Re:Using the hunger I experienced as a kid to teach mine abo...
by jlokier on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @02:01PM
(#21983356)
Making Jeff Bezos' net worth suddenly belong to other people would be a massive event, and if done clumsily would undermine the foundations of property and ownership, which so many things depend on. Even those aren't fundamental truths, but people really care about them. Not likely to happen without a catastrophe (e.g. WW3).
On the other hand, making it so someone like Jeff Bezos could never accrue $100bil in the first place is a lot more plausible.
> i do not see how else shares can be feasibly taxed until the moment they are sold.
Oh, that's just a matter of assigning a notional value through some accounting estimation process. The value might be wrong but that's ok, overpaid tax would be returned if a lower value was discovered at the next sale.
But why sell the shares anyway. If you're going to transfer $50bil (currently in shares) to lots of poor people, transfer the shares. I expect people would find a way to trade their microshares afterwards to get the things they need. Amazon would probably be happy to run the microshare-trading service for a small commission :-)
On the other hand, making it so someone like Jeff Bezos could never accrue $100bil in the first place is a lot more plausible.
> i do not see how else shares can be feasibly taxed until the moment they are sold.
Oh, that's just a matter of assigning a notional value through some accounting estimation process. The value might be wrong but that's ok, overpaid tax would be returned if a lower value was discovered at the next sale.
But why sell the shares anyway. If you're going to transfer $50bil (currently in shares) to lots of poor people, transfer the shares. I expect people would find a way to trade their microshares afterwards to get the things they need. Amazon would probably be happy to run the microshare-trading service for a small commission :-)