With Miami Move, Jeff Bezos Proves Zip Codes Do Matter - Slashdot

With Miami Move, Jeff Bezos Proves Zip Codes Do Matter

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  consumption tax is regressive meaning poor people suffer more. If you have lots of money you don't have to spend it. To contribute their fair share it would be easier if they taxed on net worth. Then all the resources and costs that jeff bezos wastes would be directly paid for by him (like getting is mega yacht out of harbor) instead of regular people who can't pay their rent.

  • Re:

    So do they refund you money if your net worth drops?

    • So do they refund you money if your net worth drops?

      This question *could* very soon become a very important question, given that a lot of people are being told what a great idea it would be to tax *unrealized* income. In the name of taxing billionaires quote-unquote 'fairly', who 'aren't paying taxes on their billions'. The problem with taxing unrealized income is that A) the value is all theoretical, based on something that changes with the wind, and B) the people being taxed may not have the money to pay the taxes in cash. The supreme court is likely to prevent this, but since the current US budget already plans on some of that type of income, the newsies are already talking about how the SCOTUS is about to "blow a hole in the budget" and other scary sounding words, when they avert policy disaster by sticking to well, well, well, WELL established precedent. And the spin doctors will start agitating at how the law needs to be changed so that billionaires start to 'pay their fair share' of taxes (on unrealized gain).

      a few great scenarios I could see come up are: eventually it will work down to some janitor making minimum wage in Santa Clara who was smart enough to buy a house in 1970 for $10000, now being a multimillionaire on paper, and a future millionaire for real when actually selling the house, but being told, no, net worth wealth taxes are due now, eviction notice, just live in your job's parking lot and pay the $250k of wealth taxes like you should.

      Or to get a little closer to reality, 2 years ago certain politicians and others were saying Elon needed to be taxed on unrealized net worth. Just a week ago Elon suddenly became $56 billion poorer by retroactive cancellation of a compensation package. I can imagine the court case (not to mention the fiscal ramifications) for the clawback from the IRS of the perhaps ~$10 billion of taxes that would have been collected, now suddenly given back to Elon. Whoops, gonna have to put a mortgage on Baltic Ave to come up with that kind of cash. Store credit maybe, "Elon, would you settle for a Nimitz class carrier, or does it need to be the USS Gerald Ford?"

      (of course, forcing Elon to crash-sell $10 billion in stock to pay that kind of taxes in the first place would probably have knocked him down to multimillionaire status, along with a ton of investor collateral damage. I wonder how big of an oopsie it would be to destroy the very net worth you claim to be taxing.

      Now lets imagine something along the line of someone paid wealth taxes on unrealized gain of FTX cryptocoin. Beany babies before that. Whoops, I paid WAAAAAY too much taxes. You're going to pay me back in greenbacks, right? Gold bullion or euros would be fine as well.

      • Re:

        Real estate property tax are "normal" already, and yes people lose their homes when they can't pay the tax, and if their house burns down or they sell it for less than they paid there is no question of a refund. Often there is no choice but to demolish homes because they have 10s of thousands of back taxes. Billionaires should be treated the same as the rest of us: like slaves.

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          A house is not an unrealized gain. Especially not when someone both owns and lives in it.

          Also trivializing slavery in such a fashion is ridiculous.

    • The flip side that's never mentioned. What about illiquid assets that have no market comparables such as collectibles and private companies, who determines the value? What about corporate entities, are they going to be taxed on "net worth"? If not, why not setup a shell holding company to transfer your wealth into it while you hold private shares with a par value of $0.01. Your $100B in company stock would now be $0.01 of wealth for you, while your shell company holds $100B on its books.

      I'll add another wrinkle, once net worth is taxed, if you subsequently realize an asset sale, you've already been taxed on that asset, so do you get to deduct the tax that's already paid? Is the sale tax free? Since you never sold the asset, there's no transaction record, so what determines the value of that asset? For stocks is it the par value at issuance of $0.01? If it's the market price, what date / time is used? What if it's for a Picasso, who determines the value?

      What about extraordinary events like Musk's $50B package being rescinded, would he be retroactively be able to claw back taxes paid on that net worth?

      The other bit that's never discussed is that rich people don't like wealth taxes. France even scrapped theirs after 60,000 millionaires left the country as a result, leading to an overall decline in tax revenue. Make no mistake, anyone with wealth and accountants will exploit all possible avenues to avoid a wealth tax. For all the talk about billionaires pleading "tax me more", that's nothing but a front, anyone is free to donate as much money as they want to the Federal government. If Warren Buffet would like to donate $10B to the US government, good news, that's been an option since 1842, the link is right here, no congressional action required:

      https://fiscal.treasury.gov/pu... [treasury.gov]

      Oddly, no "tax me more" billionaire has elected to donate billions to the US government, maybe they don't know the treasury is ready and able to accept gifts?

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      • • Re:

          Insurance is often in bulk for a collection of items not necessarily a single item.

          If I have an umbrella policy for $1 billion to cover everything that could possibly happen, that doesn't mean my net worth is $1 b.

          It could easily mean my net worth is much lower but I fear I might have much higher liabilities and don't want to be wiped out if something bad happens.

          You need to be covered for your worst realistic case lawsuit not the fmv of your stuff.

          Let's say your net is $100. You get $100 in insurance. Yo

    • Re:

      No but the next year you don't pay as much in taxes.

  • consumption tax is regressive meaning poor people suffer more.

    Washington's taxes already work this way.

    If you have lots of money you don't have to spend it.

    If you don't have lots of money you don't have to spend it either. I know a lot of people bringing in six figures that live paycheck to paycheck. I never did live that way, even when my income was shit. If you don't know how to manage your own finances, then how much money you have doesn't change much. That's why people who win the lottery when they're poor typically end up being poor again after only a decade or so.

    To contribute their fair share it would be easier if they taxed on net worth.

    The top 1% already pay 37% of all income taxes. In other words, they're shouldering the lion's share of it. Compare that to somebody like rsilvergun who's tax burden is negative. What's fair about that? How much more do you want them to pay?

    Shit, my tax bill last year was right around $100k, how about you?

    Then all the resources and costs that jeff bezos wastes would be directly paid for by him (like getting is mega yacht out of harbor) instead of regular people who can't pay their rent.

    And what favors have progressive taxes done for them? Have a look at the third figure here:

    https://www.advisorperspective... [advisorperspectives.com]

    That's more or less a ranking of all states by how bad off the poor are in that particular state. Notice anything?

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    • Re:

      Oh daddy keep going I'm just about to cum!

    • • Re:

        Obesity is a much more serious issue in this country than starvation. It isn't the 1930s anymore.

        Go look up how much money is given out per capita in food stamps and equivalents. If you can't get fat on that then your metabolism is really broken.

  • Re:

    Define "fair"?

• Re:

  Lol, if you looked at your link you would see Florida is #14 in pre-k to 12th.

  • Re: So not zip codes

    And what did I compare it to? Moron.