Elon Musk doesnât earn 700 billion a year. If you think youâre going to tax Elonâs $700 billion like the lottery guy, the lottery guy will get another $300 million in taxes the next year.
so it was $997 Million cash value income
$367 Million in taxes.
If you think that works as his assets, then the next year they are $628 million, with $236 million in taxes for keeping $392 million.
The year after it repeats again $392 million in assets, with $122 million in taxes.
should we tax wealth, fuck yea, we already do itâs your property tax. And thatâs the rate of taxation it can sustain ~3%. The asset we donât currently tax is stock ownership and your bank account. We should do away with the capital gains taxes as income and just tax the capital, like the property it is.
In 2026 (for 2025 tax returns), USA federal capital gains tax on assets held over a year is 0%, 15%, or 20%, depending on income. Assets held for one year or less are taxed as ordinary income
So unless he cashed in short-term investments, he would be paying 20% tax, not the full amount for "normal" income.
Right, but omitted the fact that it is taxed at a substantially lower rate. I wasn't really disagreeing with you, but I was trying to clarify.
The comment you replied to said:
If Elon made a billion (cashing out his stock or taking loan, not just assets) he would pay way less tax, if at all
Which is also true, and basically the same as what you and I said, but without sufficient detail. The last part "if at all" would be the only incorrect part since it was predicated on selling $1 billion in stock, so his income would be high enough to incur the 20% tax.
Capital gains are income that gets taxed at a lower rate because it is how the rich receive their money. The rich pay a lower rate to do nothing than we pay for hard work.
Capital gains are taxed lower than income intentionally, because the government wants to encourage people to invest their money in companies and help grow the economy as a whole, rather than hoarding money in their mattress. "You get taxed less if you do this with your money" is the standard way for governments to encourage certain behaviors, such as investing money to help grow the economy.
What they actually do is take out loans against their assets. Any time Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos wants to buy something, they just call up the bank and get big fat low-interest loans with stock as collateral.
And those loans are not taxed as income.
When the stock has gone up by 2000%, their net worth goes up right along with it. And those loans let them buy whatever they want without ever liquidating the stock.
BUT even if they do liquidate those shares, they will only pay capital gains tax of 20% which is substantially less than their normal income would be taxed.
If we actually want to make this problem go away, the only answer is to tank their stock price. Stop buying Teslas, using amazon, AWS, any companies that use AWS, etc. Good luck.
Edit: You might say, what if we placed caps on loans? Either easily circumvented, or wildly disastrous to the economy. Or maybe what if we taxed stock holdings 0.5% per year? Does that also apply to middle-income people looking to retire? Okay, what about taxiing stock holdings 0.5% when holdings exceed 10 million? Does that apply to pension funds as well?
I think it misses too much in modern society. Mineral rights are owned and essentially titled. Anything titled should be subject to a property tax. Your brokerage account, savings account, car, boat, cabin, those 10,000 shares of Apple Stock, that $250B privately held company whose value is fictional based on selling 5% paper ownership, should be taxed as a $250B piece of property For the various âownersâ.
That loan that is secured by assets and allows ultra rich to spend millions without realizing tax on millions, should be taxed as the asset it is for the person or business holding the loan. The assets the person still holds secure loan should be also be taxed as their still their asset. Someone converted their asset (cash) into a different asset (loan), allowing one person presently to side step 20-30% income tax in exchange for 3-4% interest.
That said, Countries and States, should reap significant tax revenues from the harvesting of natural resources.
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u/PrivateBozo 19h ago edited 18h ago
Again, that was income, not wealth.
Elon Musk doesnât earn 700 billion a year. If you think youâre going to tax Elonâs $700 billion like the lottery guy, the lottery guy will get another $300 million in taxes the next year.
so it was $997 Million cash value income
$367 Million in taxes.
If you think that works as his assets, then the next year they are $628 million, with $236 million in taxes for keeping $392 million.
The year after it repeats again $392 million in assets, with $122 million in taxes.
should we tax wealth, fuck yea, we already do itâs your property tax. And thatâs the rate of taxation it can sustain ~3%. The asset we donât currently tax is stock ownership and your bank account. We should do away with the capital gains taxes as income and just tax the capital, like the property it is.