Comment by bedhead | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bedhead | Hacker News Reader

There's an easy and obvious solution: have extremely high estate tax rates for estates valued above some threshold like (just picking a random high number) $100 million. I have no problem with Bezos being worth over $100 billion - he earned every penny. What I despise is the idea of his great-great grandkids being multi-billionaires. So have an estate tax of 90% above $100 million, think of what this accomplishes:

* Bezos enjoys the money he rightfully earned.

* His heirs are still rich - just not mega billionaires.

* The US gets an effective wealth tax.

* Bezos is incentivized to spend the money, much of it I'm sure charitably.

It seems like the fairest way to do things. Yes, there are tradeoffs like everything else. It would force private family-owned companies to sell. But I hate this idea of massive capital accumulation that just sits there. It's reminiscent of land ownership in medieval times. While we're at it we should change the laws about charitable foundations that force them to spend more rapidly and not create these semi-permanent structures that basically exist as Sphinxes for rich people. I'll add in one more: we should have a windfall wealth tax for all these tech billionaires.

The idea of a mogul having earned every penny seems absurd to me. They take advantage of publicly funded research and infrastructure, a stable society, and all sorts of positive externalities. There's a reason why you rarely see tech startups emerge out of Sierra Leone.

That's not to say that they didn't get the ball rolling, or that the company would exist without them, just that the Ayn Rand moral calculus doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Unfortunately, this simple argument is taken as if you are advocating socialism. When this simple argument can not reach traction with the majority of the citizenry, it feels hopeless.

This presumes the heirs of future billionaires will be sexually reproduced children and not clones. If a 2040 Jeff Bezos makes clones of himself, do the clones have full rights to his fortune?

That would have to be determined by new laws but no, I'd imagine they would be treated as separate person's who are relatives of Bezos.

They are technically twins, just with several years’ offset, so yeah. I wouldn’t even do a new law.

It's all smoke and mirrors. If I want to transfer wealth to my kids, I could just 'invest' in their startup with an insanely high valuation (eg, 1% for $1B stake). I could also hire my children for $10m/year 10 years before I plan on being deceased. There's also just the ability to give 'gifts', living trusts, etc.

Additionally, it's a good way to force capital-flight. People can just move their money to more favorable jurisdictions. Money goes to where it's most useful and least taxed.

Simply put, 90% tax on anything is going to result in a $0 tax revenue. Keep that tax reasonable and you might see some of it.

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