In France, the ministry of Economics just announced that 13000 millionaires did not pay income tax in 2025 … and our social security (health insurance, jobless minimun income, etc) was founded on the principle of taxing the wealthy. So they (liberals) now say that social security is not working as intended and the state should delegate these things to “for profit” organizations … for “efficiency”
Buy borrow die is a very real economic strategy.
Acquire assets, never sell them, use them as collateral for bank loans, use that capital as collateral for further bank loans. Never sell, no capital gains tax.
Bank loans aren’t considered income therefore not subject to being taxed.
Die rich, your kids inherit the money Scott free.
Don’t the unpaid loans get collected from the estate upon death, and the inheritors get whatever is left?
Still a tax dodge, but sounds like the wealth would reduce each generation?
I also still agree capital concentration is still occurring. Probably due to those loans getting used for excessive gains on the stock market. But those buys and sells would trigger capital gains tax.
Again not saying I’m ok with all this wealth concentration, just feels like a lot of nuance is missing here.
I was being concise so as to keep the comment short. But I recommend you look into it. It’s a very real thing and it’s completely legal.
Henry Ford said, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
they have tax accountants, legal advisors plus they squirrel away money to foreign banks, like swiss, deustche bank.
this is also pretty good vulnerability, should people start to think at somepoint that maybe billionaires shouldnt have all the wealth in the world. I wonder how the ones who have loaned them money would feel if the asset they have loaned the money for would just… go away.
Any person should consider billionaires like foreign occupation, though the occupation consists the entire planet. Maybe we shouldn’t eat the rich, but eat their art collections.
Oh was that why they threw the tomato sauce on that one painting? Now it all makes sense
Tax portfolio loans over a certain amount. That’s pretty much it. Sure, there will need to be some moving parts beyond that, but basically if you treat a loan as an income rather than something like a primary residence purchase in the buyer’s own name, it gets taxed.
I think the ‘unrealized assets’ should be taxed as ‘realized’ if they are used as collateral. Yes, it would affect the reverse mortgages and such, or home equity loans, but fuck it, I’d take those relatively small pains against the massive societal gains.
Reverse Mortgages are usually predatory anyway, so more scrutiny and regulation isn’t a bad thing.
Yes, this. Tax collateral as advance on capital gains and the whole incentive to dodge taxes with loans go away and it remains fair too
You could make exceptions for loans taken to improve the same asset (home improvement loans) but you’d have to pass strict audits to get the exception approved
I don’t know what the financial consequences would be. Taxing unrealized assets would also have to have limits because so many retirement funds and the like are unrealized gains, we don’t want to hurt people’s ability to retire. That’s why putting a tax on trying to sidestep paying capital gains makes more sense. We’re not going to figure out how that all works here today. People won’t sit on unrealized gains, they’re going to have to use them in some fashion even if just as collateral, and we need to tax whatever workarounds they use to make those funds work for them.
The rule applies for people with billion dollars of assets.
They divest the assets into holding companies, like they already do, held by LLCs.
Then make it also apply for LLC, or for everyone except (list). I mean every set can be quantified.
Removed by mod
But then LLc’s can also be legit businesses, and sometimes moving money to an LLc can be a legit investment in a company and not just a shell.
Look, I already said there’s a lot of moving parts here and and we’re not going to solve it on Lemmy, so no need to keep getting in the weeds over this issue.
Coincidentally, I saw an article entitled “Buy, Borrow, Die”. If you don’t need to have a salary paying job (so not applicable to almost everyone I know or have ever met), you buy an asset let it grow, refinance it (borrowings grow), spend the money you borrowed (tax free) some for more assets, some for pleasure. Rinse and repeat until you die with a shitload of debt that then gets wiped out.
They set up LLCs in Nevis, a tiny island nation that doesn’t disclose who owns what business. The filthy rich use these mailbox businesses to buy real estate, and launder money. None of it can be traced back to them.
The percentage of sociopaths involved with creating a society should never be greater than zero.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
Yep.
Saw a vid about doing that recently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsDsDqIxgfg
And when I searched for that again just now, saw there are dozens of others too, about “borrow until you die” and similar. “Tax is for the poor” they say.
So much for progressive tax system.
The whole system (not just the tax system) is broken by design.
They also inexplicably all have grand pianos.
Wealth and Asset Taxes now!
And they benefit the most from taxes too.
Public education gives me better opportunities.
Public education gives them thousands of literate employees who can do basic math, think logically, use technology, and learn anything new.
This applies to everything from building roads to government scholarships and health programs. They benefit much more from the military too.
They also have bank accounts here and in the Cayman Islands
The devs never patched the infinite money glitch.
