this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Lefty Memes
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Do billionaires actually have billions in real money sitting around? I've always thought the billions were in stocks and couldn't be taxed until they cashed it out and they could technically lose everything if the stock price falls. That's really fucked up if true
That is actually the case. Billionaires aren't swimming in a room full of cash and they don't some some secret mega vault that holds $100 billion. Most of these guys are founders of very successful corporations, and so they naturally have a larger than average share. Bezos has most of his wealth in Amazon stocks, Zuckerberg in Meta, Musk in Tesla and SpaceX, Gates in Microsoft, and so on. Their wealth goes up and down depending on how well the company they're most tied to is doing. In the US and most other places, stocks aren't taxed until they're sold. Once a transaction happens, there will be a tax. Usually tax rates go up with profits and income, and there are deductions for losses (to a degree). It's an okay system, the issue is that it isn't being enforced. Our system is full of loopholes that these billionaires exploit to pay way less than they should. But billionaires not paying taxes are nothing compared to corporations not paying ANY taxes on billions in annual profits. That's what we should go after.
How do they have cash on hand to do stuff then?
There are loopholes to help them out. For example, they could take out loans against their wealth, and do whatever they need that way. The money isn't taxed, and the terms of these loans are usually very favorable towards the billionaires since their connections go deep.
What I've seen is that they're essentially taking loans against their stocks - The banks know you're good for it, so they're willing to lend you a ton at super low rates. Then you just pay interest forever and it'll never catch up to the principal within your lifetime.
They do, just not that much of it when compared to their real wealth.