Elon Musk Income Taxes

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gounion
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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gounion wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 4:38 pm Image
Watch board cons, who know nothing about economics, argue with him.
I sigh in your general direction.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Ben Stein is a horrid person, js.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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gounion wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 8:37 am No income? Really? So he didn't do anything at all in 2018? No businesses, no interest income, nothing?

Then how is he the richest man on earth?
He takes no salary from his businesses. His businesses do not pay dividends. His compensation comes in the form of stock options and stock awards. So the $455 million was from stock options which also left him with a net of $1 billion. A guy like Musk can live off of $1 billion pretty much forever. He lives in a prefab rental on Spacex property in Texas. He doesn’t have a yacht or a plane. Sold all of his California property. He can go years without income. Currently, however, he’s exercising options at a brisk pace so as to not loose the options. Options have an expiration date. He’ll pay income tax rate of 37%, +3.8% aca surcharge , +0.9 Medicare surcharge. on the exercise of the options. The current options are worth like $28 billion. An effective tax rate of 42%.

He’s the richest because of those stock options and stock awards.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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gounion wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 4:38 pm Image
“ Taxes on the Rich Were Not That Much Higher in the 1950s”

“ There is a common misconception that high-income Americans are not paying much in taxes compared to what they used to. Proponents of this view often point to the 1950s, when the top federal income tax rate was 91 percent for most of the decade.[1] However, despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42 percent of their income in taxes. As a result, the tax burden on high-income households today is only slightly lower than what these households faced in the 1950s.

The graph below shows the average tax rate that the top 1 percent of Americans have faced over the last century. The data comes from a recent paper by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman that attempts to account for all federal, state, and local taxes paid by different groups of Americans over the last 100 years.[2]”

https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the- ... -not-high/
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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The tax foundation is a right-wing corporate front group to protect the rich and corporations from taxation.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Bludogdem wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 7:30 pm He takes no salary from his businesses. His businesses do not pay dividends. His compensation comes in the form of stock options and stock awards. So the $455 million was from stock options which also left him with a net of $1 billion. A guy like Musk can live off of $1 billion pretty much forever. He lives in a prefab rental on Spacex property in Texas. He doesn’t have a yacht or a plane. Sold all of his California property. He can go years without income. Currently, however, he’s exercising options at a brisk pace so as to not loose the options. Options have an expiration date. He’ll pay income tax rate of 37%, +3.8% aca surcharge , +0.9 Medicare surcharge. on the exercise of the options. The current options are worth like $28 billion. An effective tax rate of 42%.

He’s the richest because of those stock options and stock awards.
No income :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

If you believe that... :lol: :lol: :lol:

As the Propublica report states, he can do things to hide income, like taking out loans to live on, against his holdings, so that he gets an income in reality without paying taxes on that income.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by Bludogdem »

gounion wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 9:33 pm No income :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

If you believe that... :lol: :lol: :lol:

As the Propublica report states, he can do things to hide income, like taking out loans to live on, against his holdings, so that he gets an income in reality without paying taxes on that income.
When you have $1 billion after taxes you don’t need to take out loans.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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gounion wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 9:30 pm The tax foundation is a right-wing corporate front group to protect the rich and corporations from taxation.
“ Greenberg is not pulling his numbers out of thin air. Rather, he’s drawing them directly from a recent paper by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman in which the three economists—all well-loved by progressives—estimate the average tax rates Americans at different income levels have actually paid over time. ”

The guys who provided the data are anything but right wing.

“ There are a few obvious reasons why the taxes the rich actually paid in the 1950s were so much lower than the confiscatory top rates that sat on the books. For one, the max tax rates on investment income were far lower than on wages and salaries, which gave a lot of wealthy individuals some relief. Tax avoidance may have also been a big problem. Moreover, there simply weren’t that many extraordinarily rich households. Those fabled 90 percent tax rates only bit at incomes over $200,000, the equivalent of more than $2 million in today’s dollars. As Greenberg notes, the tax may have only applied to 10,000 families.”

https://slate.com/business/2017/08/the- ... -rich.html
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by carmenjonze »

Bludogdem wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 10:32 pm When you have $1 billion after taxes you don’t need to take out loans.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by ProfX »

For people interested in more than bloviation, and "blue dogs" quoting RW Tax Foundation bull dada,

I also am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV, but I know some, one perhaps even closer than I would like, :D

Robert Reich often talks about the same years Ben Stein does as the "Great Compression" of the American economy.

Here's a nice essay.
https://robertreich.org/post/5993482080

But this documentary really fleshes out his ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_for_All

The bottom line is during these years of American prosperity, a Keynesian philosophy prevailed. This was before Milton Friedman came along on the scene and built his infamous Chicago School. Reich and Paul Krugman are both neo-Keynesians.

Why does he call this period the "Great Compression"? Because it was one of the periods of least economic inequality in American history, with the gap between rich and poor being the lowest, and there being a huge and growing middle class. In technical terms: a low Gini coefficient.

Some of this has to do something with things no magic wand can reverse. That growing middle class was built by a large amount of people doing industrial factory work with labor unions promoting good wages and benefits. Well, we are now a post industrial society, and no magic wand is going to bring back that system again. Also, the other key footnote is that time of great prosperity wasn't shared by all workers, largely due to segregation, including racially segregated unions. That's also part of the story.

But getting back to taxes and economic policy.

Let's summarize the cliff notes version of Keynesianism. Key concept: it is not wealthy or rich "job creators" that are the engine of the economy and its growth. I mean, yes, they are the ones doing the hiring, but unlike in so-called "trickle down" there isn't this belief that they will magically create lots of jobs just by showering more tax breaks on them. It is the middle and working classes. They spend most of the money, as consumers of goods and services. They buy more pencils, this means more people with jobs making pencils. (Yes, I'm giving the cliff notes version.) So, if you want a growing and prosperous economy, you put more $ in the hands of workers and the middle class. This means, in general, a progressive tax system, where the wealthy are taxed more, and the middle class and poor taxed less. And yes, you want stimulus spending (the term comes from Keynes) - when you give & have government programs putting more money in the hands of the middle class, they also spend more of it - stimulating the economy.

So again cliff notes: lower taxes on poor and middle class, raise them on the wealthy, ... progressive tax system.
As for government spending, in general, you want to invest in what we might call "human capital" - a healthy, happy, secure labor force means a more productive economy. But in general it's not bad to put more $ in their pockets - since unlike the wealthy they tend to spend it on domestic goods and services, not put it in wild and whacky derivatives or foreign yachts. Of course, the key way to make sure they have more $ in their pockets means talking about wages. Milton Friedman said wages are a discussion between the boss and the employee and should never be touched by government. He didn't even think there should be ANY minimum wage. Well, I, as a Keynesian, disagree. (I am not an economist, but I do think Keynesianism works.)

If Ben Stein can see how much less progressive our tax system has become since the 70s, it's a shame others on the right can't, but ... and trust me yes it's tough for me to say this, but in this case, Ben Stein is right. Go win Ben Stein's money. :D Progressive taxation is not only just and fair, but builds a prosperous economy. (I will agree on the spending side you need to spend the accumulated tax dollars less on bombs that blow up thousands and invest it properly in human capital/human infrastructure, but this is half the problem.) And anyone who doesn't think our tax system (I tend to focus on systems not what Joe Blow is or isn't paying) is less progressive than it was in the 70s is a thing I like to call full of shit. Excuse academic term of art.

I'm sorry if this is TLDR - I don't just bloviate bullshit, being an educator, I like people to understand stuff.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Bludogdem wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 7:36 pm The graph below shows the average tax rate that the top 1 percent of Americans have faced over the last century. The data comes from a recent paper by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman that attempts to account for all federal, state, and local taxes paid by different groups of Americans over the last 100 years.[2]”
Should be noted this is kinda wildly taking Piketty out of context (even that specific paper with his coauthors):

a) Piketty says there should be a wealth tax. Please note, we've beaten the constitutionality argument to death, uninterested in re-entering debate, just noting what he advocates.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/17/economi ... h-tax.html

b) Piketty MOST DEFINITELY says taxes in the U.S. (but not just) are way less progressive than they were in the 50s and this has to do with growing income inequality.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/pik ... e-taxation

In fact, I can't see how evading pointing this out in any way does justice to his actual arguments. Granted, since the Tax Foundation is busy slamming him on most other pages dealing with him, they seem aware.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by gounion »

Bludogdem wrote: Sat Dec 18, 2021 10:32 pm When you have $1 billion after taxes you don’t need to take out loans.
What about the years he had no “income” (according to you)?
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by Bludogdem »

ProfX wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:38 am For people interested in more than bloviation, and "blue dogs" quoting RW Tax Foundation bull dada,

I also am not an economist, nor do I play one on TV, but I know some, one perhaps even closer than I would like, :D

Robert Reich often talks about the same years Ben Stein does as the "Great Compression" of the American economy.

Here's a nice essay.
https://robertreich.org/post/5993482080

But this documentary really fleshes out his ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_for_All

The bottom line is during these years of American prosperity, a Keynesian philosophy prevailed. This was before Milton Friedman came along on the scene and built his infamous Chicago School. Reich and Paul Krugman are both neo-Keynesians.

Why does he call this period the "Great Compression"? Because it was one of the periods of least economic inequality in American history, with the gap between rich and poor being the lowest, and there being a huge and growing middle class. In technical terms: a low Gini coefficient.

Some of this has to do something with things no magic wand can reverse. That growing middle class was built by a large amount of people doing industrial factory work with labor unions promoting good wages and benefits. Well, we are now a post industrial society, and no magic wand is going to bring back that system again. Also, the other key footnote is that time of great prosperity wasn't shared by all workers, largely due to segregation, including racially segregated unions. That's also part of the story.

But getting back to taxes and economic policy.

Let's summarize the cliff notes version of Keynesianism. Key concept: it is not wealthy or rich "job creators" that are the engine of the economy and its growth. I mean, yes, they are the ones doing the hiring, but unlike in so-called "trickle down" there isn't this belief that they will magically create lots of jobs just by showering more tax breaks on them. It is the middle and working classes. They spend most of the money, as consumers of goods and services. They buy more pencils, this means more people with jobs making pencils. (Yes, I'm giving the cliff notes version.) So, if you want a growing and prosperous economy, you put more $ in the hands of workers and the middle class. This means, in general, a progressive tax system, where the wealthy are taxed more, and the middle class and poor taxed less. And yes, you want stimulus spending (the term comes from Keynes) - when you give & have government programs putting more money in the hands of the middle class, they also spend more of it - stimulating the economy.

So again cliff notes: lower taxes on poor and middle class, raise them on the wealthy, ... progressive tax system.
As for government spending, in general, you want to invest in what we might call "human capital" - a healthy, happy, secure labor force means a more productive economy. But in general it's not bad to put more $ in their pockets - since unlike the wealthy they tend to spend it on domestic goods and services, not put it in wild and whacky derivatives or foreign yachts. Of course, the key way to make sure they have more $ in their pockets means talking about wages. Milton Friedman said wages are a discussion between the boss and the employee and should never be touched by government. He didn't even think there should be ANY minimum wage. Well, I, as a Keynesian, disagree. (I am not an economist, but I do think Keynesianism works.)

If Ben Stein can see how much less progressive our tax system has become since the 70s, it's a shame others on the right can't, but ... and trust me yes it's tough for me to say this, but in this case, Ben Stein is right. Go win Ben Stein's money. :D Progressive taxation is not only just and fair, but builds a prosperous economy. (I will agree on the spending side you need to spend the accumulated tax dollars less on bombs that blow up thousands and invest it properly in human capital/human infrastructure, but this is half the problem.) And anyone who doesn't think our tax system (I tend to focus on systems not what Joe Blow is or isn't paying) is less progressive than it was in the 70s is a thing I like to call full of shit. Excuse academic term of art.

I'm sorry if this is TLDR - I don't just bloviate bullshit, being an educator, I like people to understand stuff.
Couple of things 1950’s. Top Capital Gains rate was 25%. Dividends were exempt until 1954.

Then there’s this:
“ How a 91% rate sparked the golden age of tax avoidance in 1950s Hollywood”

“ At least they did in theory. Myself, I had a hard time believing that wealthy people in the 1950s had a different attitude toward the taxman than wealthy people do today. And guess what? I was right. The rich and their well-paid accountants worked just as hard to lower their tax bills as the rich do today — harder, in fact, because failing to do so was incredibly costly. They bridled just as much at what they viewed as confiscatory taxes. And they found — or created — enough loopholes that, according to the Congressional Research Service, the top 0.01% in the 1950s paid not 90% but closer to 45% of their income in taxes.”

“ There were two other tax loopholes favored by actors and other entertainers — loopholes that were largely out of reach for the merely well-to-do. The first was the oil depletion allowance. The second was the collapsible corporation.

The oil depletion allowance was created by Congress in 1926. Meant to give incentives to drill for oil, it reduced the taxable income generated by an oil well by 27.5%. It was, writes Yuxun Willie Tan in the Iowa Historical Review, “the biggest tax loophole in U.S. history.”

Among the first Hollywood stars to understand the tax benefits of the oil depletion allowance were Crosby and Hope. Writes Tan: “They each paid $40,000 to Monty Moncrief (a successful Texas oilman as well as their golfing partner) for a 25% share in a West Texas venture.” Tan continues:

“For this particular venture, both stars earned $5,000,000 each on their initial $40,000 investment. When the depletion allowance was taken into account, $1,375,000 of the $5,000,000 was tax-free. Other Hollywood stars who experienced similar successes in the oil business included Jimmy Stewart, Gene Autry, Don Ameche and Frank Sinatra, who fittingly titled his first oil well ‘Crooner No. 1.’ ”

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi- ... story.html

The 1950’s also lacked the vast entrepreneurial activities of the last 30 years or so.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Bludogdem wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:41 amThe 1950’s also lacked the vast entrepreneurial activities of the last 30 years or so.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

That's so funny! The fifties were a huge boom time. Big difference then was, if you wanted a factory, you paid for it yourself or got investors. You didn't expect the taxpayer to fund it for you.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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gounion wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:59 am What about the years he had no “income” (according to you)?
I didn’t say he had no income. He had no salary. A close read of the ProPublica article, which covers 2006 to 2018, says he paid no income taxes in 2018. So he paid income taxes from 2006 to 2017. Bezos didn’t pay income tax in 2007 and 2011. But he did in all other years of the 2006-2018 period. Rather deceptive of ProPublica to not publish those numbers.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by Bludogdem »

gounion wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:49 am :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

That's so funny! The fifties were a huge boom time. Big difference then was, if you wanted a factory, you paid for it yourself or got investors. You didn't expect the taxpayer to fund it for you.
Yeah, for existing giant businesses. Not a lot of entrepreneurs. The 50’s had its economic growth problems as well.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Bludogdem wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:55 am I didn’t say he had no income. He had no salary. A close read of the ProPublica article, which covers 2006 to 2018, says he paid no income taxes in 2018. So he paid income taxes from 2006 to 2017. Bezos didn’t pay income tax in 2007 and 2011. But he did in all other years of the 2006-2018 period. Rather deceptive of ProPublica to not publish those numbers.
You haven't read the Propublica articles, obviously. I guess that's the only way you can continue your silly defense of the indefensible.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Bludogdem wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:00 am Yeah, for existing giant businesses. Not a lot of entrepreneurs. The 50’s had its economic growth problems as well.
Oh, that's hilarious. Don't try your bullshit false re-writing of history. You can't get that cheese by me, Meat.

All kinds of companies and even industries rose from nothing in the fifties and sixties - without government funding.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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Bludogdem wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 10:41 am The 1950’s also lacked the vast entrepreneurial activities of the last 30 years or so.
Source? Oh right, your big trap. I forgot.

The bottom line is, even if you were correct, it doesn't deal with the societal question of whether a more equal society is better.

One fact is indisputable - economic inequality was lower then. This chart is right from Piketty's work BTW.

Image

So what's so much better now than 1940-70? That Elon can build more flamethrowers? Is it the negligible unionization of the private sector, the massive gaps between CEO and worker pay, or the total outsourcing of industry? :roll: Again I'd like to see some data on that.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by Bludogdem »

gounion wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:08 am You haven't read the Propublica articles, obviously. I guess that's the only way you can continue your silly defense of the indefensible.
I have. Apparently you don’t understand them.

Show me where the ProPublica articles say Musk didn’t pay income taxes in years other than 2018.

Or that Bezos didn’t pay income taxes in years other 2007 and 2011.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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I'm so f'n sick of arguing about what individuals did or didn't pay in whatever years. I don't give a F.

Has the tax system become less progressive over time?

Image

There's the chart. We can argue about shelters, avoidance, effective vs. paper rates, all the angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Marginal rates are much lower now than they were then.

And income inequality is much higher.

FACT: when marginal rates were at their highest 1940-1970, income inequality was at its lowest. I'll admit there were other factors. Europe was devastated by WW II and the U.S. was not. Things like that. But other than that ...

It is absolutely the case to anybody paying attention there is a correlation.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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gounion wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:10 am Oh, that's hilarious. Don't try your bullshit false re-writing of history. You can't get that cheese by me, Meat.

All kinds of companies and even industries rose from nothing in the fifties and sixties - without government funding.
In the 50’s manufacturing was king and the big manufacturing enterprises were long well established. Steel, paper, aircraft, aluminum, oil, gas, fuels, were all very well established and ruled the 50’s.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

Post by Bludogdem »

ProfX wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 12:01 pm I'm so f'n sick of arguing about what individuals did or didn't pay in whatever years. I don't give a F.

Has the tax system become less progressive over time?

Image

There's the chart. We can argue about shelters, avoidance, effective vs. paper rates, all the angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Marginal rates are much lower now than they were then.

And income inequality is much higher.

FACT: when marginal rates were at their highest 1940-1970, income inequality was at its lowest. I'll admit there were other factors. Europe was devastated by WW II and the U.S. was not. Things like that. But other than that ...

It is absolutely the case to anybody paying attention there is a correlation.
The 90% rate of the 50’s was a fiction. As to income inequality the Mellon, Kennedy, Morgan, Rockefeller, Mars, Ford, etc. money was hidden away and uncounted. It was there but it wasn’t known.
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Re: Elon Musk Income Taxes

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I'd ask for a source, but I know that's pointless.
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