{"id":13333,"date":"2024-04-08T13:47:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T13:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=13333"},"modified":"2024-04-08T13:47:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T13:47:12","slug":"the-billionaires-guide-to-doing-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=13333","title":{"rendered":"The billionaire\u2019s guide to doing taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Do you want to pay less taxes? Great. Step one, be a rich person. Then, buy a yacht. Or a sports team. Give a lot to charity. Lose some money in the stock market<\/a>. Above all, make sure most of your money exists in the form of assets, not cash \u2014 stocks, real estate, a Dutch master painting, fine jewelry, or whatever else strikes your fancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say that money is a universal language, but it speaks at different volumes. When you have a fathomless bounty of wealth, money doesn\u2019t quite register as an expense until you add a lot of zeros to the end \u2014 so spending a lot to save a lot is a no brainer. It\u2019s why the mega-rich often hire expensive tax lawyers, wealth managers, or even set up a whole office dedicated to tax strategy. \u201cIt\u2019s not just preparing the return,\u201d says Paul Wieseneck, a tax accountant and director of the Fuoco Group. \u201cThere\u2019s so much more involved in planning, in accumulating, offsetting, and trying to mitigate the taxes as best as possible.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Jeff Bezos, when he was still Amazon<\/a> CEO, had a base salary of around $80,000 a year<\/a>. Elon Musk doesn\u2019t take a salary at all at Tesla<\/a>. Apple<\/a> CEO Tim Cook<\/a> does get a $3 million salary, but it\u2019s a small slice of the $63 million<\/a> he received overall last year. Most wealthy entrepreneurs are paid in bountiful stock rewards; Musk is currently fighting to keep his record-breaking Tesla pay package<\/a>, made up of a bunch of stock options and now valued at almost $56 billion. ProPublica found that, because their income fell below the threshold, at least 18 billionaires got a Covid-19 stimulus check<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul Kiel, a ProPublica reporter who was an integral part of the newsroom\u2019s billionaire tax return stories<\/a>, says the income versus wealth divide was crucial in helping the public understand how differently the wealthy operate. \u201cIf you can avoid income as it\u2019s defined in our system, and still get richer, that\u2019s the best route,\u201d he tells Vox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stocks aren\u2019t taxed until they\u2019re sold \u2014 and even then, what\u2019s taxed is the profit on the sale, called a capital gains tax. Billionaires (usually) don\u2019t sell valuable stock. So how do they afford the daily expenses of life, whether it\u2019s a new pleasure boat or a social media company<\/a>? They borrow against their stock. This revolving door of credit allows them to buy what they want without incurring a capital gains tax. Though the \u201cbuy, borrow, die\u201d strategy isn\u2019t quite as sweet right now because interest rates are high, a Wall Street Journal piece from 2021<\/a> notes that those with $100 million or more could get interest rates as low as 0.87 percent at Merrill Lynch. The taxable value of a stock also resets when it\u2019s passed on to an heir, so that if a wealthy scion chooses to sell their inherited stock, they\u2019d only pay a tax on the increase in value since the original owner\u2019s death.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“\u201cWe\u2019ve talked to a lot of former IRS agents, and they would often hear the line that for wealthy taxpayers, their tax return is like an opening offer,\u201d says Kiel.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/money\/2024\/3\/13\/24086102\/billionaires-wealthy-tax-avoidance-loopholes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Do you want to pay less taxes? Great. Step one, be a rich person. Then, buy a yacht. Or a sports team. Give a lot to charity. Lose some money in the stock market. Above all, make sure most of your money exists in the form of assets, not cash \u2014 stocks, real estate, a Dutch master painting, fine jewelry, or whatever else strikes your fancy.
\nThey say that money is a universal language, but it speaks at different volumes. When you have a fathomless bounty of wealth, money doesn\u2019t quite register as an expense until you add a lot of zeros to the end \u2014 so spending a lot to save a lot is a no brainer. It\u2019s why the mega-rich often hire expensive tax lawyers, wealth managers, or even set up a whole office dedicated to tax strategy. \u201cIt\u2019s not just preparing the return,\u201d says Paul Wieseneck, a tax accountant and director of the Fuoco Group. \u201cThere\u2019s so much more involved in planning, in accumulating, offsetting, and trying to mitigate the taxes as best as possible.\u201d”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Jeff Bezos, when he was still Amazon CEO, had a base salary of around $80,000 a year. Elon Musk doesn\u2019t take a salary at all at Tesla. Apple CEO Tim Cook does get a $3 million salary, but it\u2019s a small slice of the $63 million he received overall last year. Most wealthy entrepreneurs are paid in bountiful stock rewards; Musk is currently fighting to keep his record-breaking Tesla pay package, made up of a bunch of stock options and now valued at almost $56 billion. ProPublica found that, because their income fell below the threshold, at least 18 billionaires got a Covid-19 stimulus check.<\/p>\n

Paul Kiel, a ProPublica reporter who was an integral part of the newsroom\u2019s billionaire tax return stories, says the income versus wealth divide was crucial in helping the public understand how differently the wealthy operate. \u201cIf you can avoid income as it\u2019s defined in our system, and still get richer, that\u2019s the best route,\u201d he tells Vox.<\/p>\n

Stocks aren\u2019t taxed until they\u2019re sold \u2014 and even then, what\u2019s taxed is the profit on the sale, called a capital gains tax. Billionaires (usually) don\u2019t sell valuable stock. So how do they afford the daily expenses of life, whether it\u2019s a new pleasure boat or a social media company? They borrow against their stock. This revolving door of credit allows them to buy what they want without incurring a capital gains tax. Though the \u201cbuy, borrow, die\u201d strategy isn\u2019t quite as sweet right now because interest rates are high, a Wall Street Journal piece from 2021 notes that those with $100 million or more could get interest rates as low as 0.87 percent at Merrill Lynch. The taxable value of a stock also resets when it\u2019s passed on to an heir, so that if a wealthy scion chooses to sell their inherited stock, they\u2019d only pay a tax on the increase in value since the original owner\u2019s death.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“\u201cWe\u2019ve talked to a lot of former IRS agents, and they would often hear the line that for wealthy taxpayers, their tax return is like an opening offer,\u201d says Kiel.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/money\/2024\/3\/13\/24086102\/billionaires-wealthy-tax-avoidance-loopholes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[363,100,141,101],"class_list":["post-13333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-inequality","tag-rich","tag-taxes","tag-wealthy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13334,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13333\/revisions\/13334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}