In other words, he will steal $600M from the public by this move.
Tax evasion is theft.
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Does the word theft need a legal definition to exist?
Outside of any legislative bodies jurisprudence, so the open sea, or Antarctica, on the moon or in open space perpendicular to our ecliptic, is theft wrong based off a legality? Or is theft considered wrong based off a morality?
Legal≠right, ≠fair, ≠justice, ≠moral
What is legal is entirely it’s own thing. And even at that, if someone breaks the law, but then no one applies the consequences of breaking that law against them, is that even a law then?
When the law is arbitrarily applied, like how the rich tend to not be charged with first offenses and just get warnings, then that teaches the privileged to not worry about the law, to move fast and break things, to ask forgiveness rather than permission. But when the winning class doesn’t respect the law and every class under them is constantly looking up for cues on how to rise, weeeeeell…
The law applied unequally results in no one respecting the law. And that’s the rational response. Corruption kills communities. Corrupted leaders are effectively undermining our society, regardless of their title, be that Senator, General, Judge, et al, they’re sappers, undertakers, saboteurs
We need harsher punishments, across the whole of life, for people being deceitful, spreading mis/disinformation, telling half truths and lying to any degree.
The entire foundation of human culture is built off trust and an adherence to an objective truth outside our body. What do you think faith is? What do you think spirituality is? Religion is merely a groups adherence to what they consider to be the universal truth. At the core of how we perceive, ourselves, society, existence as a whole, we have a universal, biological, demand for the truth.
And I think our law should reflect that to a higher degree. Like if repeated theft can lead to life in prison, one case of embezzlement that results in the theft of 1000s of retirement accounts should be met with an execution.
Tax Advoidance isn’t theft though.
No I don’t get it either esp considering this
I want higher taxes on people like this too but are you trying to argue he shouldn’t be able to move?
Or that he should be subject to taxes in a state which he doesn’t live in anymore?
They’re not arguing either of those things. Clearly they’re just stating the facts of the situation.
So, theft is moving states and no longer being subject to the previous state’s taxes?
Is that a fact?
I’ve got a buddy who moved from MD to TX. Is he stealing from MD because he no longer pays taxes there?
If most of someone’s weath was acquired in another state, why should their new state of residence be entitled to it? A weath tax could help fix this
I don’t really see the significance of where he acquired it.
Amazon, maybe more than any company, has/had customers all over the world. That money came from literally everywhere.
When someone says “they shouldn’t be able to do that!” My question is, do what?
Move? Not pay taxes in states they don’t live in?
As I said at the outset, I also think he should pay more taxes but as long as states can decide what taxes they collect, this particular issue isn’t going anywhere.
That or force people not to be able to move or force people to pay taxes in any state they ever lived in.
But I’ve made the mistake of bringing logic to an emotional thread.
Yup, and they successfully argued for years that their non-physical presence in a state meant they should not pay sales taxes in that state, effectively forcing states to subsidize Amazon at the expense of local businesses.
So what you seem to be arguing is that logic dictates that anyone with the economic power to ensure or prevent the passage of laws is necessarily correct, and that the only definition for a term like “theft” is the legal interpretation that you, as a non-lawyer, decide to apply. You’re saying that, despite centuries and millennia of colloquial usages of the term, both predating and concurrently used with the very restricted legal definition, any dictionary or other usage-derived definition is invalid.
That doesn’t sound like logic to me, Mr. Spork.
Boy, that was a ton of words you just put in my mouth.
You knocked the absolute shit outta that straw man.
edit:
Now that I have time, let’s respond to this properly.
Yup, and they successfully argued for years that their non-physical presence in a state meant they should not pay sales taxes in that state, effectively forcing states to subsidize Amazon at the expense of local businesses.
I wasn’t talking about this. You brought it up because it’s an easy point to make, one which I agree with but unfortunately this is where you began construction of the straw man.
I think you’ll find employees of the company all paid taxes in the state they worked/got paid in.
So what you seem to be arguing is that logic dictates that anyone with the economic power to ensure or prevent the passage of laws is necessarily correct
This builds on the foundation of the straw man above.
No. With me, you’ll do well not to try to read between the lines. I asked questions in almost all of my responses. What do people want? To force people not to move? To pay taxes in states they don’t live in anymore? No one has engaged those questions because they know that’s what would be required in this situation to get him to pay more state tax.
and that the only definition for a term like “theft” is the legal interpretation that you, as a non-lawyer, decide to apply
Oh, and then I asked if a buddy of mine who moved states is also a thief because he did the exact same thing with two other states. Y’know, to gauge what my interlocutor believed constituted “theft”. Should they not be able to move? Should they be made to pay state taxes to a state which they don’t live in anymore?
You’re saying that, despite centuries and millennia of colloquial usages of the term, both predating and concurrently used with the very restricted legal definition, any dictionary or other usage-derived definition is invalid.
Yeah I cheapens the word. If they were using it colloquially, one wonders why they didn’t reply immediately clarifying what they meant. It’s almost as if they didn’t mean it that way…
Typically M is thousand, and MM is million. Not that either of us generally get to use them.
Where is m used as thousands? Typically it’s k for thousands
It’s used in banking.
It is, but banking is less typical than everywhere else
Not debating on typical use. The question was where is it used that way. I simply gave an example.
I thought you said m was typical
M is only used for million in the US.
Really anywhere that doesn’t use the “milliard” as their unit for 1000 million.
Not in the US or US based websites.
Explain tax evasion, in legal terms, because you accused him of a crime.
Yup, it’s tax avoidance, not tax evasion. It’s morally wrong especially because he has the power to influence the system, but it’s not legally wrong.
It’s not morally wrong. In the same way that some of us avoid taxes through donating to charity, or putting money into a pension, is that morally wrong?
Painting it as a moral question relies on the morals of one of the most ruthless businessmen of the last two decades. Paint it as a legal question instead, and push for legislation to stop billionaires from avoiding enough tax to feed hundreds of families for years…
Brb, putting $600M in my 401k this year
I don’t think you (or others in this thread) get the point. I don’t know if it’s an age or a naivety thing, but shit, even Reddit of all places understands this shit…
Telling a billionaire cunt that happily destroys industries and treats his own employees like shit to act “morally” will do nothing. Bezos saving millions is probably news to him too, because he’s not moving tens of zeroes around his online banking account like us plebs. He’s got people managing his money, and they’re just doing what they’re paid to do - manage wealth optimally.
Painting it as a moral problem is exactly what right-wing politicians want. We’ve seen it plenty of times in the UK where people get called out for dodging taxes by politicians, using the loopholes they allow, create, and promote.
If you want to stop this kind of practice, you need to close these opportunities. Joke all you want, but when you put money into a retirement fund, you’re probably avoiding tax too. Is that a moral failing on your part? While it’s in no way equivalent to Bezos, it does point to the fact that tax avoidance schemes exist because the powers that be put them there. They are dedicated systems that should be scrutinised instead.
Governments allow tax deductions or credits for activities they want to encourage, like the ones you listed. Using those is not tax avoidance at all. In this case, he’s changing jurisdictions to avoid taxes, a completely different situation.
This isn’t a new thing. Many countries have tax havens or areas where rich people are told to “base” themselves in order to move wealth.
It is 100% tax avoidance, and it exists because governments/states allow it, and publicise the ability to move funds while not actually “being” in that place.
But the same goes for what we all do with retirement funds/giving money to charity. Saying it isn’t is just pushing semantics to separate what normies do as opposed to the rich.
Those are two very different things, which I think you’re failing to see. At least where I am in Canada, donating to charity doesn’t eliminate the tax on that income but only reduces it. Retirement contributions are deducted now but will be taxed when they’re withdrawn. This encourages people to support themselves in retirement instead of being seniors on welfare.
The big difference is tax havens are generally encouraging people to move their wealth after earning it elsewhere. The only benefit they gain is increasing their tax base by undercutting other jurisdictions.
Charity & Retirement contributions are assumed to be on income earned in the jurisdiction and encourage good behaviour. Some other tax mechanisms (like preferring dividend income over employment income) are harder to defend but are still trying to an encourage behaviour (like investment of wealth to grow the economy instead of simply hording it/spending it frivolously). While there might be cons to these mechanisms, both the pros and the cons stay within the jurisdiction. Tax havens internalize the benefits while externalizing the harms.
If I had 200 dollars and someone would offer me 60 cents for moving to Miami, I would not move.
If someone offered me $600M to move to Miami, I would offer someone $300M to move to Miami and pocket the rest
How long do I have to stay? I can buy someplace, lock the door and just be a shut in for a while.
Spock?
I hear Miami is a pretty fun town to live in, but I haven’t been there since I was 6 so I have no idea. I don’t expect to ever visit given it’s in Florida.
He doesn’t have a billion dollars in cash
His net worth is just under $200 billion.
He could easily liquidate 1 billion of that to cash.
The article states that he’s planning to liquidate over $8B this year alone. I don’t known what kind of drugs that other commenter is smoking.
He liquidated 12 million Amazon shares for approximately $2 billion last week. It’s the capital gains on that sale that OP’s article is referring to.
Unless you meant cash, in which case you’re probably right. I don’t think his brokerage settled the sale with briefcases of $100 bills.
This article is about selling $8B of shares…
He just sold $2 billion in Amazon shares. So yeah, he has over a billion dollars in cash.
I just want healthcare.
Would you settle for some aircraft carriers?
As long as Ukraine gets them, I guess. Sheesh 🥲
I support giving Ukraine the USS Reagan. It’s incontinent, but hey, it’s one more carrier than Russia has.
So, apparently he spends his time with a strange rubber woman. At least from the thumbnail pic.
And they hold hands in such an awkward way that it looks like an AI drew it.
These billionaires might as well be AI. They have no human feelings.
Does she have a TMNT left hand?
Definitely.
Could be an AI art left hand
I think he’s holding her middle two fingers, and she’s grabbing with her free fingers. Because yeah, otherwise it looks very AI generated.
It’s even worse if you look at the full picture. How the fuck is her plastic surgery that horrible when she’s with one of the richest people on the fucking planet?
People who get multiple plastic surgeries often request to make their features more and more extreme.
Jocelyn Wildenstein, aka Lion Woman, is a prime example.
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Rubber robot man can only interface with strange robot woman.
Get rid of income taxes and do a national Land Value Tax on all business properties instead, like Henry George talked 145 years ago, problem solved.
Okay, but Bezos makes the bulk of his money on intellectual property and service fees, not physical real estate.
What you’re proposing is still, fundamentally, a tax cut for Tech guys and a big tax hike on the agricultural / mineral / business real estate sectors. It also sets up this very fluid goalpost of “What is an acre of land worth?”
We play this game in Texas, and there’s an enormous incentive for regional economic interests to decide who the Texas Comptroller and Texas Railroad Commissioner is, because these two get to functionally dictate how much tax will be collected on land assets. By contrast, the head of the IRS taxes all dollars equally.
You make some really good points here. I’m a Texas resident as well, so I’ve seen the f’ery the State gov does in favor of the politically connected cronies first hand too (e.g. the 5000+ uncapped nat gas wellheads that the tax payers are stuck with health and clean up costs on instead of the companies that profited on them). But the thing with a nationally applied tax is not subjected to the cheaply bought corruption of the State and local officials (although I will agree that on a Federal level even more f’ery can happen, which is why the Federal income tax is being turned ever more into a penalty on so called “middle class” earners, rather than a tax solely on the wealthiest among us, which is how it was done when it was first introduced in 1913).
The thing is that income can easily be hidden, moved or not reported, and it takes lots of resources at both the business and bureaucratic level to track and account for it. And it’s way easier for the uber-wealthy to hide their assets, or to use political influence to create income tax loopholes, than it is for to do that for those that live from paycheck to paycheck. Where as it’s a lot easier to know who owns a property and what they are doing with it. And a nationally applied tax can’t be avoided simply by moving to another State.As for “What is an acre of land worth?” - with a Land Value Tax you are basing that on the market value of solely the “unimproved” plot of land in an area, so that someone with an empty lot pays the same tax as someone with a huge apartment tower on the plot next door. That way, the LVT does not discourage developing, farming, mining or building in the way a standard property tax (which charges more based on what is on top of the land) does.
As far as exemptions to the LVT goes, I’d say no one should ever be forced to pay rent to the government in perpetuity on their actual home, so a homestead exemption for primary residences should be put in place for sure. Multi-million vacation homes and air bnb’s, seem to me should be paying a national LVT though. But buildings that are all apartments seem to me should also receive exemptions, so that housing development is not discouraged by implementing the tax. Another positive thing with putting the LVT on office buildings is that it incentivises allowing remote working for businesses.
Also - on an ethical level, I’d say by default people are entitled to the entire fruits of their justly engaged in labors, and that taxes are optimally applied via “pigouvian” paradigms, where those that are creating “negative externalities” have to pay the rest of society for the damages in health, clean up and congestion costs they are putting onto others. In other words, in a better world we would just tax polluters rather than wage earners. I will grant that creating a purely pigouvian taxation system has some big issues in how it is assessed and applied though, so that’s where the LVT can help as alternative.
I can also grant that completely replacing the massive revenues that come from income tax with an LVT might shift too much taxation onto some - in which case I’d say a good transition to try would be replacing the payroll tax (for which the Federal gov takes in over $1 Trillion in revenue a year) with the LVT. Payroll taxes to me seem to be the most evil tax, as they penalize both those who are earning wages as well as burdening businesses that are employing people.
Anyway - not holding my breath for any of these proposed changes, just playing wish upon a star, trying to think of better ways of funding needed services without descending into enabling blatant governmental theft and corruption.
The thing is that income can easily be hidden, moved or not reported, and it takes lots of resources at both the business and bureaucratic level to track and account for it.
That’s largely a consequence of our privatized financial system. Give everyone a Federal Reserve bank account, let people do fee-less banking at the Post Office, establish individual publicly available revolving credit at the prime rate equal to… idk, 10% of your net worth… for daily consumption and 50% for big ticket items. Suddenly everything becomes a lot easier to track and a lot cheaper to manage.
You’ll bankrupt the surviving credit card companies and every major retail bank. And, you know, that’ll cause some problems. But if we’re going to overhaul the entire underpinning of federal revenues, why not shoot for the moon?
As for “What is an acre of land worth?” - with a Land Value Tax you are basing that on the market value of solely the “unimproved” plot of land in an area
But that’s entirely speculative, as real estate markets fluctuate heavily from year to year. I watched my own house gain and lose over 30% in the course of a few years, during the housing boom/bust. And I’m just a humble starter-home guy living in a hot market, not some Blackrock / Berkshire Hathaway juggernaut juggle portfolios in the trillions.
Income taxes are great because income is inherently liquid. If you’re paying out at payroll, you’re never going to not have that money, because the tax comes off before it even hits your bank account. Land Value Taxes are trying to tax you on an illiquid asset. If you’re picking up a tab that fluctuates this heavily, you’re setting lots and lots of people up for a sudden surge in state-owned debts. And that’s a whole new kind of problem.
I’d say by default people are entitled to the entire fruits of their justly engaged in labors, and that taxes are optimally applied via “pigouvian” paradigms, where those that are creating “negative externalities” have to pay the rest of society for the damages in health, clean up and congestion costs they are putting onto others.
Listen, far be it for me to deny the man the sweat from his brow. However, what you’re talking about isn’t a tax issue, its a pay issue. As a contractor, I bill at $250/hr and get paid a meager $60. I’m soaked for 76% of my gross revenue before I even get issued a paystub.
If you want to abolish the wage relationship and guarantee everyone collects what they’re due, my ears are open. But I’m not sure whether I’m going to move mountains over the $10 the Feds collect after I’ve been scalped by my employer for $190.
That’s before you get into how pigouvian taxes are a bitch to calculate and heavily regressive if they aren’t properly amortized.
Anyway - not holding my breath for any of these proposed changes
No. The political system at the moment is nothing if not heavily gridlocked.
But I’ve seen conservatives and liberals alike push all sorts of fancy tax reform schemes. The big problem I see is that the tax benefits some folks get aren’t big enough to build popular support. And the tax hikes others get are guaranteed to provoke enormous outrage.
The only real path forward appears to be nibbling around the edges and refusing to fund the bulk of the IRS so nobody important ever actually gets punished for evasion.
They didn’t mention getting rid of those taxes. Just income tax.
Or, just get rid of capital gains taxes and tax it marginally at the regular rate.
I don’t think that would be really more effective as the federal income tax in the US caps at a really low rate.
And personal properties over the first $10 million or so.
Basically I think the Land Value Tax should apply to any land that isn’t under either a primary residence, or isn’t under a building that solely provides primary residences for others. So that way developing housing is not discouraged, and people aren’t paying rent into perpetuity to the gov for their actual home. In that way, yes, second and vacation homes would be taxed, But the thing to understand is that an LVT is different from standard property tax, in that you don’t charged more tax depending on what is built on the land, you are only assessed based the value of the unimproved land.
Imagine despising the country that facilitated the acquisition of your embarrassing hoard of wealth to begin with this much.
Does Jeff treat his parents that gave him a quarter million to start with this much disrespect as well? Or was their part in facilitating his success one that he actually acknowledges?
I genuinely love your use of the word embarrassing here. We need to normalize treating insane personal/family wealth as an embarrassment instead of something to be respected. With very few exceptions you only become a billionaire through inheritance of wealth undoubtedly built on exploitation, or by exploiting others yourself. They should be embarrassed by that.
I don’t think there are any exceptions. A billion is such an unfathomably large amount that I’m pretty sure you MUST rely on exploitation to ever acquire that much.
I allowed for the possibility of a rare exception just in case. The two possibilities that come to mind are Notch (creator of Minecraft) and Taylor Swift. Both certainly depended on the work of others to become a billionaire, so there was likely some degree of exploitation (obviously in the Marxist sense there was) but maybe not at the scale of people like Bezos. I certainly haven’t heard of Taylor Swift’s employees pissing in jars on a warehouse floor.
Swift had very wealthy parents from the outset so while she wasn’t billionaire-rich to start, she enjoyed huge advantages that most musically -inclined kids never would have. She certainly seems to enjoy the obscene wealth she has now, what with her disregard of the environment while jet setting around the world. I say all of this as a legit fan of her music, even though I hate that she isn’t massively donating her wealth.
I’m less sure about Notch. It sounds like he’s a bit of an internet edgelord these days so I’m not super optimistic that he grew his wealth “fairly”.
That said, I fundamentally do agree with you and strongly believe that billionaires should be taxed until they’re no longer billionaires.
I’ll allow this much - Swift is better than Bezos and Musk. At least she pays her employees better than market value. But still, she could afford to double that for each employee, and she’d still be fine. She’d be fine with taking a tour bus across the states. She’d be fine not letting everyone random celeb who needs to be a town over use her jet, for which she probably makes a fair bit from.
From what I recall with Notch, he kinda turned into a tool, no? For what it’s worth, he’s probably as close to a “respectable billionaire” in that he’s made his money and now I see him literally nowhere, so at least he got his and is now out of the way.
i like that the article mentions at the end that he bought 2 mansions and is considering buying 3 more to knock them down and then spend $200M building a different house.
If I had to come up with a comically overdone billionaire for a story, i don’t think i could come up with anything like that lmao.
One already is doing that in my state.
What the fuck is up with her claw thing that’s grasping his hand???
I mean what the fuck is also up with him making a fist while she grasps her hand? Is that like some sort of manliness role play
she saw the photographer and she’s trying to hold him back from sucker-punching an Amazon warehouse worker he’s just spotted
AI hands
His girlfriend’s a Canadian AI. You wouldn’t know her.
It really does look like it but I think there’s something else happening here. Her human suit doesn’t quite fit right
She doesn’t look human.
The longer I look at this picture the more she looks like the bug in an Edgar suit.
You would think he could afford a more attractive sugar baby
He’s got an actual alien, that can’t be cheap
It is kinda a shame. If you look at some before and after pics of her, she had a great face.
Yeah, pretty much universal comment about all plastic surgeries
don’t dick moves like this create incentives for states to decrease tax?
Ostensibly. But the real value of a business owner isn’t in the personal taxes they pay, its in the taxes their staff pays. The bulk of Amazon’s workforce is going to stick to New York and California and Texas, because that’s where the major ports and transit hubs that Amazon needs to operate exist. These states will still rake in tens of billions from the 1.6M Amazon staffers who still need to do their jobs.
You work in the high tax states and retire to the low tax states. Bezos is functionally done being an executive. Now he’s just another coked up Miami fuckboi. But current CEO Andy Jassy will be staying in Capital Hill, Seattle for the tail end of his career because that’s where the actual work of running the Amazon corporation takes place.
yea maybe, I was more imagining like moving to avoid tax but given his level of income I hope he is not running away from a tax which amounts to like 1/1000th of his wealth. maybe he is just moving to move, but who knows…
maybe he is just moving to move, but who knows…
He’s a Cuban with family ties in Florida and a man who loves to cover himself in glitter paste and get horny in a pile of college co-eds. I gotta say, I don’t think its just about the tax rates. Otherwise, all billionaires would be living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Oh good I was worried about his wealth poor fella
I hope he’ll be okay. With $2 billion liquidated, his cash on hand is only the average lifetime earnings of 1,176 Americans.
Assuming the average American starts working at age 18 and stops working at 67, that’s just 57,624 years’ worth of American wages.
It’s a shame he’s considering exercising another $6 billion of his stock between now and the end of the year just to get by.
Miami is sinking.
Then why are the banks still investing in property over there?
Sunk cost fallacy.
You don’t think they’ll use money to stop the water from flooding them?
So happy for him. Maybe he can buy some empty bottles for his employees.
Huh. So the Jeff Bezos Trump attacked regularly for being an ultra-left liberal pinko commie red not only moved to Florida, but moved to Florida so he wouldn’t have to pay as much tax.
That doesn’t make much sense… unless Trump’s assessment of him was wrong. But how likely is that?
Why do all these shit bags keep moving to my swamp? Get out of my swamp!
