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0 pointsjessaustin4y ago0 comments

Interest payments are deductible. [0] The scheme was described by ProPublica earlier this year. [1] If they sell stock they lose the control over the firm that stock represents. That would be fine for normal humans, but not for the super control freaks under discussion. The interest, which is certainly lower than "prime" for borrowers like this in the era of zero-benchmark [2], is typically paid by future loans. It doesn't hamper the lifestyles of the rich any more than it benefits the public treasury.

[0] https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc505

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

[2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h15/

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brianwawok4y ago

Not sure why the downvotes, this is 100% what is going on the the top of the top 1%.

Which is why the current congress push to ramp up capital gains to get money back from the rich is super super misguided. It screws startup founders like myself, but it literally has no impact on the mega rich.

jessaustinOP4y ago

Eh, downvotes happen. (Admittedly, I'll be less enthusiastic about sourcing in the near future...) I suspect 'AmericanChopper has learned something ITT, which was the point. He had a particular understanding of this practice, which had been imparted by someone he trusted. Now he knows that understanding was... incomplete, let's say.

ProPublica can bang the drum all they want. In USA, the big media firms are all controlled by very rich people who don't want this sort of story to stay in the mainstream consciousness for more than a couple of days. So, information like this disappears more quickly than the average citizen can understand it.

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