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We Need a Wealth Tax


Hugo Stiglitz

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1 minute ago, Lobo said:

A company whose valuation is still the same amount after 25 years in business is doing just fine?  Wow, we're honestly hiring a new Controller next year and I like the cut of your jib  ;)

On average, the wealthiest people in this country continue to accumulate wealth far faster than 2 percent per year. They will be fine. And if Bezos isn't smart enough to figure out a plan to avoid crashing the price of AMZN every December, perhaps he can hire a tax lawyer to help him out. 

I see pros and cons to the concept of a wealth tax, but your arguments against dont seem particularly convincing. The increasing accumulation of wealth in the hands of the ultra rich is an issue that needs to be addressed. Whatever you call it, that money needs to get redistributed.

The government has been hell bent on spending insane amounts of tax dollars/printing money to prop a stock market that disproportionately benefits the top 1%. We will all ultimately share the pain for this bullshit. Trust me the upper echelon rich are catching more than their fair share of breaks in this country. You don't need to cry yourself to sleep over their misfortune.

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Nobody's crying, just waiting patiently on Page 5 for somebody to finally walk us through the mechanics of this.  For the umpteenth fucking time, everybody here is on board with more taxes from more billionaires getting more rich.  Holy fucking shit, it's like talking to a Trumper in circles.  

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10 hours ago, Lobo said:

It would tax anyone with a living estate over $50mm.  That includes a lot of people of color.  Part of the reason white families have been able to pass along such massive sums of money from one generation to another is because for a huge chunk of American history, the death tax was either non-existent or de minimus.  Now that families of color are getting to accrue some real wealth, it would be a shame to halt that perpetual growth but taking a huge chunk of it.  It sounds like this tax is going after people worth in the tens of billions, but it would royally fuck over families of color with $50mm+ in assets for generations.  I work with family offices every single day, many of them minorities, this would fuck them over way more than it would their rich, white contemporaries.  Nevermind, I don't think you get the point.

Many POC's made their money recently and not since the 1800s.   Dr. Dre didn't grow up with family money and the clock doesn't need to start 100 years after someone gets the funds.    Jeff Bezos/Bill Gates also did not get this opportunity.  Secondly, those funds are growing not hiding in a basement somewhere.   So Dre is probably making money with his money, I believe we average between 5-7% per year on the stock market for growth?  A 2% tax would mean those poor rich people could only gain 3-5% per year on their wealth?  

Those people without $50 million also qualified for the direct inheritance, but the inheritance was a pittance/non-existent so they could not take advantage.  Or maybe the person was a second born son and primogeniture was in effect and thus this person didn't get to grow their wealth due to the law of the land.

Ultimately, I think your premise here is a bit off.  But I think shutting down loopholes and tax shelters and getting rid of MNC tax havens (fake HQs in Ireland) is also part of a comprehensive plan at overhauling out taxes would be a more difficult fight and would raise more money.   

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@Lobo, Brent Norwalk inherited the family business and in just 18 years, grew Norwalk Materials "from a $90 million company to a $94 million company."

And Brent Norwalk worked hard to get to Princeton University. "No handouts, by the way. I earned my spot there, just like my father and his father before him."

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I made a casual mention of how I thought such a tax would more regressively hit families of color than white families, given equal fortunes.  I don't really give that much of a shit, it was a couple of posts late last night.  I've moved on to asking about the mechanics of a tax platform I fully support, and as usual---nothing but crickets from a group who so far at the top of their policy outline has "1:  Fuck the Rich!  1a:  Who cares how they come up with the money to pay the taxes."  and then a really blank page after that.  Ain't my thread, ain't my policy idea, ain't something I adamantly insist happen during this administration.  

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26 minutes ago, Lobo said:

The point is to cap the growth of small and mid-sized businesses that are privately/closely held?  And then allow the growth they could have had in the form of new production, new sales, new revenue, new hires, new growth---for that to pivot over to publicly held corporations instead who are exempt obviously from this wealth/living estate tax?  Do I have that right?  

I only had a problem with your race argument, which you seem to have abandoned once it was called out.  I agree (and you can see my comment on page 1 of this thread) that a wealth tax is just not feasible.  My solution to solve wealth inequality would be to allow poor and middle class people much broader access to capital for investments that close the gap long term (healthcare, education, home ownership, business ownership), along with a more rigid traditional estate tax.

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10 minutes ago, Nivek said:

But I think shutting down loopholes and tax shelters and getting rid of MNC tax havens (fake HQs in Ireland) is also part of a comprehensive plan at overhauling out taxes would be a more difficult fight and would raise more money.   

This needs to happen. Get the rules back in order and enforced and you’d generate tons of money.  The billionaires can be dealt with, and personally I think this convo should be a 250mm personal wealth plus type deal, when someone finds a good plan.  @Lobo isn’t wrong that it could wreak havoc, which the ultra rich would love to do to make it go away.   

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31 minutes ago, Lobo said:

The point is to cap the growth of small and mid-sized businesses that are privately/closely held?  And then allow the growth they could have had in the form of new production, new sales, new revenue, new hires, new growth---for that to pivot over to publicly held corporations instead who are exempt obviously from this wealth/living estate tax?  Do I have that right?  

What a stupid post. Where do you get your economics from? This is straight up Fox News gaslighting nonsense.

- This wouldn't incentivize companies to go public. The private owners would have a much harder time hiding their worth and folding it back into the business to keep their personal worth below $50mm after an IPO. The point of an IPO is to convert theoretical business wealth into real personal wealth. When they IPO the large shareholders (the original owners) are now on record for exactly what their stock is worth, where it's much easier to depress the company value when it's private. 

- You think that a personal wealth tax would discourage companies to re-invest profit back into the company by way of hires, salary, benefits, and infrastructure? You actually think that? It would literally do the exact opposite. Instead of shareholders draining companies dry to maximize their personal wealth, this would incentivize reinvestment into the company. This is beyond basic.

Stick to your core competencies Lobo. Because your take on this is trash.

Edited by BradInATX
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1 minute ago, BradInATX said:

What a stupid post. Where do you get your economics from? This is straight up Fox News gaslighting nonsense.

- This wouldn't incentivize companies to go public. The private owners would have a much harder time hiding their worth and folding it back into the business to keep their personal worth below $50mm after an IPO. When they IPO the large shareholders (the original owners) are now on record for exactly what their stock is worth, where it's much easier to depress the company value when it's private. 

- You think that a personal wealth tax would discourage companies to re-invest profit back into the company by way of hires, salary, benefits, and infrastructure? You actually think that? 

Stick to your core competencies Lobo

Another poster said, "There will be a big disincentive at $50mm to accumulate wealth" and then you replied, "That's the point"

So my question was, what's the point?  To halt wealth accumulation for individuals/families/closely held companies at $50mm valuations?  

Explain what the point is.  You said, "That's the point".  What's the point?  Just tell me what the point is.  We're coming up on six pages without any discussion of logistics, I'll stick to my core competencies when you demonstrate a modicum of a point. 

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4 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Another poster said, "There will be a big disincentive at $50mm to accumulate wealth" and then you replied, "That's the point"

So my question was, what's the point?  To halt wealth accumulation for individuals/families/closely held companies at $50mm valuations?  

Explain what the point is.  You said, "That's the point".  What's the point?  Just tell me what the point is.  We're coming up on six pages without any discussion of logistics, I'll stick to my core competencies when you demonstrate a modicum of a point. 

 

Personal wealth, Lobo. 

If a private company makes $1mm in profit and reinvests it in wages, that $1mm is no longer $1mm of personal wealth for the owners. 

If a public company makes $1mm in profit, that's all going to end up as personal wealth for shareholders.

 

You seem unable to separate personal wealth from corporate health. Which is a good example of how the super-wealthy have successfully gaslit you and a third or so of the country into being their unwitting pawns.

But keep fucking that trickle-down economics chicken. It's done a fantastic job of destroying the middle class and creating higher wealth inequality than was had in the gilded age. I'm sure some day it'll all come trickling down!

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3 minutes ago, G650 said:

Anyone arguing against a tax on over 50 million wealth is economically illiterate.

I think most people in this thread agree wealthy people should pay more.  But the mechanics of implementing a wealth tax are far more complex than implementing an income tax.  Income taxes are based on an amount of cash you are known to have had in hand at some point in the last year.  Wealth taxes would be based on an estimated cash value of non-cash items at an arbitrary moment in time.  That’s a terribly difficult thing to do without having wild inconsistency in valuations and a mountain of issues with collections.  I have yet to see any wealth tax proposal that solidly addresses any of those concerns.  And the reality is that a wealth tax just isn’t necessary because the government controls the distribution of currency.  We can dilute the stock, which imho would be far more effective than stealing anyone’s shares.

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What if the private company uses that $1mm of profit as a CapEx into more machinery, vehicles, expand the building, supplies, raw materials?  

Where did I espouse the trickle-down economics thing?  You have a wonderful victim complex about you, I guess I didn't see it until just now.  

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1 minute ago, Snake Diggity said:

I think most people in this thread agree wealthy people should pay more.  But the mechanics of implementing a wealth tax are far more complex than implementing an income tax.  Income taxes are based on an amount of cash you are known to have had in hand at some point in the last year.  Wealth taxes would be based on an estimated cash value of non-cash items at an arbitrary moment in time.  That’s a terribly difficult thing to do without having wild inconsistency in valuations and a mountain of issues with collections.  I have yet to see any wealth tax proposal that solidly addresses any of those concerns.  And the reality is that a wealth tax just isn’t necessary because the government controls the distribution of currency.  We can dilute the stock, which imho would be far more effective than stealing anyone’s shares.

 

I don't disagree with any of this but saying we can't do something because it's difficult is pretty wimpy.

And I can guarantee you that the stupid people who vote against their own interests because they've been conditioned to believe billionaires are their betters would scream even louder about a forced government dilution than they would a wealth tax. 

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2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

What if the private company uses that $1mm of profit as a CapEx into more machinery, vehicles, expand the building, supplies, raw materials?  

 

That's the point. A wealth tax would encourage that instead of profit-taking. You're going to have to think about it independently because I don't know that I can explain it any more clearly.

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Just now, BradInATX said:

 

I don't disagree with any of this but saying we can't do something because it's difficult is pretty wimpy.

And I can guarantee you that the stupid people who vote against their own interests because they've been conditioned to believe billionaires are their betters would scream even louder about a forced government dilution than they would a wealth tax. 

I didn’t say it was difficult, I contend it’s impossible.  But more importantly, I contend it’s unnecessary because it’s not the most efficient method to solve the problem.

 

I wholly disagree that Trumpkins would scream louder about things like interest free home loans, free college, and interest free SBA loans than they would about a wealth tax.  You have already acknowledged they lobby hardest against their own self interests.

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So if they CapEx their $1mm in profits on assets for the company, that won't be counted in the valuation of the business?  I get your point on wages, but every once in awhile privately held companies do goofy shit like invest in the shit like machinery, vehicles, infrastructure, buildings, supplies, even buying out other smaller companies to fold into theirs.  In your scenario, that doesn't materially increase the valuation of the company for the valuation purposes of the owners?  I'm talking about S, sub-S, LLC, et. al. here.  

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3 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I think most people in this thread agree wealthy people should pay more.  But the mechanics of implementing a wealth tax are far more complex than implementing an income tax.  Income taxes are based on an amount of cash you are known to have had in hand at some point in the last year.  Wealth taxes would be based on an estimated cash value of non-cash items at an arbitrary moment in time.  That’s a terribly difficult thing to do without having wild inconsistency in valuations and a mountain of issues with collections.  I have yet to see any wealth tax proposal that solidly addresses any of those concerns.  And the reality is that a wealth tax just isn’t necessary because the government controls the distribution of currency.  We can dilute the stock, which imho would be far more effective than stealing anyone’s shares.

I'm not going to get super far into it because I don't feel comfortable with exposing but so much of myself, but I can assure you that a wealth tax is much easier than you are assuming vis a vis an income tax on an estate of that size and has far more upside to balancing public spending needs. Cash and equity are by far the greatest piece of the puzzle, not the vapor ware of corporate ownership.

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2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

So if they CapEx their $1mm in profits on assets for the company, that won't be counted in the valuation of the business?  I get your point on wages, but every once in awhile privately held companies do goofy shit like invest in the shit like machinery, vehicles, infrastructure, buildings, supplies, even buying out other smaller companies to fold into theirs.  In your scenario, that doesn't materially increase the valuation of the company for the valuation purposes of the owners?  I'm talking about S, sub-S, LLC, et. al. here.  

It does, sure, but not at nearly the multiple that profit does.

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2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

So if they CapEx their $1mm in profits on assets for the company, that won't be counted in the valuation of the business?  I get your point on wages, but every once in awhile privately held companies do goofy shit like invest in the shit like machinery, vehicles, infrastructure, buildings, supplies, even buying out other smaller companies to fold into theirs.  In your scenario, that doesn't materially increase the valuation of the company for the valuation purposes of the owners?  I'm talking about S, sub-S, LLC, et. al. here.  

Dude none of this would be impacted.

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1 minute ago, G650 said:

I'm not going to get super far into it because I don't feel comfortable with exposing but so much of myself, but I can assure you that a wealth tax is much easier than you are assuming vis a vis an income tax on an estate of that size and has far more upside to balancing public spending needs. Cash and equity are by far the greatest piece of the puzzle, not the vapor ware of corporate ownership.

LOL, so I just need to take your word for it? 

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1 minute ago, G650 said:

Dude none of this would be impacted.

It would be impacted for the owner being taxes on it for wealth tax purposes.  

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4 minutes ago, Snake Diggity said:

I didn’t say it was difficult, I contend it’s impossible.  But more importantly, I contend it’s unnecessary because it’s not the most efficient method to solve the problem.

 

I wholly disagree that Trumpkins would scream louder about things like interest free home loans, free college, and interest free SBA loans than they would about a wealth tax.  You have already acknowledged they lobby hardest against their own self interests.

So you're essentially saying inflate away the wealth by printing money and then creating programs for the underclasses? 

I'm fine with that (though I have some concerns about it hurting the middle class the most). Let's do that too. Let's do it all. We have to fix wealth inequality or it will be the end of our democracy.

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5 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

That's the point. A wealth tax would encourage that instead of profit-taking. You're going to have to think about it independently because I don't know that I can explain it any more clearly.

Capital equipment, buildings...are depreciated, not expensed.  Try again.

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Just now, Incredulity said:

Capital equipment, buildings...are depreciated, not expensed.  Try again.

I have no idea what conversation you think you're having. At best the ability to depreciate assets makes my point for me and at worst you're not even having the same conversation the rest of us are.

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Just now, Lobo said:

It would be impacted for the owner being taxes on it for wealth tax purposes.  

No, it would not. That isn't how it works.

I knew I should not have waded into this idiocy because maybe a fraction of the posters will have the slightest fucking clue what they are talking about but I'm obviously an idoit.

It's literally my job to run the type of business you are describing. No one who is looking at a million a year has a business valuation approaching 50 million. It's  going to be 5 or 6 million. They will potentially have a personal estate in the 50 million range, and yes, they should be taxed on it if they do, and no, it will have zero impact on CapEx for the fucking business.

 

1 minute ago, Snake Diggity said:

LOL, so I just need to take your word for it? 

Pretty much yes in this case. I don't really care if you do or don't but the reality is it's quite simple.

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Just now, G650 said:

No, it would not. That isn't how it works.

I knew I should not have waded into this idiocy because maybe a fraction of the posters will have the slightest fucking clue what they are talking about but I'm obviously an idoit.

It's literally my job to run the type of business you are describing. No one who is looking at a million a year has a business valuation approaching 50 million. It's  going to be 5 or 6 million. They will potentially have a personal estate in the 50 million range, and yes, they should be taxed on it if they do, and no, it will have zero impact on CapEx for the fucking business.

 

Pretty much yes in this case. I don't really care if you do or don't but the reality is it's quite simple.

Fucking Christ dude, it was a running hypothetical for ease of math.  Thank you for explaining how business investment works.  We can take the Pepsi challenge later.  This was about the mechanics of valuation and easy of liquidity to pay said taxes on said valuation.  The examples got away from us, we fucking get it.  You're a savvy SBO, congrats.  We're not gonna dive into how this will actually work for flow-thrus, K-1's, Sub-S's, et. al. when we can't even get past the "Fuck the rich!" 6 pages.  

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4 minutes ago, G650 said:

No, it would not. That isn't how it works.

I knew I should not have waded into this idiocy because maybe a fraction of the posters will have the slightest fucking clue what they are talking about but I'm obviously an idoit.

It's literally my job to run the type of business you are describing. No one who is looking at a million a year has a business valuation approaching 50 million. It's  going to be 5 or 6 million. They will potentially have a personal estate in the 50 million range, and yes, they should be taxed on it if they do, and no, it will have zero impact on CapEx for the fucking business.

 

Pretty much yes in this case. I don't really care if you do or don't but the reality is it's quite simple.

Yeah, not sure if you’re surprised, but wading into a thread with “I’m an expert and you are wrong but I won’t explain how or why” is worthless.

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5 minutes ago, Lobo said:

 We're not gonna dive into how this will actually work for flow-thrus, K-1's, Sub-S's, et. al. when we can't even get past the "Fuck the rich!" 6 pages.  

Like half of us on surly are owners or partners in pass-through entities. Not sure why you believe you hold some sort of holy grail of knowledge about them here.

The mechanics of business reinvestment vs. profit taking are functionally no different in an S-Corp. In fact, an S-Corp would be even more incentivized to re-invest in people or infrastructure than most corporate structures.

We got well past "fuck the rich" awhile back, you're just making bad, easily-disproven points.

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8 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Like half of us on surly are owners or partners in pass-through entities. Not sure why you believe you hold some sort of holy grail of knowledge about them here.

The mechanics of business reinvestment vs. profit taking are functionally no different in an S-Corp. In fact, an S-Corp would be even more incentivized to re-invest in people or infrastructure than most corporate structures.

We got well past "fuck the rich" awhile back, you're just making bad, easily-disproven points.

Didn't say I was holy grail of knowledge, was pointing out to a different poster why were running through this unlikely scenario because it contained the basic points and easy maths.  You're really adroit at putting words in other people's mouths.  I'm gonna hang back and listen you to structure how this wealth tax is going to work in terms of policy, valuation, liquidation, and macro ripple effects on primaries and secondaries.  LBJ couldn't do it, but you can I bet.  Dollars to donuts, you're back to making personal attacks, strawmen, and condemning billionaires as evil by the end of this page with not one single concrete bullet point on how this is practically put into motion.  

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i love finance / VC twitter crying about how this will destroy startups. 

im sure we can work out mechanics for liquidity or companies under x years are excluded. the principle of wealth tax is sound so the debate is already down to the mechanics of implementing. 

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6 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Didn't say I was holy grail of knowledge, was pointing out to a different poster why were running through this unlikely scenario because it contained the basic points and easy maths.  You're really adroit at putting words in other people's mouths.  I'm gonna hang back and listen you to structure how this wealth tax is going to work in terms of policy, valuation, liquidation, and macro ripple effects on primaries and secondaries.  LBJ couldn't do it, but you can I bet.  Dollars to donuts, you're back to making personal attacks, strawmen, and condemning billionaires as evil by the end of this page with not one single concrete bullet point on how this is practically put into motion.  

 

Why do I need to structure a wealth tax? That doesn't make any sense. I'm not a politician. Why don't you just read the plan set forth by Warren and company?

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Quote

The average fee for a financial advisor's services is 1.02% of assets under management (AUM) annually for an account of $1 million. An actively-managed portfolio usually involves a team of investment professionals buying and selling holdings–leading to higher fees.

I'm sure if people can pay 1-2% for asset management that people with $50m+ can handle 2% tax from the government.

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1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Nobody's crying, just waiting patiently on Page 5 for somebody to finally walk us through the mechanics of this.  For the umpteenth fucking time, everybody here is on board with more taxes from more billionaires getting more rich.  Holy fucking shit, it's like talking to a Trumper in circles.  

Lol, what bullshit.

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Worried about liquidating stocks and land to pay a wealth tax? Easy, just create a fund owned and managed by all Americans and put all excess holdings into that fund. The American Solidarity Fund is here to help!

Elon Musk has $180B in Tesla stock? No need to liquidate a penny, Mr. Musk, we'll simply take $179.8B of that stock as non-voting shares and let you continue to run the company as you see fit. If you run it into the ground we both lose and if you run it to the sky we both win. Happy investors along for the ride!

Don't like the idea and would rather give all your Tesla executives and managers and workers larger pieces of the pie so the government gets less? Sounds good to us!

What's that, sir? You own $2B in real estate you don't want to break-up/sell? That's fine, we now own whatever proportion is $1.8B is and you can keep utilizing it however you like for as long as you are alive! Huzzah!

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10 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

 

Why do I need to structure a wealth tax? That doesn't make any sense. I'm not a politician. Why don't you just read the plan set forth by Warren and company?

Here is the text of the bill. 

 

Cliffs notes:  We will figure it out later

 

1                                      ‘‘(d) ESTABLISHMENT OF VALUATION RULES.—Not

2               later than 12 months after the date of the enactment of

3               this section, the Secretary shall establish rules and meth-

4               ods for determining the value of any asset for purposes

5               of this subtitle, including rules for the valuation of assets

6               that are not publicly traded or that do not have a readily

7               ascertainable value. Such rules and methods—

8                                                             ‘‘(1) may utilize retrospective and prospective

9                                      formulaic valuation methods not currently in use by

10                                 the Secretary,

 

1          ‘‘(2) may require the use of formulaic valuation

2      approaches      for     designated     assets,     including

3      formulaic approaches based on proxies for deter-

4      mining presumptive valuations, formulaic approaches

5      based  on  prospective   adjustments   from  purchase

6      prices or other prior events, or formulaic approaches

7      based  on   retrospectively   adding  deferral  charges

8      based on eventual sale prices or other specified later

9      events indicative of valuation, and

10          ‘‘(3) may address the use of valuation dis-

11      counts.

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Just now, bad_teammate said:

Worried about liquidating stocks and land to pay a wealth tax? Easy, just create a fund owned and managed by all Americans and put all excess holdings into that fund. The American Solidarity Fund is here to help!

Elon Musk has $180B in Tesla stock? No need to liquidate a penny, Mr. Musk, we'll simply take $179.8B of that stock as non-voting shares and let you continue to run the company as you see fit. If you run it into the ground we both lose and if you run it to the sky we both win. Happy investors along for the ride!

Don't like the idea and would rather give all your Tesla executives and managers and workers larger pieces of the pie so the government gets less? Sounds good to us!

What's that, sir? You own $2B in real estate you don't want to break-up/sell? That's fine, we now own whatever proportion is $1.8B is and you can keep utilizing it however you like for as long as you are alive! Huzzah!

Straight confiscation of assets.

 

swedish_chef.jpg

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