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I'm actually pretty fiscally conservative but I think it's ridiculous that someone abused the intent of a Roth IRA by accumulating $5 billion into it.

The whole purpose of IRAs is to encourage regular people to save for retirement. It was not meant to provide billionaires tax loopholes to avoid paying millions or even billions of dollars in taxes.

It's kind of like playing a game with someone. 99% of the people are following the rules and then some weisenheimer comes up with an idea that while technically not breaking a rule goes against the spirit of everything that the game stands for. What happens in that instance is the other players of the game will say, "Nice try, but no." This is what Congress is doing.

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Making a lucky investment is “abusing the intent”?

$5B is more than the GDP of several dozen countries. I dont think that was the intent of the law.

Sure, but there was nothing in the law that said “this tax advantaged account is only for return of less than 10,000%”

yes

It wasn't luck. He sold himself assets at below market value to launder them into his IRA under the contribution limit.

Wait, you’re accusing Thiel of money laundering?

I do not believe this behavior meets the definition of criminal money laundering, if that's what you're asking.

I think you should be able to invest in your IRA however you like, but there really should have been a limit on how much is tax advantaged. Or perhaps just a limit in terms of how large disbursements can be while still being tax advantaged?

Congress is preventing all people from investing in private companies within retirement accounts, not just rich people. Adding the cap is fine but preventing private company investment is asinine.

Preventing all people from investing in private companies or closing a loophole that the law was never intended to allow?

Because anyone can continue to invest in private companies. You just can’t get tax free growth from them.

Ignoring rather or not you should be able to use an IRA to invest in private companies for a moment:

>anyone can continue to invest in private companies.

is a very bold claim.

I meant to imply within retirement accounts. But the intention of retirement accounts is to get you to save for retirement through investments. Private companies are arguably the most effective way to grow wealth. Congress is saying they don't want you doing this they only want you to have access to stocks and bonds because private investments do to well.

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