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.
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?
At least he's dating someone roughly his own age. He could probably do like Musk and date a series of women in their 30s, but he opted for a different strategy.
I hate everything about Jeff Bezos, especially his very existence, but this is the one thing I think it's dumb to criticise him for.
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.
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 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.
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...
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?
Do billionaires actually save money with such moves? After purchasing a new mansion, new staff/relocations, still having to travel to "librul" cities for their fine arts/entertainment, seems it just about cancels out.
If you value that kind of move at $600 million I'm happy to let you know I'm offering the services for a discount this week for only $580 million. Hit me up.