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Wealth Tax (1 Viewer)

Redwes25 said:
He would pay tax when he sold it on his own on the gain. Why remove his incentive in the company and force a sale before he decides on his own.  

ETA - There are also a ton of private companies.  Where it is not so easy to sell.  See my posts earlier why this whole idea is idiotic.  
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We are giving him an interest free loan to endlessly accumulate wealth.  Other sources of growth to your personal wealth are taxed as you earn them.  

 
Redwes25 said:
ETA - Clearly, this should be obvious but he is taxed on the sale of equity and when he dies.  
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He is taxed on his equity when he sells it, either at short or long term gains taxation rates.  So his wealth accumulation is taxed when he sells stocks at 23.8% at minimum.  Jon's statement that they never pay taxes on their business ownership is, frankly, ludicrous.  The only way to get around that (besides the standard deduction) is to donate the stock.  Which is something every American can do.  And, BTW, he does this a lot - it's what makes Bill the greatest philanthropist in American history. IMO private giving to charity is way, way more effective and efficient than giving to the feds.

jon_mx said:
We are giving him an interest free loan to endlessly accumulate wealth.  Other sources of growth to your personal wealth are taxed as you earn them.  
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So you think capital holdings should be marked to market and taxed every year.  This is an idea that's been around for a while and recently pushed by Ron Wyden.

Jon, this is easily the worst idea on taxation I've ever heard.  You want to destroy small business ownership?  Want to demolish investment in risk assets and in savings?  Yeah, do this. 

 
jon_mx said:
We are giving him an interest free loan to endlessly accumulate wealth.  Other sources of growth to your personal wealth are taxed as you earn them.  
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LOL, we are giving a loan. What money did we give him that he needs to pay back. 

 
I’ve been too lazy/busy to even respond to Maurile’s post from a couple days ago but keep this alive because I feel like I’ll be motivated to post in here soon.  Seems like the wealth tax supporters are underrepresented in here I gotta get in the game when I am in the proper state of mind.

 
Sand said:
He is taxed on his equity when he sells it, either at short or long term gains taxation rates.  So his wealth accumulation is taxed when he sells stocks at 23.8% at minimum.  Jon's statement that they never pay taxes on their business ownership is, frankly, ludicrous.  The only way to get around that (besides the standard deduction) is to donate the stock.  Which is something every American can do.  And, BTW, he does this a lot - it's what makes Bill the greatest philanthropist in American history. IMO private giving to charity is way, way more effective and efficient than giving to the feds.

So you think capital holdings should be marked to market and taxed every year.  This is an idea that's been around for a while and recently pushed by Ron Wyden.

Jon, this is easily the worst idea on taxation I've ever heard.  You want to destroy small business ownership?  Want to demolish investment in risk assets and in savings?  Yeah, do this. 
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I don't know how to do it - but I think there should be a distinction between capital invested into a business, and gains made in the stock market.

By this I mean - there is a legitimate reason to incentivize business investment - improving plant & equipment, investing in R&D - these all add to the productivity of a business, and as a rule we should encourage that.

On the other hand, if I buy Apple stock today - I am effectively just gambling.  I am not contributing to increased productivity, I am simply gambling that Apple's stock price will rise over whatever my investment horizon might be.  I should not get preferential tax treatment on those gains (or losses).  Sure, I provide a modicum of value in terms of liquidity in the market - but that is not enough benefit to justify preferential tax treatment.

So, I would keep rules in place for stock that is purchased directly from the company - i.e. the company now has more money to invest - whether that is the original owner who has shares, early investors, IPOs, or other debt or equity issuing from a company.  But, for a typical shareholder, who buys stock on an exchange, I would tax gains as ordinary income.  I have not given much thought on the idea of an annual mark-to-market day - that seems like a recordkeeping nightmare, or simply taxing gains when actually realized.

 
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supermike80 said:
I'm against a wealth tax.  Why do I have to repeat this over and over and over?  Its really simple.  The thread is about a wealth tax.  I'm against a wealth tax.  Ok? 
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I’m not reading through the entire thread. Just being lazy.

The article I linked which you said was irrelevant was Warren Buffett saying he was taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. That seems wrong.

I was seeing if you think so and if not do you think this should be addressed in some manner:

 Not really a right or wrong answer.

 
Sinn Fein said:
I don't know how to do it - but I think there should be a distinction between capital invested into a business, and gains made in the stock market.

By this I mean - there is a legitimate reason to incentivize business investment - improving plant & equipment, investing in R&D - these all add to the productivity of a business, and as a rule we should encourage that.

On the other hand, if I buy Apple stock today - I am effectively just gambling.  I am not contributing to increased productivity, I am simply gambling that Apple's stock price will rise over whatever my investment horizon might be.  I should not get preferential tax treatment on those gains (or losses).  Sure, I provide a modicum of value in terms of liquidity in the market - but that is not enough benefit to justify preferential tax treatment.

So, I would keep rules in place for stock that is purchased directly from the company - i.e. the company now has more money to invest - whether that is the original owner who has shares, early investors, IPOs, or other debt or equity issuing from a company.  But, for a typical shareholder, who buys stock on an exchange, I would tax gains as ordinary income.  I have not given much thought on the idea of an annual mark-to-market day - that seems like a recordkeeping nightmare, or simply taxing gains when actually realized.
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I am not going to get into the argument of benefits of the stock market but I can definitely see the argument of removing the beneficial tax treat of long-term gains income (short term gains are already taxed at ordinary income tax rate).  That income is received at the time of sale.   However, I don't see how you can be taxing someone during the period of time they hold the securities.  

 
Shula-holic said:
As both a business owner and a CPA I'd be interested to hear how someone would go about valuing a privately held company.
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I used to buy businesses - most, if not all, were privately held.  If we start with a rough definition of the value of a company as the present value of future income, then its not too hard.

From an accounting perspective, I imagine it would be fairly easy to pick a multiple on EBITDA and assign that value.  The multiple could vary by industry, and obviously such a valuation would hurt some owners, and benefit some owners.  But, in terms of the mechanics, I think it would be fairly straight-forward.  The accounting is already done - from there you are just plugging in some numbers into a formula.

Of course, if you want to dig deeper in the weeds, and a closely-held company has undergone a few rounds of financing, those capital injections would have an implicit value of the company built in.

Note - this is not an endorsement of actually doing that - just a fairly straightforward look at how you might do that.

 
Sinn Fein said:
I used to buy businesses - most, if not all, were privately held.  If we start with a rough definition of the value of a company as the present value of future income, then its not too hard.

From an accounting perspective, I imagine it would be fairly easy to pick a multiple on EBITDA and assign that value.  The multiple could vary by industry, and obviously such a valuation would hurt some owners, and benefit some owners.  But, in terms of the mechanics, I think it would be fairly straight-forward.  The accounting is already done - from there you are just plugging in some numbers into a formula.

Of course, if you want to dig deeper in the weeds, and a closely-held company has undergone a few rounds of financing, those capital injections would have an implicit value of the company built in.

Note - this is not an endorsement of actually doing that - just a fairly straightforward look at how you might do that.
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For background, I worked in as a financial analyst in charge of acquisitions for a Fortune 500 company for a period of time.  I used to run financial models trying to establish businesses' values and their future cash flows and what we could fairly pay for them.  Most times, not all, these were privately held companies, sometimes small family run businesses.  But there were some larger ones as well, including one public that I had some experience with.

Every industry is different, and every business is different, I agree with that.  But I don't think there would ever be a way to do it fairly.  I know when I started my business, I was constantly in debt.  My profitability was good but I was in a heavily capital intensive business.  I was borrowing money each year to finance inventory.  There were some years of strong earnings but from a cash flow standpoint we would be underwater most of the year due to seasonal inventory.  Had I had more access to capital, I could have made more.  My point on this would be in a similar situation however you value a new company like this, even if it's profitable, capital is king.  You'd be taking capital out of that owner's hands to where his profitability and growth is handicapped.  Not every business would be the same, year 3 of my business we were constantly in debt, stringing together cash as best we could, yet were profitable.  Another less capital intensive business with the same NOI wouldn't have near the constraints on capital and their growth wouldn't be as encumbered by such a tax. 

All the above is just to say there are so many variables and unique qualities to each business, a standard formula to derive it would be a horrible way to do it.  There is no easy/fair way.  We had a complicated model that a MIT grad who was our CIO developed to begin each analysis, but that was more to calculate our cost of capital, IRR hurdles, those type things.  Having done this type of work and owned a business as well, i wouldn't be able to suggest a formulaic solution to this that would even be close to fair.  It's not meant to take a shot at anyone who were to try, I just don't believe it could be done in a sensible fashion.

 
Shula-holic said:
For background, I worked in as a financial analyst in charge of acquisitions for a Fortune 500 company for a period of time.  I used to run financial models trying to establish businesses' values and their future cash flows and what we could fairly pay for them.  Most times, not all, these were privately held companies, sometimes small family run businesses.  But there were some larger ones as well, including one public that I had some experience with.

Every industry is different, and every business is different, I agree with that.  But I don't think there would ever be a way to do it fairly.  I know when I started my business, I was constantly in debt.  My profitability was good but I was in a heavily capital intensive business.  I was borrowing money each year to finance inventory.  There were some years of strong earnings but from a cash flow standpoint we would be underwater most of the year due to seasonal inventory.  Had I had more access to capital, I could have made more.  My point on this would be in a similar situation however you value a new company like this, even if it's profitable, capital is king.  You'd be taking capital out of that owner's hands to where his profitability and growth is handicapped.  Not every business would be the same, year 3 of my business we were constantly in debt, stringing together cash as best we could, yet were profitable.  Another less capital intensive business with the same NOI wouldn't have near the constraints on capital and their growth wouldn't be as encumbered by such a tax. 

All the above is just to say there are so many variables and unique qualities to each business, a standard formula to derive it would be a horrible way to do it.  There is no easy/fair way.  We had a complicated model that a MIT grad who was our CIO developed to begin each analysis, but that was more to calculate our cost of capital, IRR hurdles, those type things.  Having done this type of work and owned a business as well, i wouldn't be able to suggest a formulaic solution to this that would even be close to fair.  It's not meant to take a shot at anyone who were to try, I just don't believe it could be done in a sensible fashion.
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I think part of the issue is the sense of "fairness"

I don't know that it truly exists, nor that it is what we should strive for - being that it is ever elusive.  People argue the current rules are unfair.

What you want is consistency, and rules that you know and can plan for.  

Side note - after I started in the M&A department I was given a rather rudimentary spreadsheet to be used in valuing businesses - it was two pages, probably no more than 50 lines of data total, and only two cells could be edited.  I was a newly minted MBA, and something of an excel guru, and so for my first business where I was the lead, I was looking at a small company worth about $30M, and I set out to create a new spreadsheet, with all kinds of bells and whistle, and contingencies and variance analysis built in.  You could change all kinds of realistic assumptions that were relevant to this particular business.  I figured this was the best model going, and would be used in all future deals.  

So, I go to pitch the deal to the President, and I show him my fancy new spreadsheet, with all the bells and whistles, and he smiles, and said "this looks really good!  But, where is the normal spreadsheet?  I can't use this in front of the board."  I was a little dejected at first - and convinced I was right, until he explained why my spreadsheet was "wrong".

In the end - all the cells you change when making projections and assumptions are just guesses.  Educated guesses in many places, but guesses nonetheless.  In the original spreadsheet, the only cells you could change were - projected revenue growth rate, and projected expense growth rate.  (I said two cells, but I think you could adjust the individual growth over 5 years, and the terminal growth rate).  Then, you had two pages to write up the story on how the business meets those growth rates.  The board would either buy your story - and projections - or not.  They had neither the time, nor the inclination to change a bunch of cells in a spreadsheet to account for every possible outcome.  They might change the revenue/expense growth rates to something they were comfortable with - and then authorize a purchase on that valuation - but that was as far as they would go.

I used that rudimentary spreadsheet on deals as small as $30M, and and big as $3.2B.

So - you can absolutely value businesses based on a formula - and in a macro sense, it would be as accurate as any CPA-driven valuation that looks at each business uniquely.  As i said originally, it will help some owners, and hurt some owners.  In that regard its not much different than existing tax laws - some benefit, some do not. 

 
Sinn Fein said:
I think part of the issue is the sense of "fairness"

I don't know that it truly exists, nor that it is what we should strive for - being that it is ever elusive.  People argue the current rules are unfair.

What you want is consistency, and rules that you know and can plan for.  

Side note - after I started in the M&A department I was given a rather rudimentary spreadsheet to be used in valuing businesses - it was two pages, probably no more than 50 lines of data total, and only two cells could be edited.  I was a newly minted MBA, and something of an excel guru, and so for my first business where I was the lead, I was looking at a small company worth about $30M, and I set out to create a new spreadsheet, with all kinds of bells and whistle, and contingencies and variance analysis built in.  You could change all kinds of realistic assumptions that were relevant to this particular business.  I figured this was the best model going, and would be used in all future deals.  

So, I go to pitch the deal to the President, and I show him my fancy new spreadsheet, with all the bells and whistles, and he smiles, and said "this looks really good!  But, where is the normal spreadsheet?  I can't use this in front of the board."  I was a little dejected at first - and convinced I was right, until he explained why my spreadsheet was "wrong".

In the end - all the cells you change when making projections and assumptions are just guesses.  Educated guesses in many places, but guesses nonetheless.  In the original spreadsheet, the only cells you could change were - projected revenue growth rate, and projected expense growth rate.  (I said two cells, but I think you could adjust the individual growth over 5 years, and the terminal growth rate).  Then, you had two pages to write up the story on how the business meets those growth rates.  The board would either buy your story - and projections - or not.  They had neither the time, nor the inclination to change a bunch of cells in a spreadsheet to account for every possible outcome.  They might change the revenue/expense growth rates to something they were comfortable with - and then authorize a purchase on that valuation - but that was as far as they would go.

I used that rudimentary spreadsheet on deals as small as $30M, and and big as $3.2B.

So - you can absolutely value businesses based on a formula - and in a macro sense, it would be as accurate as any CPA-driven valuation that looks at each business uniquely.  As i said originally, it will help some owners, and hurt some owners.  In that regard its not much different than existing tax laws - some benefit, some do not. 
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Interesting.  Everyone has a different way of doing it.  We went to the extreme of 30 years worth of future cash flows including capital additions, depreciation, related taxes, overhead, fringe benefits, you name it.  Granted, 30 years projections can be quite subjective.  The sales of course always ended up fat to make them look good.  But these were huge undertakings for larger companies and in our case, you couldn't take it to the President of your division, much less the CFO unless it was in that model and related reports were generated showing a one page summary of all the projected financial data.

 
Sinn Fein said:
So, I would keep rules in place for stock that is purchased directly from the company - i.e. the company now has more money to invest - whether that is the original owner who has shares, early investors, IPOs, or other debt or equity issuing from a company.  But, for a typical shareholder, who buys stock on an exchange, I would tax gains as ordinary income. 
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So the hedge funds and venture capitalists (and their rich clients) who get a crack at companies pre IPO get the bonus tax treatment but us regular Joes who buy over the counter get the tax shaft?

I hear runaway wealth inequality screeching off into the distance...

 
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Sinn Fein said:
I used to buy businesses - most, if not all, were privately held.  If we start with a rough definition of the value of a company as the present value of future income, then its not too hard.
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Interesting.  Studies done of analysts predicting future cash flows of Dow 30 size companies show that they are, on average, incredibly inaccurate.  Active mutual fund managers do the same thing and try to pick out winning stocks by valuing companies and their future growth.  And yet they are soundly trounced year after year by passive indexes.

I'd argue that this is damn near impossible unless your name is Buffett.  You're better off with a dart board.

 
parasaurolophus said:
They wont fix the debt no matter how many taxes get passed. They will just spend more. My new philosophy on government spending is that as long as i get mine lets do it! 
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They cheap, rob and steal with impunity.  Pay off policy and law makers with the wealth they stole to influence policy and ensure no prosecution and have the poorest Americans fighting for them to not pay taxes while we can't even provide basic needs/rights.   Not sure who that says more about.  But I am not crying for billionaires, screw that.

 
Terminalxylem said:
That’s crazy talk. No way someone living paycheck to paycheck views 10% income tax the same as a six figure earner.

And I’m not sure most people live within their means either.
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if I told you 10% of your income isn't important - what would you say? i'd bet you'd argue with me ..... because 10% is VERY important to you, isn't it ?

 
parasaurolophus said:
What other income? I mean, as you said all Bill was paying taxes on was a meager salary from a now shuttered company. 
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Any other income, past, present, future.  If he made 10  billion in 2008 and 2009 and the lost it all in 2011, he modifies his previous years returns and gets a refund. 

 
Stealthycat said:
if I told you 10% of your income isn't important - what would you say? i'd bet you'd argue with me ..... because 10% is VERY important to you, isn't it ?
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10% for my wife and I is not nearly as important to 10% for the couple making 30k-100k a year. Not even remotely.

 
jon_mx said:
Any other income, past, present, future.  If he made 10  billion in 2008 and 2009 and the lost it all in 2011, he modifies his previous years returns and gets a refund. 
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Not anymore, no more NOL carry back with the new tax law. Carry forwards are limited to 80% of current year income as well. 

 
Sinn Fein said:
So - you can absolutely value businesses based on a formula - and in a macro sense, it would be as accurate as any CPA-driven valuation that looks at each business uniquely.  As i said originally, it will help some owners, and hurt some owners.  In that regard its not much different than existing tax laws - some benefit, some do not. 
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IMO, using such a formula for a wealth tax would not account for the value of assets held in a business. If 2 manufacturers have identical cash flow but one leases its facility and the other owns its facility free of debt, they would not be worth the same. 

 
Stealthycat said:
if I told you 10% of your income isn't important - what would you say? i'd bet you'd argue with me ..... because 10% is VERY important to you, isn't it ?
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You’d be incorrect. I’ve effectively cut my pay 25% by working part time the last several years, largely because I value my time far more than extra $.

Fortunately, I earn a decent living, but understand that isn’t true for everyone. At the income thresholds discussed for the wealth tax, I’d wager it isn’t very important either. Then again, that’s all in the eye of the beholder, and some of the wealthiest people I know also seem to complain about money the most.

 
BigSteelThrill said:
10% for my wife and I is not nearly as important to 10% for the couple making 30k-100k a year. Not even remotely.
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This guy gets it. Once you pay for the essentials, save some for retirement and spend a little for entertainment, the extra cash isn’t particularly important.

 
dawgtrails said:
Maybe necessary is a better word than important.

However, there are far better arguments to make regarding a wealth tax than "10% is as important to a millionaire as it is to a minimum wage worker".
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Okay. How can you tell someone else what’s necessary?  If someone likes to travel and live an expensive lifestyle and they work hard to do that then that’s their business

 
BigSteelThrill said:
You either want to fix the debt or you don't. The fix will only come at the expense of the richest.

No need to listen to the political right on debt or taxes anymore. They flatly lied about the myriad of consequences for the past 50 years.
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And along comes the Trump and the damn Republicans...

Ilov80s said:
Treasury Dept rolling back tax rule aimed at keeping business from moving money offshores to avoid taxes. 

https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1181654534109765640?s=21
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This was again brought up in the debate this week and not a single mention of if it is constitutional or not. 

Andrew Yang at least pointed out it's failure in other countries. 

Some candidates (Liz) keep pushing it as an answer to all our problems and there seems to be little push back from moderators, the press or other candidates. 

 
Max Power said:
This was again brought up in the debate this week and not a single mention of if it is constitutional or not. 

Andrew Yang at least pointed out it's failure in other countries. 

Some candidates (Liz) keep pushing it as an answer to all our problems and there seems to be little push back from moderators, the press or other candidates. 
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I think it could be "made" to be constitutional.  I don;t see that being a stumbling block.  Pushing back by other candidates might be bad politics, as it might be seen or presented as being in bed with the uber wealthy....And it seems the hatred for those with means in this country is accelerating daily.  

 
supermike80 said:
I think it could be "made" to be constitutional.  I don;t see that being a stumbling block.  Pushing back by other candidates might be bad politics, as it might be seen or presented as being in bed with the uber wealthy....And it seems the hatred for those with means in this country is accelerating daily.  
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What are you going to do?  Impose the tax on the states in proportion to each state's population.  You can't have direct taxes other than income taxes which the 16th amendment changed to say you could have an income tax.  It actually is not a very broad amendment.  

 
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Redwes25 said:
What are you going to do?  Impose the tax on the states in proportion to each state's population.  You can't have direct taxes other than income taxes which the 16th amendment change to say you could have an income tax.  It actually is not a very broad amendment.  
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Good question.   Now you have me curious and a googlin' I shall go.  

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
In general, a tax on savings shifts behavior from savings to consumption.

If we're talking about a 2% tax on someone who already has $50 million, the effect may be negligible. But it could certainly affect whether people decide to save that much in the first place. I suppose then the public policy question becomes whether we want them to save that much. Savings = investment = stuff like making capital expenditures in factories, or making loans. Consumption = yacht maintenance, etc. The economy needs both (since they depend on each other). But as a public policy matter, if we want to promote economic equality, I think equality in consumption matters a lot more than equality in net-worth-on-paper. I therefore do not want to favor a policy that might cause the super rich to consume even more than they already do. I'd rather cause the super rich to forego extra consumption so that they can make investments that allow others to increase their consumption instead.

But this all gets complicated by what the tax proceeds are used for, etc.

There might be a way to do it that makes sense, and I'm not familiar with the details of Warren's plan.

Yeah, we'd focus on them. But identifying who's in the 75,000 and who's not would require paying attention to far more than 75,000 households.
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Late to the party but interesting thoughts. I guess I always attacked it as we need to increase the wealthy's marginal propensity to consume which would stimulate the economy and then you'd see the trickle down. And hopefully the increased consumption by the wealthy would allow for the less wealthy to increase their propensity to save. In my opinion, the biggest factor to this wealth inequality is unequal capital. So I think there has to be a way to redistribute the capital. It is also why I'm in favor of an estate tax of some sort.

And not to take a page out of Obama but it is true that most billionaires have benefited from the US in terms of intellectual capital, infrastructure, etc. I don't think the current system accurately reflects that. But I also recognize if you just put in a wealth tax, you'll just drive people away. You've seen it in NYC and NJ with Icahn just leaving or Tepper leaving before. I think a race to 0% taxes is bad. So I think it would require a system that doesn't necessarily impact startups in the beginning but perhaps some sort of escalating tax that takes into account success? But it can't just be an after-the fact tax because then you'll just see them leave. In essence, the US government would be like a seed investor in the companies. I recognize some might elect to start their businesses elsewhere but clearly the US has one of the best environments for this so I think there is a fine line to walk there. 

 
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