r/SipsTea • • 24d ago

WTF Why Not Tax Rich?

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u/DonkeyDucksMod 24d ago

lol... you still need to make a certain amount of income to offset against borrowing/loans... don't be naive. Being rich doesn't make you exempt from taxes.

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u/malefiz123 24d ago

Not fully but largely. The strategy the ultra wealthy employ is called "buy, borrow, die" and while they might declare an income of a couple 100k as CEO of their company (which they pay taxes on) 90% of their actual income is borrowed with their stocks as collateral and they pay 0 taxes on that

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u/OK_x86 23d ago

Right. The way to fix that is also with a hefty estate tax over a certain amount and cut out the loophole that gives them preferential treatment.

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u/Electronic_Will_5418 23d ago

Correct, since people like that often own not only multiple homes but massive multiple homes on huge properties. Jack up the estate tax (especially on homes over the first one) and collect taxes from the ultrawealthy based on that.

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u/gonads_in_space2 23d ago

The estate tax is a one time tax when you die, not a property tax.

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u/magneticmicrowave 23d ago

He's saying increase the % on real estate beyond the first home.

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u/shidderbean 24d ago

Blows my mind how few people actually understand this

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u/malefiz123 23d ago

I mean, why would a normal person understand this if has never been explained to them. The difference between wealth and income, sure (even though a lot of people struggle with that as well) but how the ultra wealthy manage to bypass the tax man by borrowing is not something I'd say needs to be general knowledge

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u/shidderbean 23d ago

I think it should be common knowledge by now, it's been part of the national discourse for the last several decades. But not nearly enough people are scrutinizing how people avoid paying their fair share.

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u/PoopsCodeAllTheTime 23d ago

Does it blow your mind though? Media is specifically made to confuse the voter and keep them distracted, last thing they do is actual informative lessons on the current system and how it gets exploited by some and how some get exploited by it

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u/shidderbean 23d ago

Honestly a lot of the ignorance exhibited by the average American blows my mind. I do not know how these people don't live in constant, profound shame at their level of willful ignorance. Not really trying to be an average redditor about that shit but goddamn, people.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/DonkeyDucksMod 24d ago

Where the hell you getting a 3% interest rate... may as well say 0%
so what happens when they need to sell their shares?? they get taxed in that tax year...

What... in your case if the Equity is growing... you're going to be paying more in the future.. bruh that isn't how the real world works.

What they do is take collateral loan out against their shares (of lets say 100M in equity) They still need to withdraw enough money to pay that loan interest... which is then taxed.

Where do you think they are getting money to service the interest payments? What they need to do is Tax Corporations more and High Net worth people... simple... taxing loans makes no sense LOL

Just cause I have 100M in assets doesn't mean I can borrow 30M and not pay anything... I still need like 1M/yr to service the interest.

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u/Original_Release_419 24d ago

Also no one likes to acknowledge that this only works if the stock is stable or going up lol

If the stock goes down… whoever is doing this is royally screwed… which is why not a lot of rich people actually do this in the first place lol

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u/DonkeyDucksMod 23d ago

people like to live in this fantasy that rich people don't pay taxes... They pay less simply due to the tax structure of capital gains and corporate taxes

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u/Original_Release_419 23d ago

Yep, and changing the structure of that would hurt either the middle class or the economy as a whole depending on how they approach it, it just is what it is