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Meta strikes deal with Zuckerberg to protect him from California wealth tax (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 13 hours ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 47 points 12 hours ago (12 children)

Under the deal, Zuckerberg will receive new shares that could be sold to potentially foot a multibillion-dollar tax bill in the event that California passes a one-off billionaire tax. In return, he is committed to remain a resident of the state, or wherever Meta maintains its base, for eight years

Cool...

So we can do another "one time" wealth tax again the next 7 years and lil zuck the duck is locked in?

Billionaires wealth and their companies assets have been interchangeable for a long time, just keep fucking take it back from either of them, it accomplishes the same thing.

We just can't stop with the one off.

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  • [–] 11 points 11 hours ago (6 children)

    Honestly, there should just be a clause that specifies any financial arrangements intended to effectively nullify the personal wealth tax will be further taxed at 150% of the value of said financial arrangements. I am willing to bet a whole hell of a lot forensic accountants would have a blast with that :)

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  • [–] 2 points 6 hours ago* (1 child)

    Thats not what happened. People should read the article.

    Its a 2 for 1 stock split into voting and non voting shares. He'll sell the non voting shares. Theyre still getting the money from him and no new money is made.

    He'll have shares for future taxes as well.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 hours ago

    Be that as it may, I’d leave that to regulatory experts to determine. And I do think the punitive scaling that I spitballed would be great, because billionaires shouldn’t exist, and finding creative ways to irretrievably whittle away their grotesque wealth should genuinely be an uncontroversial (outside of the billionaire class) point.

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  • [–] 7 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

    I think tax avoidance schemes like that should result in basically exile. You don't want to pay your fair share to participate in society? Ok, enjoy no society. Not even jail. Just drop them in international waters. Sorry, food requires roads to be able to transport and those use taxes, so since you don't want to pay your share of taxes you don't get the privilege of anything they supply. Just the one free transport and confiscation of everything else since you don't exist as a person in society.

    That's probably a little harsh, but I am just over theses people. What ever happened with the Panama papers? Oh, that's right, nothing. They are ruining society for everyone else and there is just no recourse.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 hours ago* (2 children)

    I mean… making a person stateless is actually considered a crime against humanity by the UN.

    I think exponentially-compounding fines for hyper-wealthy individuals would be perfectly fine, tbh. Also, we’d definitely need to be a LOT more aggressive in terms of slapping those types down as vexatious litigants - look up the implications of that (in US courts, at least) if you’re not familiar with the term.

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  • [–] 4 points 8 hours ago (1 child)

    I was admittedly being hyperbolic. Here's me saying the same thing not too long ago: https://reddthat.com/comment/29539867

    It would also be a crime because you're essentially killing them. Being dropped randomly into international waters with no preparation would probably be a bigger concern for them than if their passport is still valid. There are definitely a lot of solutions we haven't tried between our current nothing and state sanctioned murder, I just wish we'd actually implement one.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 hours ago

    All that said, it’d be kinda sweet if we could just give these broligarch fuckwits the Napoleon Bonaparte treatment (marooned on St Helena - but these days, probably with a watchdog naval detachment of some sort to detain and similarly incarcerate any broligarch buddies who try to un-exile them with their mega-yachts).

    Or, hell, we could even grant Phony Stark his wish: send the fuckers to Mars. Move fast and break things, right guys? That’s what they all say they want, yeah? 😜

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  • [–] 20 points 12 hours ago

    We just can’t stop with the one off.

    Maybe a one off every year. 😋

    I bet it's an attempt to make the billionaires not flee California. But really, if they don't pay fair taxes good riddance.
    They should consider themselves lucky every day they are allowed to keep their head.

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  • [–] 3 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

    Sounds more like Meta is just paying him to pay the tax. They turned it from a wealth tax to a corporate tax.

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