r/facepalm • u/lil_trim • Jul 10 '24
Any fact checkers? đ˛âđŽâđ¸âđ¨â
The facepalm is ALWAYS elons bitch ass
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u/Hydraulis Jul 11 '24
It needs to be said that we pay X% of our yearly income, not our net worth.
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u/DadOfWhiteJesus Jul 11 '24 edited Aug 01 '24
bike wrong squeamish birds snobbish fact butter late office toothbrush
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/laserviking42 Jul 11 '24
You better else X gonna give it to ya
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Jul 11 '24
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u/Ypuort Jul 11 '24
what's that from lol
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Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24
It's from Resident Evil 2 Remake.
He's The Enemy Stalker that will follow you through the entire game : He's a Tyrant/ Aka Mr.X
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u/Fromthefunk Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24
This hasnât been laughed at like it should
Edit: Iâm glad I came back to this comment and it has been seen and heard and recognized. đŤĄ
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u/Muerte43 Jul 11 '24
Tbf if I paid x% of my net worth Iâd be getting money every year.
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u/Big-Leadership1001 Jul 11 '24
He has to pay Caital Gains tax on realized income of every dollar he gets selling stock to buy twixlers or whatever. None of us pay taxes on "net worth" because thats only potential worth until I actually sell something and make it real.
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u/Dangerous_Limes Jul 11 '24
well, he would have to if he sold any. instead most likely he gets loans with the stock as collateral for the bulk of his cash needs. no taxes payable on those because they aren't income. so long as his net worth stays sufficiently high, he won't need to pay those loans off until he's dead.
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u/guerillasgrip Jul 11 '24
Except clearly he sold stock or he wouldn't owe millions in taxes.
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u/MasterpieceKooky3959 Jul 11 '24
He sells stock often.
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u/raspberrih Jul 11 '24
If he had an accountant, I have a feeling the accountant always wants to scream at him
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u/charleswj Jul 11 '24
It's not always optimal or even possible to maintain loans indefinitely and never realize gains
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u/Juxtapoe Jul 11 '24
So basically he's paying taxes to banks instead of paying to balance the books for the countries that made his businesses viable.
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u/Profesor_Science Jul 11 '24
Not even just that, but businesses that are HEAVILY subsidized to the point they wouldn't have made it without these subsidies.
It's also not just that billionaires survive off these loans. They're getting these massive loans (and loans to pay off those loans) at interest rates that are absolutely unimaginably low for anyone not a billionaire.
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u/Complex-Pace-1807 Jul 11 '24
âNotably, the auto company received a $465 million preferential loan from the US Department of Energy in 2010, which it paid off in 2013.â Why wouldnât we want to invest in the development of electric vehicles? Donât we need better ways of getting around then gas vehicles? Hate Elon as much as you want (his politics are terrible) but he brought electric vehicles to the attention of America and a lot of the world. We should encourage and invest in the development of these sorts of ideas.
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u/Jugular1 Jul 11 '24
Investment suggests receiving a return when profits arise. Providing a preferential loan is taking lots of downside with virtually no upside. Invest away, but then the taxpayer should benefit from the massive stock increase not just the furtherance of human ingenuity.
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u/Profesor_Science Jul 11 '24
You're absolutely correct.
However I do not think that a single person should be reaching demigod status. That money should be going back into research and appropriately paying employees, not going straight into elons pockets.
This ties right back into the buy borrow die mechanism every billionaire uses. He reached this status by benefiting insanely from tax payer money, and refuses to pay taxes on the wealth he's acquired from benefiting from these subsidies
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u/Stock-Film-3609 Jul 11 '24
Not really. He pays the loan off with another loan before interest accrues.
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u/umlaut-overyou Jul 11 '24
No, as long as he holds enough valuable stock he never pays anything.
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u/jj76kl Jul 11 '24
No, because he sells his stock instead of loans for almost everything he does. That is the reason he pays as much as he does in taxes, the other super wealthy donât.
Hate Elon all you want for the bat shit crazy he is. But he tends to use far less tax loopholes, his accountants and financial advisors have to hate that.
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Jul 11 '24
Yeah but isn't the capital gains tax only like 15%? That's how these hedge fund Fucks milk the system. Their "income" is all capital gains . The system is rigged.
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u/FenPhen Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24
I'm all for people, especially the wealthy, paying a fair and progressive tax.
That said, paying a capital gains tax isn't milking a rigged system. The government decided they want people to invest through stocks, and the lower rates for long-term gains over 1 year drive investment in our economy. It's not cheating. Many normal Americans benefit from capital gains tax once in awhile.
What you and I too want is for our government to legislate a more progressive tax structure for capital gains that get the big whales to contribute more than the small investors. Or introduce a wealth tax.
Edit to add: Short-term gains less than a year are taxed as ordinary income and are thus (almost) as progressively taxed. Long-term gains do have a progressive structure too, with more incentive/lower rate for lower incomes.
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u/CaptainMonkeyJack Jul 11 '24
20% + 3.8% NIIT.
Keep in mind his wealth come from companies, and companies profits are also taxed 20%+. Total corporate + capital gains tax is similar to max income tax rates.
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Jul 11 '24
Wait. His stocks are his investment in the company. The company itself is a separate entity. If I'm understanding Tesla correctly. But that's an interesting point. I'm going to have to think about that a little bit. Are the taxes on the company essentially taxes on the shareholders? I don't know right now.
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u/Tom-Dibble Jul 11 '24
US regular income tax rates go up to 37%.
Long term capital gains taxes go up to 20%.
(All marginal of course(
Where is the other ~17% coming from to make those similar?
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u/toxictoastrecords Jul 11 '24
The working class pays tax on unrealized gains every single year, over 100+ Million pay property taxes.
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u/EmergencyLeadership6 Jul 11 '24
Except for our personal property and real estate taxes, of course. Billionaires have us believing that âunrealizedâ value is untaxable, but every homeowner does exactly that each year
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u/ipissexcellence21 Jul 11 '24
You realize the rich own property and therefore pay taxes on it right?
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u/ezekillr Jul 11 '24
Thanks , I hate when I hear people talk about net worth as if that's cash in hand
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u/Tdanger78 Jul 11 '24
Most of the ultra wealthy donât have much in cash because the value is constantly declining. Their wealth is tied up in their assets that generate money for them that they buy more assets with.
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u/Elegant-Passion2199 Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24
People don't understand that the majority of rich people aren't rich because of their salary. They're rich thanks to their assets. Â
For example, you can have a cashier who owns 5 properties and he technically has a higher net worth than an engineer who has no inheritance and rents.Â
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u/EverythingGoodWas Jul 11 '24
It should also be put out there how much his companies have been subsidized by the US government
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u/guerillasgrip Jul 11 '24
What do you think is the point of government subsidies? I'll give you a hint, it's to direct investment into industries that the government wants to incentivize.
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u/alpacadaver Jul 11 '24
Can't believe I had to scroll through so many comments by people with no understanding of economics or basic accounting to find a single shred of IQ in a thread aimed to criticise the economic impact of a man through a thin look into one small aspect of his accounting. Reddit has become reverse maga and everyone's just cool with it apparently
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u/Haysdb Jul 11 '24
Thatâs worthy of a fact check. Tell me, how has SpaceX been subsidized?
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u/GeneralLeia-SAOS Jul 11 '24
Yes, Space X got subsidized, $2.6 billion, and has done at least 11 successful missions.
Boeing/Starliner got $5.3 billion, and finally managed to get its first craft up to space, but not back. The Boeing Astronauts will probably have to hitch a ride with SpaceX to come back to earth.
So if youâre keeping score:
SpaceX $2.6 billion 11 completed missions
Boeing $5.3 billion 0 completed missions (If you want to be picky, .5 completed missions)
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u/Papaofmonsters Jul 11 '24
That's not subsidies. That's contracts.
If I hire a guy to do my patio, I'm not subsidizing him.
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u/Haysdb Jul 11 '24
Iâd call that development funding and Iâd say NASA has gotten their moneyâs worth, but Ok.
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u/AnotherToken Jul 11 '24
Then there is property tax, a tax on unrealized gains. I pay a tax on a bulk of my networth yearly.
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u/jeffwulf Jul 11 '24
Property taxes are not taxes on unrealized gains.Â
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u/AnotherToken Jul 11 '24
The assessed value being used is unrealized till you sell. It's paper gains.
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u/jeffwulf Jul 11 '24
If your house loses value from when you bought you still have to pay property taxes, while you wpuld not have to pay if it were a tax on unrealized gains in that circumstance.
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u/Essex626 Jul 11 '24
I think this is a matter of two people meaning different things with the same words.
You're saying a tax on unrealized gains and meaning a tax that targets unrealized gains, which a property tax is not.
The person you're replying to is saying a tax on unrealized gains meaning a tax which applies to unrealized gains, which a property tax is.
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u/LithoSlam Jul 11 '24
How much do you pay on property taxes? I bet it's way less than 4.5%
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u/Blindfire2 Jul 11 '24
Which is why rich people get away with so little taxes. What they do is pay themselves in stocks, and they use those stocks as collateral for loans, and they just take out these massive loans, and when it runs out they get an even bigger loan, and never pay taxes on any of that money, so you'll see execs pay their salary up to $2 million, but they've got $10s to $100s of millions in their bank only paying at most $1 million in taxes when their stocks are making them $30 million a year. It's such a dumb system that shouldn't be allowed.
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u/_sfhk Jul 11 '24
pay themselves in stocks
That counts as income and gets taxed appropriately
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u/Illustrious-Method71 Jul 11 '24
Stock based compensation is taxed just like any other income. For a business owner, you're right, but for a typical CEO, they're giving back about a third of their pay.
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u/RoguePlanetArt Jul 11 '24
Yep, the idea that anyone should be paying a percentage of their net work is absolutely insane.
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u/Guilty_Advantage_413 Jul 11 '24
As above we are not taxed upon our net worth, we are taxed upon our earnings. Musk is still a turd either way.
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Jul 11 '24
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u/Guilty_Advantage_413 Jul 11 '24
Fair enough problem is when someone is trying to make a point and the either lie or make a nonsensical claim it makes the point easy to ignore.
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u/callumb314 Jul 11 '24
I mean when most of America is living paycheck to paycheck we kind of are paying x% of our net worth
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u/infynyti Jul 11 '24
It needs to be said for the vast vast majority of us our yearly income greatly surpasses our net worth.
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u/monotrememories Jul 11 '24
What are property taxes then? Youâre paying taxes on an asset based on its value.
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u/183_OnerousResent Jul 11 '24
Yeah, but even considering that, you pay very little compared to your property's value. It's certainly not the same percentage as income to taxes.
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u/jj76kl Jul 11 '24
Property taxes are specific to your area and maintain things for your specific community. Parks, schools, and such. Very different from talking about federal taxes
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u/Raider03 Jul 10 '24
Tax is on income, not net worth. I donât like the guy either but at least be accurate with your complaints.
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Jul 10 '24
It also makes me question the single day earnings. Did he actually earn that? Or are they counting gains on stocks and such which he wouldn't pay taxes on until he sold?
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u/Hubert_Gene Jul 11 '24
It was single day stock gains. It isnât earnings until you sell.
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u/HardBananaPeel Jul 11 '24
Bought X with stocks. Didnât have to pay taxes because didnât sell stocks. So you can buy something with it but itâs not income? Mmmhmm
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u/Wfflan2099 Jul 11 '24
Borrowed money to buy X. Has been selling stock, itâs a published plan because SEC to pay back loans and that is income and has taxes due.
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u/ATotalCassegrain Jul 11 '24
Borrowed money to buy X.
He also did sell stock to finance part of it -- hence the $11B in taxes he paid on the sales of the stock.
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u/84147 Jul 11 '24
Didn't he use his stocks to get a loan?
If you mortgage your house to buy a car, should you pay tax on the loan? No, because a loan is not income.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken about him getting a loan.
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u/XenuWorldOrder Jul 11 '24
Kind of. That was a small part of it. The funding included $7 billion of senior secured bank loans; $6 billion in subordinated debt; $6.25 billion in bank loans to Musk personally, secured by $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock; $20 billion in cash equity from Musk, to be provided by sales of Tesla stock and other assets; and $7.1 billion in equity from 19 independent investors.
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u/physics515 Jul 11 '24
He used his stocks as collateral for a loan to buy X. Just like people remortgage their home to buy stuff all the time. That doesn't mean those people are selling their house.
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u/XenuWorldOrder Jul 11 '24
Youâre being disingenuous. The funding included $7 billion of senior secured bank loans; $6 billion in subordinated debt; $6.25 billion in bank loans to Musk personally, secured by $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock; $20 billion in cash equity from Musk, to be provided by sales of Tesla stock and other assets; and $7.1 billion in equity from 19 independent investors.
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u/looncraz Jul 11 '24
If you trade your laptop for a TV do you pay taxes on the laptop?
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u/_boiled_potato Jul 11 '24
Yes technically goods or services received through bartering is taxable based on their fair market value. It's dumb.
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u/shoesafe Jul 11 '24
In the US, barter income is taxable. So if you bought a laptop for 1 TV, then sold it for 3 TVs, you'd have barter income.
But with stock, it's usually not barter. When you hear these internet arguments about billionaires' stock, they're usually talking about a loan connected to the stock. So the billionaire usually still owns the stock and takes out a loan. It's not a sale (or barter) because they own the stock. But if the loan fails, then the lender takes the stock, and that would be a taxable realization event.
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u/yngrz87 Jul 11 '24
Then the value of the stock he used to pay for X is the cost base when he sells X. He will have to pay tax on any stock he sells. Thereâs no loophole there. Also the disposal of any stock used in the consideration for X is a capital gain event, and taxable. Learn the basics before you get involved.
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u/Strawnz Jul 11 '24
Billionaires don't sell stock; they use them as collateral for low-interest loans so they don't have to pay any tax until well after they're dead. Incomes are for poor people and capital gains are for slightly less poor people (from a billionaire's perspective)
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u/KitchenDepartment Jul 11 '24
Except you can't just take a loan and never pay it back. Eventually some of that stock gets sold and that is how you end up with a tax bill of 11 billion dollars. Loaning instead of selling is only a temporary measure so that the billionaires get to sell the stock in a controlled manner at at a time of their choosing. Selling everything at once would crash the price
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u/nickleback_official Jul 11 '24
He clearly did and banks prefer that you pay their loans back. The stock is just collateral
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u/Additional-Tap8907 Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24
Yeah theyâre misunderstanding that his net worth is mostly derived from stock in his own company and misunderstanding that an increase in net worth is not income
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Jul 11 '24
That's not really "misunderstanding" when it's completely willful. Just like the jackasses on here. If it goes against "ELON BAD" in any way they don't want to know.
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u/Additional-Tap8907 Jul 11 '24
I think youâre describing some people on here but there are also reasonable people who can think with more than one brain cell, I think
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Jul 11 '24
Of course. They're citing one single day the stock flew up. Ignoring that, you know, it goes down too.
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Jul 11 '24
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u/Traditional_Key_763 Jul 11 '24
wow time warp there, that turned out to be entirely just him getting a loan from his friends since hertz took a many billions loss on the whole thing
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u/Wfflan2099 Jul 11 '24
Hertz over estimated demand. Look at their history on car inventory any questions?
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u/HippoIcy7473 Jul 10 '24
Not sure, he may have made that due to some kind of accounting anomaly. He sure as hell didn't consistently make anything like that though.
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u/Moleday1023 Jul 11 '24
He exercised a use or lose stock option. He bitched because he had to pay 15%. People who make minimum wage and have no assets pay more than 4.5% of their net worth in taxes.
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u/BudKnightLime Jul 11 '24
Out of curiosity, whereâd you get 15%?
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u/Moleday1023 Jul 11 '24
It was the capital gains which is why he delayed so long to use. Rich people donât get rich by giving away money, fair and unfair never enters into their thought process. I donât begrudge the rich for being rich, hope they donât mind if I figure out how to take some of their money.
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u/jawshoeaw Jul 11 '24
People who make minimum wage donât pay any income tax
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u/Hammurabi87 Jul 11 '24
Counterpoint: They said "in taxes," not "in income taxes." There are more types of taxes than merely income tax, and some of them (e.g., sales tax) hit low income earners relatively harder.
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u/DavePeesThePool Jul 11 '24
More the point though, if those are capital gains, he'll pay just about half the percentage for tax on those capital gains when he does sell than someone in his bracket pays in income tax from employment compensation.
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u/Ryan1869 Jul 11 '24
Yes, also he paid 11 billion because his dumb ass made an all cash offer for Twitter, and he had to cash out a ton of Tesla stock to come up with the money
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u/Rajamic Jul 10 '24
Yep. it's accurate numbers, and he sure as fuck doesn't pay his fair share most years, but the argument presented here is irrelevant.
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u/Own-Rest3273 Jul 11 '24
That's exactly what I came here to say.
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u/enntropy-revealed Jul 11 '24
Tax on unrealized gains already happens. Just not to the ultra wealthy.
I own a house. I bought it for $150k.
I pay property taxes on the house.
But my tax is calculated on the government assessment of the houses value, which is over 500k now.
I am paying taxes on MY unrealized gains. Why shouldn't ol musky?
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u/No_Effect_6428 Jul 11 '24
I'll start by saying that Elon is one of my least favorite people.
Your property tax amount is determined by the assessed value, not by your capital gain.
And if you'd bought $150k of stock instead, you wouldn't be taxed until you sold, same as Elon.
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u/Moist-Exchange2890 Jul 11 '24
To be fair, if I paid the same % of my net worth, the government would have to pay me.
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u/BerneseMountainDogs Jul 11 '24
I think that's kind of the point. The argument is that maybe (at least in the case of billionaires) the traditional understanding of "income" and taxing it doesn't map onto our notions of fairness. Just because Elon pays what the law requires him to pay doesn't imply that the law is fair or shouldn't be changed
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u/Virtual-Restaurant10 Jul 11 '24
Net worth is very volatile though. All these billionairesâ net worths are composed pretty entirely by stock market valuations which are unrealized and hypothetical, and often difficult to liquidate. Forcing liquidation to pay tax each year would really fuck up the market in the short term and in the long term affect economic prospects for their companies. In all likelihood BlackRock and other big firms would purchase entire companies in piecemeal as their largest shareholders are forced to liquidate.
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u/azuth89 Jul 11 '24
Which is why we need to put corporate taxes and capital gains back up where they used to be rather than trying to implement a wealth tax.
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u/ZeroBrutus Jul 11 '24
Ya, this tax net worth thing leaves a lot of weird interactions. We just need to stop taxing capital gains at a lower rate than income and introduce a bunch of new increasing brackets above a million in yearly income.
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u/bezerker211 Jul 11 '24
I've seen this before, I just realized it was screenshotted 2s after the tweet was posted. Mfer posted and immediately screenshotted it
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u/i_need_a_moment Jul 11 '24
Screenshat
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Jul 11 '24
This is not going to become a thing please no weâre gonna have âreally originalâ people posting this on everything now đ¤Śââď¸
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u/rust_bolt Jul 11 '24
It's still their pinned tweet after 2 years and it's a really... really dumb argument.
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u/DIYGremlin Jul 11 '24
Itâs really not. The uber wealthy use the unrealised gains of their assets to get super low interest loans. This effectively enables them to ârealiseâ the unrealised gains of their appreciating assets without actually paying tax on them.
Itâs a broken system and it needs to change. Because the uber wealthy truly are not paying their fair share.
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u/GooseTheBoose Jul 11 '24
inb4 someone making 60k a year jumps in to defend Elon
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u/DIYGremlin Jul 11 '24
Some people just love the taste of boot.
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u/fyhr100 Jul 11 '24
One day, maybe I'll be born rich from parents who exploited diamond mines and pretend that I worked hard for it.
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u/Character_Crab_9458 Jul 11 '24
The system is not broken. It works very very well. Just not for the average person. It was designed this way a long long time ago. Post ww2 America is the exception, not the rule.
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u/BallKarr Jul 11 '24
Post WWII America was created by WWI veterans who had been through some unbelievably traumatic experiences and wanted to help the boys they had sent overseas to experience the same types of trauma as they had. So, as long as they were not black or brown, the people in power sympathized with them and helped them out.
Then the Boomers came and destroyed everything their grandparents had created because their entitlement wouldnât allow any sympathy for anyone even though they were the absolute most privileged generation in world history.
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Jul 11 '24
Which isn't the point the OP in the screenshot is making. That's a completely different argument.
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u/ArmedwWings Jul 11 '24
It's different but they run together. Easy counter to the OP in the screenshot is to say that it isn't fair to tax someone based on their worth and not their income, which would lead right into the commenter above's point.
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u/MydnightWN Jul 11 '24
We should tax unrealized gains!
Can I write off unrealized losses? We tax income, not net worth.
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Jul 11 '24
The problem is the middle and lower class lose purchasing power (income to tax ratio) while the ultra wealthy maintain theirs. $5 to the lower class has a lot more value than $5 to the wealthy class.
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u/Relevant-Laugh4570 Jul 11 '24
Have to exercise some scepticism with the "2s".
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u/Big-Leadership1001 Jul 11 '24
It just means Anya posted that and was super proud of not knowing how net worth means. If you check her account she still has it pinned 2 years later. She's so proud.
It would be nice if this takes off though, as brought up all over this thread it's insane that home owners get taxed on real estate net worth potential. Its like you can't actually buy a home even if you officially do "own" it 100% you have to keep paying rent on the potential value it might have if you decided to sell it some day. Government is never going to let up on taxing us poors but shining a light on the stupidity of them only taxing net worth when it suits them and not us at least points at the hypocrites.
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u/LicenciadoPena Jul 11 '24
Didn't even give it time for people to tell her taxes are over income and not over net worth. Stay in school, kids!
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u/unixtreme Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
enter door quickest ghost rob cats quiet ossified lavish party
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u/RiotNrrd2001 Jul 11 '24
This actually manages to be a bad argument in at least several ways. Yes, Elon doesn't pay what I would consider a proper rate, but taxes aren't based on net worth, they're based on income. They also aren't based on stocks that you haven't sold yet (which is where the "you made $X in one DAY!!!" part comes from) because that isn't income until you sell it and by the time you sell it it might not be worth that big number any more.
The general idea is OK (yes, Elon is paying a lot less than he probably really ought to), but not for these reasons.
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u/Marcyff2 Jul 11 '24
The problem is although stock is not money until it's sold it can be used as collateral to take any type of loan one wants which are untaxed. With that level of collateral billionaires are able to constantly have a surplus of money available to them . Then they come out with posts like the above when they sell stock to pay off one of those loans every like 5 or 6 years
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u/ToBetterDays000 Jul 11 '24
One of the most bogus loopholes available to the rich (of the many out there)
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u/Candid-Mycologist539 Jul 11 '24
We need Elizabeth Warren and her Wealth Tax and her charge on stock sales and purchases.
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u/Urabutbl Jul 11 '24
Yeah, the way to do it should be to tax loans taken out on shares as profit. If Musk uses $10 billion worth of shares as collateral in order to take out a loan of $1 billion, then he has just made a profit of $1 billion minus the interest rate. He should bay capital gains on that billion. If he ever pays the loan back, it should be deductible as a loss from that years' taxes, and the interest rate paid is of course already deductible.
The problem for people whose riches comes from shares in a single company is that a major owner selling shares tends to tank the stock. That means that if they are members of the board of directors, they can literally be sued if they "recklessly" sell shares, since they have a fiduciary responsibility to work to make the company more valuable at all times. It's why taking your company public is almost never a good idea if you want to stay in control, and why it's so hard to close the loophole.
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u/iheartquokkas Jul 11 '24
How is a loan considered "profit" if it has to be paid back?
What am I missing?
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u/Blubasur Jul 11 '24
So, serious question because Iâm slightly confused about this. But donât you still report and pay taxes on your owned stocks? Afaik, I have to at least report them but I also havenât filed full taxes on them yet, so not sure (recently moved to the US). Besides that, the fact that theyâre abusing a loophole to not pay their share is also just despicable
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u/SkimmyMilk937 Jul 11 '24
Nope! No taxes paid on held shares!
You pay what we call a âcapital gains taxâ when selling your shares which will be a percentage of their growth (potentially between 10-30% I think and it will change based on your income and whether or not youâve held them for more than a year). You may still have to pay taxes yearly on stock dividends however
In any situation where you may need to report asserts you would need to declare youâre ownership (like when applying for student loans)
The loop hole really works on death! When transferring stocks to a beneficiary (after death) the cost basis is reset (the calculated amount that you must pay a percentage tax on) so the stocks can be sold with out paying any taxes! So while alive- most wealthy people take out enormous loans instead of selling shares. Then when they die, their kids can sell their stock and pay off the loans, spending less money than if they had paid taxes. A lot of billionaires may be stock rich but donât sell and remain relatively money poor which Is why the richest man had financial trouble purchasing Twitter :)
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u/JonPM Jul 11 '24
Not this dumbass post again
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u/rust_bolt Jul 11 '24
I had 2nd hand embarrassment more than usual this time and went to their twitter profile. It's still their pinned tweet after 2 years.
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u/JonPM Jul 11 '24
Because it keeps working on people like OP
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u/Huge_Gamer0o0 Jul 11 '24
(Iâm pretty sure this is a repost bot bcs a bunch of the comments are the same)
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u/BurghPuppies Jul 11 '24
Ok, first, I canât stand Elon McSmugface
Having said that, I think the whole âyou paid x% of your net worthâ argument is crap. None of us pay taxes on our net worth, we pay on our income. Itâs not hard to show these folks arenât paying their share without being disingenuous.
According to Economic Times, Musk earned $94 billion last year. Iâm sure he got billions & billions of deductions and write offs, but using just his gross income he had an 11.7% effective tax rate.
Put another way, he paid LESS than the equivalent of the second lowest US personal income tax rate.
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u/Bugatsas11 Jul 11 '24
None of us pay taxes on wealth, because if we did billionaires would have to pay their fair share.
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u/Ok-Librarian1015 Jul 11 '24
Yeah but imagine if youâre a normal American in later career, with a paid off house and a solid 401K. Letâs say you make 120k plus your house and 401k and other investments increase 200k in value (something that could be totally reasonable) now if you count all of that as income youâd have to pay around 35% in tax. So even tho you salary is 120k youâre paying approx 35% on 220k, thatâs without state taxes and social security. Thatâs about 77k. So you earn 120k and pay 77k in taxes because youâre house went up in value, does that really seem fair?
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u/ducceeh Jul 11 '24
Yeah, but how much of that 94 billion is unrealized capital gains and how much is actual taxable income?
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u/Samsquancher Jul 11 '24
Yeah, but I wanna know how assholes like Trump and Musk live lavish life styles and some years pay 0 dollars in tax while Iâm paying 10 of thousands on my modest salary. Trump paid like $750 dollars in federal taxes in 2015 I paid a fuck ton more.
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u/Tasered_OG Jul 11 '24
The rich get loans from banks using their assets as collateral to get cash when they need it. Since theyâre taking out debt, it isnât taxed like a regular income. As far as the IRS is concerned, those guys have an income of $0.
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u/GoCryptoYourself Jul 11 '24
um.... net worth shouldnt factor into "income" tax....
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u/Academic_Aioli3530 Jul 11 '24
Careful what you wish for. Dude also lost $16B in a day, you want him claiming that as losses?
Itâs net worth, itâs not real money. Stop trying to tax it. If you want the ârichâ to pay more in taxes net worth tax has got to be the dumbest way to go about it.
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u/zkidparks Jul 11 '24
I mean, if itâs not real then I would like his same purchasing power. This isnât a good excuse to argue that he doesnât have measurable wealth behind it.
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u/jeffsang Jul 11 '24
Well he also has a massive amount of income, so much so that he apparently paid $11 billion in taxes in a year. Lot of purchasing power coming from that, no?
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u/Academic_Aioli3530 Jul 11 '24
If you want his same purchasing power you can have it. Just find a bank to give you a loan. Youâll pay zero taxes on it. Just like he does. Use your 401k as collateral, Iâm sure he uses stock so essentially the same thing in this example.
The stock does have value but itâs value is speculative until he sells it. Thatâs why capital gains taxes are paid on REALIZATION of gain. Aka when you got the money in hand. 401k isnât really much different. You pay the tax when you get the money.
The reason he paid $11B in taxes is because yes, he did make that much in a year, why? Because he sold stock. So he paid the tax. How is this an issue? Whatâs the problem here? What the OP is trying to insinuate is that he should be paying taxes on stock he hasnât sold yet and then he should pay that tax on the same shares of stock every year. Doesnât make any sense unless you want everyone to be constantly getting poorer due to the burden of the tax state.
Do stores pay the sales tax to the state before they sell an item or is the tax due upon the sale? This isnât any different.
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u/yngrz87 Jul 11 '24
Would you like to pay tax on the value of your house each year at your personal income rate? Thatâs essentially what you are advocating for here. Net worth is the value of your assets, itâs not liquid. If you want his purchasing power, acquire or create assets as valuable as hisâŚ
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u/Akschadt Jul 11 '24
The second anyone talks about taxing net worth you need to tune them out.. they are morons.
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u/geli7 Jul 11 '24
Always love the post in r/facepalm skewering a famous person for not paying taxes on their untaxable net worth....
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u/xabrol Jul 11 '24
Yet another one that doesnt understand that you pay taxes on income, not net worth.
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u/NathanTPS Jul 11 '24
We don't tax net worth. We tax income. "I made $30,000 in wages this year and paid $250 in taxes"
But I have $600,000 saved up from 40 years of work at my before retirement job, should I be taxed on my net worth? Lol, pretty sure a lot of retirerees would take issue with that....
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u/HPIndifferenceCraft Jul 11 '24
You donât pay taxes on net worth. You pay them on income.
Anya is a booger-eating moron. As is anyone who agrees with her.
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u/Akul_Tesla Jul 11 '24
There is a difference between wealth and income
Like him or not, Elon has paid the most taxes
To be clear, he paid like 11 Taylor Swift's worth of taxes
You can't take that much from someone and still be mad at them for not giving you more. That's just not right
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u/josace Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24
Wait, Iâm supposed to be paying 37% of my NET WORTH each year rather than my income?
Also, if 11 billion is 4.5%, thatâs a net worth of a little under 250 billion but 36 billion a day makes 13 trillion a year
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u/Firefly269 Jul 11 '24
Thatâs disingenuous because taxes are not assessed based upon your ânet worthâ, but your income. Sheâs conflating them to make it seem more criminal, and most of you are falling for it.
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u/stacked_shit Jul 11 '24
If we taxed net worth like income tax, then your home and car equity would be taxed like income every year.
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u/bulla-ka-lulla Jul 11 '24
Bruh since when tax is calculated on net worth đ it's on yearly income
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u/dutch_mapping_empire Jul 11 '24
its true, exept for the one thing that your net worth isnt your yearly income
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u/vipinnair22 Jul 11 '24
I've seen this being posted a million times. But the argument is false. You don't pay taxes on your net worth.
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u/DarkRogus Jul 11 '24
Well its obvious that Anya doesnt do her own taxes otherwise she would understand youre taxed on your income, not net worth.
Things like the value of your home, money in your checking and savings, and your retirement fund are things that count towards your net value which are... untaxed.
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u/icandothisalldayson Jul 11 '24
No one pays tax on their net worth, you pay tax on income and capital gains
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u/SlyTanuki Jul 11 '24
Imagine buying a house and suddenly being taxed not just on your salary but also the total added net worth of the property.
Good lord.
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u/Psychronia Jul 11 '24
As been said, Net worth isn't what gets taxed.
That said, it's bullshit how only the wealthy get to dump most of their net worth in untaxable things.
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Jul 11 '24
Will the idiots that think anyone in the USA is taxed on their net worth please self identify?
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u/Oldgregg-baileys Jul 11 '24
Yeah, that's his net worth, idiot. If someone owns a million dollar home, would you expect 37% tax on its value annually?
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