He’s disrupting logic.
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Remember when they used to joke about the Jobs distortion field? Ah, those simpler times, those halcyon days.
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But you expect him to pay more taxes, even though the law doesn’t require him to? I personally have no beef whatsoever with Elon, he’s just abiding by the law. Those laws on the other hand…
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It’s not like those laws were some mysterious proclamation from the Sibylline books. They were created because of the efforts of billionaires and are kept because of the efforts of billionaires.
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Yes. He should. Working and middle class people SHOULDN’T be carrying the majority of support our public infrastructure. He came here and has made an obscene amount of money and benefits from a variety of tax cuts and government contract. He’s fucking all of us over for his own personal gain. He can fuck right off.
Lots of things used to be legal which are not now. Because they were inhumane laws. Same is true of BS laws which let the elite prosper while much of the rest of America suffers from lack of basic necessities.
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I have a beef with him.
This country has given him the opportunity to have his success. Those opportunities were enabled and preserved by all of our taxes over generations.
He seeks to undermine what gave him his opportunities after the fact - pulling the ladder up is shitty.
He’s not just avoiding his fair share - he pays armies of lobbyists and pols to change the laws to his benefit and our harm.
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Lol just because I have a Twitter account doesn’t mean I’m owned by Elon Musk, that’s absurd
[compulsively checks car delivery date on tesla.com]
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Could anyone ever imagine Steve Jobs bothering to use Twitter let alone buy a chunk of it?
Word.
I have serious beef with him, every other global oligarch, and all the people who worship and enable them.
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Tax avoidance is legally gray. Essentially, tax avoidance strategies are unenforced, not strictly legal. If the IRS decides your strategy was intended to avoid taxes rather than intended for a legitimate business reasons, it was illegal.
So whenever someone says, “[billionaire x] is paying all the taxes they legally owe!” I conclude that person doesn’t understand tax law or they have some motivation to excuse billionaires from paying their fair share.
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I only very, very reluctantly got myself a twitter account, if only to get around the age-gating.
I’m no tax expert, but from that Pro Publica article (bolding added):
“The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.”
If you have some specific evidence that Musk violated some tax law, please post.
And to be clear I think the law is a travesty. But it was this way long before Elon got his billions.
It gets worse every year. The IRS enforcement arm has been defunded. They have to apply the calculus of whether to spend their whole budget to tilt at the windmill of enforcement against a single billionaire, with a low likelihood of success, vs enforcement on a bunch of low-level cheats.
The effective tax rate for a given wealthy person should never drop below 15% over a long period of time. That’s the minimum capital gains tax rate. Some exploits can push that out—-claiming losses to defer, borrowing against unrealized gains, moving tax burden around different jurisdictions—-but ultimately those should all come out in the wash over time. Eventually, any given individual should, by law, be paying an effective tax rate of approximately 15%, minimum. The misperception is that one can legally bounce from one avoidance to another over time. By law, using one scheme should cause a subsequent correction and make up for the avoidance in a future tax year. But unraveling the serial tax avoidance becomes untenable for the IRS.
So, tl;dr no, just because they get away with it doesn’t mean it’s legal.
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[insert eye rolling gif]
But when they’re investigated for it countless times and still found to be not in violation, does that mean it’s legal? And the IRS aren’t boobs, they’re perfectly able to unravel the most complicated of tax schemes. The problem is that the laws, as they are, enable this kind of behavior.
But again, go ahead and post some evidence that Musk has broken any tax laws.
When your class writes the tax laws - you get to determine what counts as a crime under that code. To your benefit. But not under morality. We all get to decide that.
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I’m just surprised that other people want to volunteer to pay Musk’s taxes.
That shows real commitment to being a mark.
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It’s legal to drive through a parking lot. It’s illegal to do so to cut a corner and avoid a red light.
Now, make the driver’s route and view of the light confidential information and you have the current situation with income tax laws and any third party’s ability to determine legality.
However, there are an awful lot of cars coming out of that parking lot…
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Musk reportedly pays $2-$3 million a year for lobbying.
This is what he got for it. We’re suckers who pay his taxes.
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