Community Chat

[CrazyDaisy]

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@JamandBread wrote:

@suzyQ3 as if the rest of us keep our assets under the mattress. All our wealth is paper, not just the rich. 

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Do you own a house or maybe some stocks (think retirement accounts).  Then your wealth is on paper.  You are not taxed every year if the value of your house goes up.

[Porcelain]

Oh please. People around here complain about laws all the time.

They only trot out the "that's just how it is, so kick rocks" "change the laws yourself buddy" or "talk to your legislator if you're so upset" pat responses--when they are satisfied with a particular law as it is and are fairly confident that the law will not change anytime soon. The rest of the time they complain about the laws they don't like.

[suzyQ3]

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@CrazyDaisy wrote:

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@suzyQ3 wrote:

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@gardenman wrote:

A lot of the really wealthy people's "wealth" only exists on paper. Back in October on a bad day for the stock market, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Alice Walton and six of the ten wealthiest Americans lost a combined $14 billion in one day. Lines of armored trucks didn't show up at their houses hauling away pallets of cash. That $14 billion only existed on paper. (Well, computer memory these days.)

The whole "tax the rich" crowd largely ignores the fact that wealth is ethereal. Jeff Bezos is reportedly worth $210 billion. "Let's tax him at 50%!" Okay, so he has to pay $105 billion in cash. Does he have 105 billion one-dollar bills lying around? No. His cash on hand might be maybe five million dollars. (The poor guy!) How would he get the $105 billion he'd need? He'd have to sell some of his holdings. But if we're taxing all of the wealthy at 50%, all of them would have to sell some of their holdings, so who's buying those holdings and at what price?

Amazon stock is selling for about $3,700 as I type this. If Bezos put $105 billion of Amazon stock on the market to get the money to pay his taxes what would happen to that stock price? It would plummet. He'd have to sell about 28 million shares to raise the $105 billion at $3,700 per share. As the stock price falls the number of shares he'd have to sell would increase which would further drive down the price per share which would increase the number of shares he'd have to sell. With every other truly wealthy (at least on paper) person also selling their holdings, the price of all of the holdings would nosedive.

Pretty soon the wealth of the wealthiest people is less than what they owe in taxes and dropping like a rock. Their hundred-dollar mansion has no buyers even at one million dollars. Their fifty-million-dollar yacht can't attract a buyer at any price. All of that wealth they had is gone. 

Most of us have our "wealth" such as it is, in real-world goods and currency. The very wealthy mostly have wealth on paper. In the real world, when push comes to shove, the billionaires, if taxed at 50%, would be anything but billionaires. They couldn't pay the 50% tax as the only way they could pay it would be by selling their assets which while currently valued highly, would decrease in value drastically when everyone tried to sell at once. 

When you hear braindead politicians talk about paying for expensive programs by taxing the rich, understand that they'll never get the amount they assume they'll get by taxing the rich. Not because the rich are really good at hiding their wealth, which some are, but because so much of the wealth of the wealthiest Americans only exists on paper. When they need to cash it in, it's not there.

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If you think that money tied up in assets give the wealthy a pass, well, you are a very compassionate individual. I don't drink that Cool-Aid. @gardenman 

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As stated much of this wealth is not cash in the bank, it is ownership of a business ( or other busunesses or property).  Something that can go bust in a moment.  People are not taxed until they realize that income someone as when they sell the stock or property, just as every American does.  It is not about compassion. It is about the law that possibly even applies to you.

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You almost bring a tear to my eyes over their plight, @CrazyDaisy 

[JamandBread]

@CrazyDaisy im not sure why you responded to my post with the same words I posted, but Ill chalk it up to an unfortunate series of miscommunication.

[CrazyDaisy]

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@JamandBread wrote:
@CrazyDaisyim not sure why you responded to my post with the same words I posted, but Ill chalk it up to an unfortunate series of miscommunication.

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Guess you just can't agree with a disagreeable person.

You have a good weekend.

[granddi]

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@CrazyDaisy wrote:

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@JamandBread wrote:

@suzyQ3 as if the rest of us keep our assets under the mattress. All our wealth is paper, not just the rich. 

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Do you own a house or maybe some stocks (think retirement accounts).  Then your wealth is on paper.  You are not taxed every year if the value of your house goes up.

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In Texas, your property in "valued " for tax purposes and as the appraised value goes up so do your property taxes. companies like WalMart apply for tax abaitments meaning in exchange for doning business in your town they want to be forgiven of paying certain taxes.

If you own stocks and earn dividends then you pay taxes on the dividends unless the stocks are in tax sheltered accounts such as IRA.

[Cakers3]

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@Cats3000 wrote:

@JamandBread   What is "his fair share" of taxes?  He has accountants and others who are able to use every word of the tax code to his advantage.  He's a smart businessman.

Every taxpayer should take advantage of every applicable word in the tax code to pay as little in taxes as required.  If they don't, they're fools.

Yes, he's accumulated a lot of wealth.  Yes, it's his money and he can do with it as he chooses.  Your comment about him "sleeping well at night" is corrosive, and mean-spirited.

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@Cats3000   There is a flaw in this statement.  The tax codes are not created equally.

The uber-rich can take advantage of "loopholes" and other parts of the tax code that the average citizen cannot-because the average citizen is not in the financial situation that would allow him/her to do so.

The advantages in the tax code that the average citizen can use are not even near the ones the uber-rich can use. 

The more wealth, the more items in the code for deductions.

The less wealth, the fewer items in the code for deductions.

As far as what Bezos does with his $$, I agree-it's his $$. 

[beckyb1012]

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@candyagain wrote:

Yes, and he now has an ex-wife who's worth 105 Billion.....and she's donating a TON of it to charity. Community property and karma!

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She recently donated to our cities Food Bank. 

[CrazyDaisy]

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@granddi wrote:

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@CrazyDaisy wrote:

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@JamandBread wrote:

@suzyQ3 as if the rest of us keep our assets under the mattress. All our wealth is paper, not just the rich. 

---

Do you own a house or maybe some stocks (think retirement accounts).  Then your wealth is on paper.  You are not taxed every year if the value of your house goes up.

---

In Texas, your property in "valued " for tax purposes and as the appraised value goes up so do your property taxes. companies like WalMart apply for tax abaitments meaning in exchange for doning business in your town they want to be forgiven of paying certain taxes.

If you own stocks and earn dividends then you pay taxes on the dividends unless the stocks are in tax sheltered accounts such as IRA.

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Property taxes are more of a local thing to cover local expenses, however when you sell the house the increase will be realized and become taxable.  Yes many businesses do request and get tax abatements from local taxes.  Depending on the business, the business can provide revenue via sales taxes, employee income taxes etc to offset the abatements.  But these are are all local and state taxes and they will vary depending on the location.

When dividends are paid to you it is income and should be taxed as income.   

[Cakers3]

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@granddi wrote:

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@CrazyDaisy wrote:

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@JamandBread wrote:

@suzyQ3 as if the rest of us keep our assets under the mattress. All our wealth is paper, not just the rich. 

---

Do you own a house or maybe some stocks (think retirement accounts).  Then your wealth is on paper.  You are not taxed every year if the value of your house goes up.

---

In Texas, your property in "valued " for tax purposes and as the appraised value goes up so do your property taxes. companies like WalMart apply for tax abaitments meaning in exchange for doning business in your town they want to be forgiven of paying certain taxes.

If you own stocks and earn dividends then you pay taxes on the dividends unless the stocks are in tax sheltered accounts such as IRA.

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@granddi   It isn't just Texas.  Increases in property value is one of the 3 reasons why property taxes rise.

It was the same back in our home state.