prefer to rob and
| loot - will continue doing so.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Because poor people don't have time to learn, they have
| to struggle staying alive. And very often the
| billionaires business's model is based on poor people
| making bad financial decisions, like pay day loans or
| buying products they don't need but are told that they do
| by the billionaires ad agency.
|
| Also, if the billionaires give a tiny amount of their
| money to fund schools, people will get educated, earn
| more money and be able to spend more.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Government has all the tools to make it worthwhile for
| billionaires to keep money within the economy.
|
| And governments of course has a ways to convince them
| that doing that is not wise.
|
| High taxes is the easiest way to deplete economy from
| productive individuals and their resources.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| Taxes are paid on profits, investing reduces your
| profits, so if they want to invest, they don't have to
| pay taxes.
|
| Taxes literally are used as a tool to incentivize
| investing in the economy.
| Trias11 wrote:
| >> Taxes literally are used as a tool to incentivize
| investing in the economy.
|
| I'm sure taxes has all the good intentions but how well
| does it work so far if trillions of dollars are escaping
| in direct opposite directions?
|
| If the tool doesn't work at all - in fact instead of
| building it just breaks stuff - wouldn't it be a good
| idea to try a different tool?
| missedthecue wrote:
| World governments spent over $35 trillion last year
| alone. I can assure you that the reason poverty continues
| to exist is not because $1 billion remains unconfiscated.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > You know this and everyone knows this.
|
| False consensus fallacy
| Supermancho wrote:
| >> The sky is blue.
|
| >> You know this and everyone knows this.
|
| > False consensus fallacy
|
| Absurd comment. The wealth inequality and regressive
| taxation has been inherent to capitalism since at least
| roman times - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/s
| ocial_structure...
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/14/wealth-tax-zakat-
| islami...
|
| Once your wealth is international, you don't have to pay on
| what you don't declare across tax regions. These havens
| arent really havens, as much as optimizations on where you
| declare assets based on asset class. etc
| missedthecue wrote:
| In America, the top 1% has 20% of the income, but pays almost
| 40% of the taxes. What is their 'fair share'? What is your
| fair share of someone else's income?
|
| Countries like Norway or Sweden, which have more billionaires
| per capita than the USA have much less progressive tax codes.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| I think the key word there is "income" - At some point
| income barely plays a role.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "Most creative and productive people, entities and businessed
| did, do and will use any tools at their disposal to escape
| barbaric tax racket"
|
| Would they prefer to do business in a society without benefits
| bought by taxes, where education is scant, crime is common,
| infrastructure and roads a crumbling and police is glorified
| mafia.
|
| Guess what, Amazon doesn't work in Russia because they cant
| make money there
| Retric wrote:
| Governments generally let people do this stuff. It's the
| difference between De Jore and De Facto enforcement.
| [deleted]
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| What do you recommend for people who want to increase their
| wealth but aren't rich yet? The people who have potential and a
| solid foundation but don't yet have the capital necessary to
| move around like that and find the most favorable place.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Education, investments, creative work.
|
| Of course investments in the country where corrupt
| polititicans are proposing doubling capital gain tax is not
| going to work.
| vmception wrote:
| Momentum trading is all you have. So last week that was
| Dogecoin and a few years ago it was value investing. The
| answer is "make money" and _let it be taxed_. The governments
| dont care about after-tax money which can then go anywhere
| unaccounted for. Thats when it can go in a tax deferred
| account in perpetuity.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| It'd be nice if there were some sort of 70+% reliable rule
| of thumb for this. I say this as someone who's made money
| on both value investing and dogecoin, but who's still
| anxious when taking on risk in new momentum-y ventures.
| vmception wrote:
| There isn't. The only 70+% reliable rule is general
| personal finance advice: "Dollar cost average"
| "Diversify" "The broad index of equities goes up by 7% on
| average annually over your whole life span, do this and
| you can afford an extra tennis ball on your walker in a
| few decades when your body fails you"
|
| If some aspect of that sounded less appealing, then you
| are back to momentum trading and looking for
| opportunities that distort the market and reality and bet
| the farm when you make the trade at all. Try to have fun,
| usually it comes with dopamine.
| incrudible wrote:
| How depressing that people on HN of all places think of
| Dogecoin trading before starting a business.
|
| If that is really your perspective, why live in the US?
| vmception wrote:
| Correct, you don't need any infrastructure of the US to
| make money. It offers nothing except a collective culture
| of growth expectations. But you don't need any aspect of
| the US to act on it. The variety of growth capital from a
| wide array of investment firms is only available to a
| thin sliver of society that has a similar background as
| the investment firm directors, which would make
| prioritizing "starting a business" to be a waste of time
| in comparison to an internationally available opportunity
| like Dogecoin, an opportunity which only needed to last a
| few weeks before the market reverts to allocating capital
| in other things. Be depressed. The rest of us just want
| to give an answer to the question.
| [deleted]
| ficklepickle wrote:
| > aren't rich yet
|
| This is the real reason the ultra-wealthy aren't taxed.
| People think that they are obviously going to become rich any
| day now, and they won't want to pay high taxes when it
| inevitability happens. Some strange, shared delusion of the
| middle class.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >the ultra-wealthy aren't taxed.
|
| The ultra-wealthy pay more tax per capita than any other
| group. This is the opposite of "aren't taxed"
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Do you think there's any level of taxation where a wealthy
| individual wouldn't want to do some "tax avoidance" in another
| jurisdiction? I suspect there is not.
| Trias11 wrote:
| "Other" jurisdictions are easily attracting capital from
| countries who are trigger happy to rob their citizens with
| taxes.
| Retric wrote:
| People very rarely actually leave countries over tax
| policies. Countries pretend ignorance because of who's
| benefiting, but unless they renounce citizenship moving
| money off shore is effectively symbolic.
|
| Loopholes for example aren't some inherent element of tax
| codes their built and maintained for the express purpose of
| being used.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Quite a few wealthy people do. Especially Canadians and
| non-americans who can.
|
| Why wouldn't person move outside of tax jurusdiction if
| it afford saving few extra $MM's and possibility to
| discover more beautiful, friendly countries?
|
| Of course US Citizenship essentially became IRS trap and
| renouncing it became very difficult thing to do for
| americans
| Retric wrote:
| Of Canadians top 10 wealthiest, 8 live in Canada, 2 are
| living in the US. That's hardly an exodus to low tax
| countries.
|
| So sure, examples exist they simply don't add up to a
| meaningful percentage. As to why they stay, making say
| 10% more money just isn't worth much hassle to the rich.
| They have money what they want is all the things a well
| functioning society gives them.
| techbio wrote:
| I suspect the more hands-on tools by which law and order is
| enforced such as asset seizure, 24/7 monitoring,
| discreditation, and prison time could be the motivation for
| otherwise tax averse entities to transparently contribute
| their exact tax proportion.
| dkarras wrote:
| It still won't work unless the whole world agrees to do it
| simultaneously. A classic game theory problem, the more
| some countries agree on it, the more benefit to those
| countries that don't do it.
|
| Because worst case, the rich entity can flee, or renounce
| citizenship and buy citizenship where the tax climate is
| more favorable. With the amount of money we are speaking
| about, you can buy anything. Each and every country has a
| very fast track to citizenship in exchange for money (and
| an instant path to pretty much all rights except for
| voting). So you threaten the wealthy with torture? Unless
| you do all this by surprise one day all of a sudden, they
| can and will escape.
| jollybean wrote:
| Not so. The US can simply refuse to recognize or work
| with entities that don't want to report the incomes of US
| residents.
|
| There is quite a bit of progress among rich nations,
| which is indeed why the article mentioned many of the
| individuals come from corrupt nations.
|
| The issue, therefore, may not be so much of 'tax havens'
| but of 'corrupt systems that allow for tax havens'.
|
| I don't think Bezos has a pile of cash secretly offshore.
| Trias11 wrote:
| Definitely.
|
| $150k buys you a Carribean citizenship + passports for
| the family of 4. 0% income tax and 0% capital gains tax
| in Antigua and Barbuda. 365 sandy beaches.
|
| What not to love for freedom seeking individuals?
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| So enhancement of punishment and enforcement to allow
| government to redistribute wealth from some citizens to the
| government?
|
| I think we've seen this before... usually ends in
| democide...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
| Dah00n wrote:
| "enhancement of punishment and enforcement" is what the
| whole US justice system is built to do*, unlike systems
| in Northern Europe for example.
|
| *Except for white-collar crime.
| Trias11 wrote:
| The lower the tax - the more money will stay and will be
| reinvested into the local economy.
|
| That should be easy to understand.
|
| Just as robbing productive people with taxes is not going to
| work.
| modo_mario wrote:
| >The lower the tax - the more money will stay and will be
| reinvested into the local economy.
|
| The less progressive the tax and the less it's properly
| enforced the more inequality will occur. Poor and
| middleclass more effectively stimulate the economy with an
| equal amount of consumption simply due to the nature of
| what they spend it on and their quantity.
|
| >Just as robbing productive people with taxes is not going
| to work.
|
| How many of these are super productive, hardworking and/or
| smart to such an extent that their hard work and/or
| wonderful decision-making proportionally matches their
| wealth compared to you know your average middleclass
| engineers, programmers, medium and small business owners or
| the like. I'd estimate the percentage to be very small. And
| if their wealth somehow matches their productivity
| proportionally and above a certain amount quantifiable as
| ridiculously wealthy i'd start wondering where in the
| superhero universe these people fit.
| Trias11 wrote:
| You're overcomplicating this. Back to my point:
|
| "The lower the tax - the more money will stay and will be
| reinvested into the local economy."
|
| Start here. Less taxes == more money is staying and
| reinvested in the local economy for the good of everyone.
|
| Bonus: more money start coming in from other
| jurisdictions that are abusing their productive citizens
| and businesses with exorbitant taxes.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| How do you pay for schools, police, firefighters in your
| tax-free world?
| Trias11 wrote:
| Make tax rate 5% to keep ALL capital in local economy.
| And that better than losing 90% of capital away for good.
|
| Significantly reduce or offset personal and capital gain
| taxes for people who are investing into public projects.
|
| There are many more better ways that tax abusive policies
| that never work.
| turbinerneiter wrote:
| What?
|
| Reinvested money already isn't taxed. Companies pay taxes
| on profits. If they invest more, they reduce their
| taxable profit and therefore their taxes.
|
| Taxes are not deferring investments, investments are the
| prime way to pay less taxes. The government wants you to
| reinvest rather than pay taxes.
|
| Off-shore tax havens broke that system. These companies
| have billions of dollars sitting unproductively in the
| Bahamas because they neither want to invest not pay
| taxes.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Hacker News: "People Deserve Privacy"
|
| Also Hacker News: "Look how outrageous it is that these other
| people want privacy!"
| nerdponx wrote:
| Who said anything about privacy?
| atombender wrote:
| Do you have a right to privacy when you do something that's
| illegal and/or immoral?
| clairity wrote:
| it's not contradictory, as you seem to be poorly insinuating.
| transparency should scale with power and wealth, lest we fall
| into oligarchy/tyranny/authoritarianism/any-other-system that's
| very good for a few and very bad for the rest of us.
| mhh__ wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers#/media/File:Coun...
|
| "Countries with politicians, public officials or close
| associates implicated in the leak on April 15, 2016"
|
| _Politicians, public officials_...
|
| A lot of the people using these schemes are either in the
| category mentioned above or in fairly highly regulated
| industries like finance. I don't know about you but the
| combination of politicians (a famously trustworthy bunch) and
| financial secrecy sounds less than optimal for everyone else.
| offsthroway wrote:
| Throwaway for obvious reasons
|
| Since the world is lacking in the department of opinion of
| wealthy men _, let me add something to this discussion:
|
| I'm currently in the situation of becoming rich (from a global
| standpoint, unicorn early employees would laugh at my near future
| net worth) due to selling my company. I'm having conversations
| with both tax lawyers and private bankers who are interested in
| helping me manage my future money. It's very clear for both sides
| that:
|
| a) I never want not to be rich again
|
| b) Paying less taxes is better than paying more taxes
|
| Even so, all the professionals I talked to were very
| straightforward with saying that trying to avoid taxes would
| bring more headaches than it was worth it. Deferring taxes is
| considered kosher even for tax authorities as long as I declare
| everything I have correctly and it wouldn't be that bad after the
| first uh, let's say bite after the liquidation event.
|
| Still, they insisted that an offshore structure would be useful
| to me for the rest of my life. I'm not American, I'm a citizen of
| a developing country that isn't a total mess, but it's...
| developing. And let's leave it at that. A few cases that
| convinced me:
|
| 1) Tax officers have no downside to suing even completely
| transparent transactions. It's completely possible to get a tax
| bill with a heavy fine on top years after the fact because
| suddenly someone thought something was off. One of the tax
| lawyers I talked to mentioned* how he nullified a ~hundreds of
| millions fine/reassessment, but only after a long (+expensive)
| legal battle and a lot of stress for the sellers. Totally
| unfounded, and he mentioned it happened more than once.
|
| 2) I _almost* lost my exit because the government bureaucracy was
| not working due to covid and the buyer had a hard deadline for
| Q1. Said bureaucratic procedure would be a single docusign in a
| business-friendly jurisdiction (aka tax heaven)
|
| 3) American private bankers find it a hassle to deal with
| developing country clients directly, handling their money through
| offshore accounts (as a business client, that is, the shell corp
| is the private banking client) is a lot easier.
|
| 4) This is not a case, but: I don't love paying taxes, but I
| understand that I live in a poor country and of course taking a
| tax dollar from me is a lot fairer than taking a tax dollar from
| my poor neighbor. Still, it is not beyond the realm of
| possibility that my government, or at least a few unsavory
| parties that could be in charge one day, decides that it wants to
| set a high wealth tax or outright confiscate investments and I
| don't plan on making that easy (see point a above).
|
| So, there's that. No need to feel sympathies for the (future)
| millionaire here, just want to share that avoiding taxes is not
| my primary concern, and could not be for others, too.
|
| * Yes, this is a joke * Later I confirmed with said client, he
| was still angry at it
| pydry wrote:
| >Since the world is lacking in the department of opinion of
| wealthy men
|
| You're serious aren't you?
| offsthroway wrote:
| I was joking, the formatting ruined it :(
| [deleted]
| offsthroway wrote:
| For some reason edit is not working here's with the format
| fixed:
|
| Throwaway for obvious reasons
|
| Since the world is lacking in the department of opinion of
| wealthy men[1], let me add something to this discussion:
|
| I'm currently in the situation of becoming rich (from a global
| standpoint, unicorn early employees would laugh at my near
| future net worth) due to selling my company. I'm having
| conversations with both tax lawyers and private bankers who are
| interested in helping me manage my future money. It's very
| clear for both sides that:
|
| a) I never want not to be rich again
|
| b) Paying less taxes is better than paying more taxes
|
| Even so, all the professionals I talked to were very
| straightforward with saying that trying to avoid taxes would
| bring more headaches than it was worth it. Deferring taxes is
| considered kosher even for tax authorities as long as I declare
| everything I have correctly and it wouldn't be that bad after
| the first uh, let's say bite after the liquidation event.
|
| Still, they insisted that an offshore structure would be useful
| to me for the rest of my life. I'm not American, I'm a citizen
| of a developing country that isn't a total mess, but it's...
| developing. And let's leave it at that. A few cases that
| convinced me:
|
| 1) Tax officers have no downside to suing even completely
| transparent transactions. It's completely possible to get a tax
| bill with a heavy fine on top years after the fact because
| suddenly someone thought something was off. One of the tax
| lawyers I talked to mentioned[2] how he nullified a ~hundreds
| of millions fine/reassessment, but only after a long
| (+expensive) legal battle and a lot of stress for the sellers.
| Totally unfounded, and he mentioned it happened more than once.
|
| 2) I almost lost my exit because the government bureaucracy was
| not working due to covid and the buyer had a hard deadline for
| Q1. Said bureaucratic procedure would be a single docusign in a
| business-friendly jurisdiction (aka tax heaven)
|
| 3) American private bankers find it a hassle to deal with
| developing country clients directly, handling their money
| through offshore accounts (as a business client, that is, the
| shell corp is the private banking client) is a lot easier.
|
| 4) This is not a case, but: I don't love paying taxes, but I
| understand that I live in a poor country and of course taking a
| tax dollar from me is a lot fairer than taking a tax dollar
| from my poor neighbor. Still, it is not beyond the realm of
| possibility that my government, or at least a few unsavory
| parties that could be in charge one day, decides that it wants
| to set a high wealth tax or outright confiscate investments and
| I don't plan on making that easy (see point a above).
|
| So, there's that. No need to feel sympathies for the (future)
| millionaire here, just want to share that avoiding taxes is not
| my primary concern, and could not be for others, too.
|
| [1] Yes, this is a joke [2] Later I confirmed with said client,
| he was still angry at it
| [deleted]
| MilnerRoute wrote:
| "New estimates by Congress's official forecasters show Democrats'
| tax cuts -- included in their March stimulus package -- will
| drive down tax rates on low- and middle-income people so much
| this year that those earning less than $75,000, on average, will
| owe nothing in federal income taxes."
|
| "Those making between $75,000 and $100,000 will pay a scant 1.8
| percent average tax rate this year, the nonpartisan Joint
| Committee on Taxation predicts."
|
| "That will shift the relative burden to the wealthy, at least
| temporarily, with those earning more than $500,000 expected to
| pay more than two-thirds of all income taxes this year... Those
| making between $500,000 and $1 million will pay 20.8 percent of
| their earnings in income taxes. People earning more than $1
| million will pay 25.8 percent."
|
| https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/25/dems-tax-cuts-biden...
| antb123 wrote:
| This book argues actually its western countries like UK, US, and
| FR that benefit as rulers buy London, Paris or NYC flats in the
| names of offshore companies.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Without-Borders-Power-Centr...
|
| Personally I think the correct response is to tax things rich
| people like in those countries. Specifically housing, high end
| cars etc.
|
| Putting beneficial owners on real estate makes total sense.
| andrewnicolalde wrote:
| Just bought the book, thanks for the suggestion!
| Woodi wrote:
| Ye, and poor peoples are not allowed to use encryption like in
| Australia :> From when "wispering" make you a criminal ?
| vmception wrote:
| If you want more insight into this with less pejorative language,
| ditch the ICIJ and the Brookings study and look at KPMG, Deloitte
| and PwC annual reports on the offshore industry.
|
| The also know what they are doing instead of trying to reverse
| engineer it like these studies are.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| > KPMG, Deloitte and PwC
|
| But aren't they in bed with the companies using these schemes?
| airstrike wrote:
| Even if they were, these are massive organizations, so
| different people may have different views on the matter.
| vmception wrote:
| The companies that wish to use these would go to KPMG,
| Deloitte and PwC if it is in the budget, yes. They have
| offices in every jurisdiction for an unparalleled and
| holistic view of an ever changing landscape.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Any links, please?
| smashah wrote:
| Is there some sort of issue with ICIJ reporting?
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Citations for any of this?
|
| I have noticed nothing "pejorative" in the language used in the
| document. I'd be more pejorative myself. The individuals with
| accounts are described clinically - "high net worth
| individuals". The ethics of using the leaked data is examined.
|
| The situation that individuals with these accounts may be
| committing crimes is also described dispassionately. It is a
| fact that these accounts are often used for the crime of tax
| evasion. Do you want to dispute this fact? Or do you want
| language that tries avoid any mention of this likelihood? That
| would be less "pejorative" I suppose.
|
| Edit: OK, the Mel Brooks quote is an exception to the generally
| clinical language. But by that point the author has made their
| case and should get at least a little cookie.
| Havoc wrote:
| >The situation that individuals with these accounts may be
| committing crimes
|
| What happened to innocent until guilty?
|
| Hell I've got an account in an offshore jurisdiction. I guess
| I need to go do some introspection about my "crime of tax
| evasion"...
| IshKebab wrote:
| "Innocent until proven guilty" is really "innocent until
| there's sufficient evidence to strongly suspect you are
| guilty". There aren't very many innocent reasons to have
| accounts in tax havens.
| vmception wrote:
| > There aren't very many innocent reasons to have
| accounts in tax havens.
|
| Courts disagree.
|
| The primary form of investment firms (PE firms) rely on
| an "onshore" feeder, for certain countries taxable
| persons to invest into, and an "offshore" feeder for
| everyone else as well as those same countries non-taxable
| persons (charities, retirement plans) to invest into. The
| offshore feeder typically being an offshore corporation
| taxed only at the entity level, in a place that does not
| levy tax on the kinds of transactions conducted, and in
| many cases also means banking and brokerage accounts
| offshore. But it also means banking and brokerage
| accounts onshore under the name of the offshore entity,
| because it is completely legal and the relevant financial
| professionals are completely familiar with it.
|
| Status in our society is based on understanding whose
| opinion matters, and that is the executive and judicial
| branch.
| vmception wrote:
| > I have noticed nothing "pejorative" in the language used in
| the document.
|
| First page after the abstract
|
| "It is this information asymmetry that gives rise to a host
| of problems" as opposed to benefits?
|
| This study is fairly balanced but chooses to only focus on
| illegal tax evasion by the wealthy and corrupt behavior of
| public officials. Instead of legal tax deferment or
| avoidance.
| jollybean wrote:
| So what exactly are the 'benefits' of this information
| asymmetry?
|
| What 'benefit' is derived from Congolese President's
| ability to have 'hidden' accounts on the Isle of Man,
| instead of accounts that are available to be scrutinized by
| Congolese authorities?
| ABCLAW wrote:
| Because legal tax avoidance isn't an issue and is a topic
| for another paper.
|
| Why is every second reply in this comment thread trying to
| deflect away from the documented widespread, commonplace
| fraud that constitutes a wealth transfer away from common
| taxpayers?
| vmception wrote:
| Because it fails to distinguish. This paper would be more
| productive talking about the cybersecurity failings of
| the bank in the Isle of Man and how the country's data
| legislation can be improved.
|
| The history of state revenue sources has been much
| broader than the last 100 years of worrying about whether
| everyone is getting hosed equally. High tax jurisdictions
| who will never balance their budget are in a quagmire of
| their own design, and they lack the consensus mechanisms
| to do anything about it. They are failed states in this
| regard and that has nothing to do with rest of the world.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > look at KPMG, Deloitte and PwC annual reports on the offshore
| industry
|
| I'll add that to my reading list alongside the 'climate change'
| reports written by the global petrochemical industry, and the
| reports written by hedge-fund traders on what really happened
| in the 2008 financial crisis.
| vmception wrote:
| occasionally some people like to know what they are doing,
| while the academics and regulators play catch up. instruction
| manuals are better than studies and leaks decades after the
| fact.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Although that seems to presume they would put the most
| honest information on what we could call 'trade secrets' in
| tax minimization through offshoring in a public document
| published for the whole world to read.
| vmception wrote:
| Yes, that's a good assumption because there is nothing
| secret about it.
|
| I'm telling you, and everyone, that the entire phrasing
| of "leaks" and "secret" and "loopholes" is either
| complete clickbait or the musing of the completely
| ignorant, and both of those outcomes means you should go
| to the actual source of truth instead of bothering with
| this wealth-porn.
|
| And yet you want to argue that. Plato-esque.
| walrus01 wrote:
| The massive pile of internal client correspondence,
| documents and information that escaped from Mossack
| Fonseca, from their internal file servers, wasn't
| "secret"?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossack_Fonseca
|
| https://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/en/
| vmception wrote:
| there were no "secret" uses of combinations of entities
| or laws that was new or surprising from this leak and
| Mossack Fonseca, big 4 accounting firms, and many other
| providers - as well as anybody with decent reading
| comprehension skills - can do it as well.
|
| that has nothing to do with client data, which is
| "secret" even in the "I overpaid my percentage of taxes
| onshore by not deducting anything" world
| walrus01 wrote:
| You seem to be operating from the position that there is
| nothing morally wrong with the one percent using every
| available loophole to pay as little taxes as possible.
| I'm sure all the laws and corporate structures Mossack
| Fonsecka made use of for their clients were perfectly
| 'legal' in the jurisdictions in which the paperwork and
| shell entities exist(ed).
|
| Where I think we have a significant difference of opinion
| is whether something should be done to rectify the
| question of hiding assets offshore.
| vmception wrote:
| Our particular comment thread doesn't show me having any
| strong opinion on anything. You have to assume that the
| absence of disdain means tacit consent.
|
| I do personally hate ignorance and always had high marks
| on reading comprehension, our conversation was
| exclusively congruent with me saying a different source
| of truth conforms to reality and the authorities in this
| reality.
| awestroke wrote:
| Do you have a link to one of these reports?
| motohagiography wrote:
| These people figure they can't attract legitimate investment so
| instead they index on how to bar the exits. It is more
| conspicuous who doesn't get the scrutiny of Brookings, ICIJ, TJN,
| and organizations like them. (hint: you elected them) These
| places are just fronts for post-hoc policy justification, and
| papers like these are pseudo-intellectual activism masquerading
| as scholarship.
|
| I see a similar authoritarian nerd attitude in security all the
| time, where someone finds an unexpectedly invasive surveillance
| method and then tries to ingratiate themselves to the
| institutions who can mandate it. They think they have made
| something people want, when in fact they have only invented a new
| way to betray their fellow citizens to the insatiable will to
| power of bureaucracies. (Contrary to the talking points of their
| apologists, bureaucracies are in fact not made of people, they
| are made of bureaucrats)
|
| Let's look at a problem these organizations don't care about,
| like the real social issue that is domestic money laundering,
| which not only converts the proceeds of really harmful crimes
| into legit bank deposits, it harms communities directly with real
| estate and rental bubbles, diseconomic businesses, dumping,
| political and police corruption, all of which their anti-capital
| policies directly create. The revenue-gap nerds are fine with
| laundering because some of it comes into the tax net, social
| consequences be damned.
|
| While I have never earned enough to hide it in my life, I wish
| the class of people who think governments have a revenue problem
| but not a spending or scope problem would try solving a problem
| they didn't first cause for a change instead of thinking the
| world needs more of their concern and facilitation.
| CPLX wrote:
| It sounds like you have strong opinions which might be
| interesting but I found this comment incomprehensible. Who
| exactly are you talking about? What do you mean by domestic
| money laundering and "really harmful crimes"? Are you talking
| about drug dealing? White collar crime?
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