7 ms·

> they don't even pay taxes on the money they spend, since they can borrow against the assets and spend on credit. They have to pay taxes on the income/realise

> they don't even pay taxes on the money they spend, since they can borrow against the assets and spend on credit. They have to pay taxes on the income/realised gains they use to pay the loan back when it matures. It’s not completely tax free.

AnthonyMouse 1mo ago
> They have to pay taxes on the income/realised gains they use to pay the loan back when it matures. No they don't, they just take out another loan. If you have a billion dollars in assets that increases in value by an average of 10% a year and can borrow money at 6% interest, guess how long you can spend anything up to your entire wealth on credit before the recapitalized loan principal catches up to your assets.
- fc417fc802 1mo ago
  Notably under any sane regime this would only defer taxes until death however in the US we adjust basis at that point. But then inheritance cough sorry "estate" tax kicks in so ... I'm not actually seeing the problem? (I mean I see several problems but not the "avoid paying taxes" one. At least not until we cure aging. The IRS will get its cut of your billions assuming you don't find a creative way to offshore the assets.)
  - AnthonyMouse 1mo ago
    > But then inheritance cough sorry "estate" tax kicks in so ... I'm not actually seeing the problem? "Estate tax" is basically a tax on people who die before they do "estate planning". It's a sham that generates less than 1% of federal revenue, and most of that not from billionaires but from upper middle class families who didn't realize they would be subject to it or otherwise died without making advance preparations for it. One of the most common cases it actually gets collected is when someone dies relatively young, because those are the people most likely to have not shielded their assets from it yet, which is one of the reasons "death tax" is a pretty appropriate moniker for it. It's also one of the reasons that UBI + consumption tax works really well: Put your assets into whatever box you want, transfer them to your kids however you want, you're still paying the consumption tax when you buy something.

AnthonyMouse 1mo ago

> They have to pay taxes on the income/realised gains they use to pay the loan back when it matures. No they don't, they just take out another loan. If you have a billion dollars in assets that increases in value by an average of 10% a year and can borrow money at 6% interest, guess how long you can spend anything up to your entire wealth on credit before the recapitalized loan principal catches up to your assets.

fc417fc802 1mo ago
Notably under any sane regime this would only defer taxes until death however in the US we adjust basis at that point. But then inheritance cough sorry "estate" tax kicks in so ... I'm not actually seeing the problem? (I mean I see several problems but not the "avoid paying taxes" one. At least not until we cure aging. The IRS will get its cut of your billions assuming you don't find a creative way to offshore the assets.)
- AnthonyMouse 1mo ago
  > But then inheritance cough sorry "estate" tax kicks in so ... I'm not actually seeing the problem? "Estate tax" is basically a tax on people who die before they do "estate planning". It's a sham that generates less than 1% of federal revenue, and most of that not from billionaires but from upper middle class families who didn't realize they would be subject to it or otherwise died without making advance preparations for it. One of the most common cases it actually gets collected is when someone dies relatively young, because those are the people most likely to have not shielded their assets from it yet, which is one of the reasons "death tax" is a pretty appropriate moniker for it. It's also one of the reasons that UBI + consumption tax works really well: Put your assets into whatever box you want, transfer them to your kids however you want, you're still paying the consumption tax when you buy something.