[__turbobrew__]

If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars.

I don’t believe donating $400 really feels that satisfying, the impact is fairly negligible in most contexts whereas donating $400k can very visibly improve a lot of lives.

I think this illustrates just how much a billion dollars is and maybe why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society.

[mitchellh]

> If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars.

1. Net worth is significantly less than that (taxes + heavy philanthropy)

2. $400K donation is orders (plural) of magnitude off our actual philanthropic giving in total. This is just one donation.

[jjtheblunt]

> I think this illustrates ... why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society.

isn't the accrued billion dollars what remains after a much larger amount was taxed at roughly 50%?

(of course could be spread across multiple years, but the essence remains)

How would the "very small wealth tax" be calculated, that you propose?

[__turbobrew__]

> wasn't the accrued billion dollars the remainder after being taxed at a much higher rate (around 50% federal and state, if California) as it was being accrued?

Most capital owned by billionaires is not taxed until it is sold, so in the case of Hashimoto and others they most likely have not paid tax on the majority of their wealth.

> How would the "very small wealth tax" be calculated, that you propose?

In the same way we calculate income tax, we make it up. Most numbers I see are between 1-3%. We could just start at 1% as that is the most conservative number.

[mediaman]

He has this wealth as a function of having sold the equity in the company he co-founded, so in fact virtually all his wealth has already gone through a tax event at the federal and state levels.

[GavinMcG]

50%? No, that’s for high wages. And previous taxation is irrelevant: we as a society get to choose what is taxed, and there’s no inherent reason why only a single tax should apply to someone. Sales taxes, for example (which disproportionately burden those with less wealth) are paid out of one’s already-taxed income.

[rpearl]

> How would the "very small wealth tax" be calculated, that you propose?

It is possible to tax unrealized assets. We already do. For example, a property owner pays property tax based on the value of their property, even when they are not selling it.

It is possible for billionaires to borrow against their held assets. It is therefore also possible to calculate a tax on them.

[csomar]

> why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society

How? It'll just go to the gov. budget which will be mostly used to pay for bloated healthcare, military and interest.

[throwitaway222]

People with that much wealth should keep their money and use it where they see fit. A "wealth tax" forces some people to sell stock since not everyone has liquid assets. The CA "wealth" tax was written in a way that they could instantly turn $1B -> $1M or $100K overnight without a vote.

So many reasons why it's not a good idea to have a wealth tax. But the biggest reason is that nearly all our tax money is going to fraud. This is why our economy would BOOM if we got rid of a lot of taxes and reduced our fed/state governments a LOT. I just want roads, military and police. There is no reason why we should allow our government to be weaponized or turned into a nanny state when SO much of they money they collect is wasted.

Corporations that provide money for causes is often looked at because it's an investment. The world can learn a lot of free market capitalism, but it keeps pretending that half the people won't just DIE in communism.

[radiator]

While I agree that tax money gets wasted by the government, I must note that there exist other countries, explicitly not free market capitalist, where getting ultra reach is not the aim (crazy, eh?) and in the last 40 years they have come a long way in creating prosperity for everyone.

[bluecalm]

>>If you assume Hashimotos net worth is one billion dollars, a $400k donation is equivalent to a $400 donation if your net worth is one million dollars.

It's not an equivalent. It's proportionally the same but it's completely different.

>>I think this illustrates just how much a billion dollars is and maybe why a very small wealth tax can be used for a lot of good in society.

If anything it illustrates taxes should be lower for people like Hashimoto. Giving even more money to the government instead of leaving it with people like Hashimoto will result in a huge net loss.

[grim_io]

That is a very privileged out of touch comment to make, no offense.

In many(most?) parts of the world, $400 is the equivalent of months of good salary.

[__turbobrew__]

How is it out of touch? I donated much more than Hashimoto did relative to our net worths, but I cannot deny that I would have felt much more satisfied making a 1000x impact if I was a billionaire.

I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house.

[mitchellh]

> How is it out of touch? I donated much more than Hashimoto did relative to our net worths, but I cannot deny that I would have felt much more satisfied making a 1000x impact if I was a billionaire.

You have no way of possibly knowing this. And I bet you its not true.

I'm no longer a billionaire, partially because I paid an astronomical amount in taxes (I don't play the tax avoidance games). And partially because we're donating a whole lot more than $400K per year. This is ONE donation. We don't publicize most of our giving because it attracts armchair critics like you, and its distracting from the goals.

(I make an exception for Zig and technical things because my influence for better and worse usually is net positive for the initiative)

But, more importantly, I don't think playing these "my donation is worth more than yours" games is productive. If you want to think that way thats fine, I won't defend myself or my family any further than this post.

[throwitaway222]

The problem is that when government spends $1,000,000 on your halfway house, it provides instant relief. It creates beds. The next year the government does it, the number of employees has doubled and it creates 20% more beds instead of the original amount. The third year it creates no beds and we find that 10% of the beds are gone, and the number of employees is now 1000. The government didn't care how well the money was invested.

Now if you invest $6000 and no one else was doing it, they would probably have created some percentage of 1 bed out of it. And if 18 other people invest $100 each maybe that's enough to complete the bed for a year. And if those altogether 19 people hear that the money went to good use, they donate again and they tell their friends. Maybe the halfway house in 10 years starts earning $25k per year and they keep costs low and the beds start increasing, they rent more space.

The government forced funding breaks it and turns it into a fake jobs program, the community funding it actually makes the service accountable.

[bluecalm]

Hashimoto did more valuable work than you and then he is in position to do more impact wherever he pleases.

>>I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house.

We need some mechanism to select people who makes the choice. Popularity/lying contest (politics) ain't it. People making money conducting honest business is the best mechanism we have.

[bionsystem]

A few things to note. 1 billion isn't a thousand times a million. If you make a conservative 5% let's say out of your net worth, you still need to work with a million, whereas you don't with a billion. So, technically, $400 with a million is some amount of work hours, whereas $400k with a billion is just pocket change taken out of more than most people lifetime's of earnings that is just 1 year of your interest.

Also, a lot more people (more than 1000x) have $400 to give than $400k so in a sense if people with $400 to give were all being very generous, they could amount to a lot more than what billionnaires could give.

[ar_lan]

> 1 billion isn't a thousand times a million.

What?

[Fwirt]

The point they were trying to make was that if you take appreciation of assets into account, if your billion is appreciating by a relatively modest 5% per year, you are passively earning 50 million/year. Whereas someone with one million passively earns 50 thousand/year. One is enough to live in luxury anywhere in the world for several lifetimes, the other is enough to live comfortably in some parts of the US (or like a king in many parts of the world) but not enough to throw 6 figures at a programming language foundation for fun.

[skybrian]

Or to take an intermediate value, $10 million is 500k a year and most people will find it difficult to spend that much on themselves, so it’s going to grow on its own and compound. It will grow more rapidly if some is invested in the stock market.

Also, donating appreciated stock avoids taxes. This donation may have come out of a donor-advised fund.

Rich people can make substantial charitable donations rather easily and make a big difference. I suggest we encourage them.

[bionsystem]

Thanks, that is much clearer than my wording.

[vga1]

Perhaps he was making a subtle point about liquidity.

[bionsystem]

Ah there is liquidity too, but your brother comment makes my point clearer.

About liquidity, yes most people with a million net worth actually have more than half in their house, so technically it is much harder for them to throw cash than somebody with a billion and a much smaller % of their worth in illiquid assets such as property or unlisted companies. I wish I had made this point too.

[Mawr]

I don't know man, maybe read the rest of the comment? Are you serious?