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@@dankmagic1622the top ten percent of this country pays over 70% of our taxes. Even with these loopholes they are still paying more than the bottom 50% which pay less than 4%. The the upper class subsidies the poor
@@QuentinJones-g3o Who taught you tax law? She literally just explained how it works exactly the OPPOSITE of what you're claiming with your propaganda.
Yep, hyperindividualism from people who don’t care to know what hyperindividualism is. Largely because their staff to similar ends ensures they don’t have to know…
That´s why we moved to Europe back in 2019! America has dumbed down in recent years and too many gullible folks are duped into voting against their own interests! I guess sometimes certain gullible folks had to eat poop to learn their lessons!
@@jamesburrows3602 Speaking of Hoovers, yeah, it's less trickle down and more... they have bought vacuum machines and are sucking everything they can up.
There's no reasonable reason why these "loopholes" can't be closed. It's been rigged against the regular folk and none of us have the power to do much about it...Well...
That´s why we moved to Europe back in 2019! America has dumbed down in recent years and too many gullible folks are duped into voting against their own interests! I guess sometimes certain gullible folks had to eat poop to learn their lessons!
Only 3.5% of the population needs to demand change (PEACEFULLY) to affects change, according to the most recent studies. Getting 3.5% of the population to cooperate in a single way though, that's still millions of Americans... I don't know if you know this but Americans are famously kind of @$$holes. Plus you got to contend with the plutocrats money and propaganda mainstream media... To be honest, that's still going to be a hard sell 😕
Your right about gaming the system, but buying the polictians and changing the Tax laws to have loop holes means its a good investment by the "donor"...
Well antitrust law has only recently been enforced since almost 60 years ago and the irs is funded so little that they only have the resources to go after people who can’t afford to defend themselves.
@@raypalmer7733 I recently started rewatching Leverage. In the second episode, they pointed out how easy it is for a representative to be bought in 2008: $100,000 upfront investment to get them elected, $10,000 every two years.
In a video game, if there's a massive exploit (or exploits) some players use to get massively OP, the game gets patched. We need to patch capitalism, if we insist on using it.
honestly this is why our tax code and our laws are so complicated and hundreds if not thousands of pages long, they intentionally create these loopholes so that they and their wealthy friends can all benefit
The Democrats used to be worker oriented when unions were the primary source of campaign funding for the Democratic Party. But then Republicans went after the unions in an effort to drive the Democrats toward corporate campaign funding; and it worked.
Yeah, that's called nationalization, ex-appropriation, confiscation, collectivization. The last people that did that were called communists, and they did it behind something called The Iron Curtain. Do you want to wear the same label? 'Cause in the ol' U. S. of A., a senator by the name of Joseph McCarthy rallied the whole country behind him to go after people that either wore that label, or mistakenly got labelled that way, and the nation was never the same afterwards.
in the Bible there was a law that commanded that every 50 years, every Israelite was supposed to return to their original piece of allotted land, all debt should be forgiven, and the slaves were set free, unless they were foreigners. Which is basically a lawful hard reset. Capitalism needs that similar regulation that would deflate the stupid Buy Borrow Die cycles.
this is single handedly the most informative, concise and understandable video on billionaire wealth inequality ive even seen and possibly the best one in existence. thank you ma’am.
Was just about to comment along these same lines... Our " mainstream news " are the main contributor's and or owners of these news channels so of course they are not gonna report factual if at all about this subject.@@Mgfpl
Mainstream media is either owned by the super-rich or are too terrified of the super-rich to say anything. But the machinations of the super-rich are largely known. There is precious little anyone can do about it. There is plenty we can collectively do, like a general labour strike. But “we” are not monolithic in our beliefs. The top 2-3% think everything is fine. The next 10-15% think that at most minor tweaks are maybe needed. The last 80% are too distracted by simple survival to do anything.
In Grand Theft Auto Online, I've made close to a billion dollars. As someone who makes in-game money hand-over-fist, I am constantly asked by newer players "how do I make money like you?" The answer is always the same: have a shitload of money already. I make more money in an hour than any less economically advantaged player makes in a day. Why do I bring this up? Because Grand Theft Auto is supposed to be a satire of modern life. It isn't. In a lot of disturbingly accurate ways, it's a direct 1-to-1 comparison. And the only part of GTA that compares favourably to real life is that we players get to respawn when we are killed.
It's so true. I got tired of playing that game because in order to substantially get more money in the game you literally have to invest in "businesses" that you have to pool in even more time and money. Eventually I stopped playing because I realized that "working" in-game was less fun and less rewarding than working a real job. These days whenever I play with my wife we usually just hop between servers while looking for modders to give us money (we played on PC). I guess in that sense it has some semblance to real life; you either cheat, start off wealthy, or do both.
Nowadays the best way to make money is to just run an external menu (the game can't detect it since it's not injected), have bunker supplies, use the menu to force it to produce instantly, sell one bit of production with only a few k's of value, make the menu mod the sell amount to somewhere around 2 million, and if the menu is good it should immediately finish the mission. Boom free 2m per minute which looks entirely legit to the game because it's from your business, with minimal effort.
@@SleepyMatt-zzz I actually like grinding the CEO Special Cargo. I've gotten so good at the missions that I actually use it as a kind of meditative trance. A way to decompress from the real world.
I'm currently writing a thesis paper for my English class arguing the stance that being a billionaire is never ethical in modern America. This video was super informative and interesting as always & helpful for my paper! Thank you Leeja! :)
Their are idiots that think this is fine because they believe when they get rich they will be able to benefit from these loopholes. In reality these people will never be able to accumulate this amount of wealth.
Exactly it's not obtainable. 80 years only to make 900,000 USD. Buy a house for 360k over thirty years plus taxes and property taxes. After wards 76 years old left with 120k you have medical expenses and body failures. I live until 82 net worth 30k that's it a college degree savings of a 25 year old. Congratulations you worked 71 years for free
That's because the US already has a Progressive Tax system. A Progressive Tax system means that higher tax brackets only have the income in that tax bracket taxed at that rate. Example: if the tax rate is 10% for income under 50k, and over 50k is 20% , and you make 60k, then the first 50k would be taxed at 10% and then the rest (10k) would be taxed at 20%, not have the whole 60k at 20%
@@jakestavinsky3480 doesn't that tax system cut off at 250k though? So the richest .1% pay the same tax percentage as the upper middle class? She proposed additional brackets at $1mill and $2mill, as far as I remember
Income tax is the most progressive tax we have in the US currently. That’s why all the talk is about abolishing income tax and instating a flat tax, which is regressive, penalizing the poor far more than the wealthy.
@@jakestavinsky3480 True. But the rates for the higher brackets have been progressively lowered over the past decades, so it’s not as progressive as it once was. That being said, the truly wealthy don’t pay income taxes; they pay capital gains taxes, which are lower than income taxes. Hence why executives take compensation in company shares instead of income. Ideally it would mean they have a stake in the success of the company; but they still do well even when they’re bad at their job and the company fails. It used to make sense to have lower capital gains taxes when the only companies worth investing in were American because it encouraged investment and growth within the country; but now they get the same lower rate when they invest in companies in Indonesia or China. The advantage to having high marginal tax rates used to be that executives would not take extremely high salaries since it would be taxed at a higher rate; and that ensured they had enough within the company to pay workers well and they continually re-invested in the company to help it grow and succeed. So executives would invest outside of their company to make money instead, which had the pluses mentioned above. Getting paid in stock options instead was partly a way to get around the high marginal tax rates. They’ve gamed the system so they always get paid well while workers get left behind.
My parent recently had a scare with kidney stones. My first fear when hearing they were in the ICU wasn't, how are they gonna pay for this? It was worrying about their health. I don't get how non corrupt..... Oops I misspelled that, because lobbying isn't corruption clearly, anyways, how non incentivized people can argue that going bankrupt because you happened to get cancer is a good thing actually. It's like arguing that "enhanced" interrogation by the CIA is more effective, while if you do it long enough anyone admits to anything and studies show it doesn't need to be factually accurate. Healthcare isn't actually free over here, there are some upfront fees meant to discourage misuse. But last time I looked it up it was equivalent to like $130-150 at most in a 12 months period, afterwards it's free upfront.
When wealthy people invest in businesses, they don’t even use their own money. They borrow money from banks to invest, and when their investments work out, they make money despite having to pay back the loans (since the interest rates are generally lower than their profits; and of course if you’re Tronald Dump, you just don’t pay back the loans much of the time). But when those investments fail, they get tax breaks to keep from losing their own money. We essentially subsidize their losses when they lose money on investments or they get bailed out by the government in some situations (it’s no coincidence that the executives of Enron walked away with almost exactly the amount of money their employees and investors lost; and they weren’t really penalized for driving Enron into the ground while pumping up their stock prices and cooking the books to hide their losses). It’s a win-win situation for the wealthy. It’s socialism for the wealthy and hard nosed capitalism for everyone else. The system is rigged to ensure that the wealthy stay wealthy no matter what. It’s extremely difficult for a wealthy person to fail completely. Even when they go bankrupt, they still always seem to have the capital to emerge from bankruptcy without losing everything and they always seem to get back to being wealthy again.
This is a PSA and a goddamn masterclass in how the rich game the system. Thank u Leeja, this tax topic is difficult to explain in laymen’s terms and u did it with ease! 🎉🎉
woah leeja... I genuinely think this is one of your best videos to date. thanks for making quality content and making education on these topics more accessible, you rock!
I remember listening to him say that when I was a kid and thinking "Come on, George, it's not that bad..." A few decades later and now I fully understand just how right he was.
And you never will be. As a Canadian I am astonished to hear that so many Americans have the mentality that they’re temporarily embarrassed billionaires, rather than accepting reality.
And then, after Paul generates all the wealth, he'll write a theoretical book, followed by a racket all called "Rich Guy, Poor Guy," and then the people who follow think they understand and invest at 11% while carrying debt at 20%, won't understand why they aren't also billionaires.
Not to mention the black hole money pit that is tech "research and development." Tech companies always walk a tight rope of compensating for the fact that they "don't make money" by gaining market share to lure investors in. Once they can't gain more market share, the whole thing unravels. Meanwhile billions of dollars wound up in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. Uber likes to say they don't make money... their revenue was $37 billion last year. Where do you think all that money goes? If you think it actually costs Uber $37 billion to run their business for a year, I have a bridge to sell you.
If Trump passes the "No Tax on Tips", watch the Uber rich use "Tips" as means to avoid even more taxes as the "Tips" value is not capped, so imagine a $ Billion Dollar salary is now a "Tip" which is tax free.
I was talking to someone briefly about this topic and mentioned that I don’t think billionaires should exist. The response I got was “How do you think you get to have that phone in your hands?” The only response I could give back to that was “With the exploitation of manufacturers in other countries willing to take advantage of their lower classes through cheap labor.” I had to paraphrase those quotes, but you get the idea. To be fair that person grew up believing in Reaganomics so that likely influences their perspective.
Another more mundane, but extremely common tax avoidance scheme is just regular commercial real estate. One party buys a property at which time they must state on their tax returns the value of the land and the building seperately. The buyer routinely overstates the value of the building and understates the value of the land. Why? land cannot be depreciated by IRS rules, since it rarely loses value over time. The building can be depreciated. So real income is offset by inflated building depreciation. There is probably more money escaping taxation this way that all the ways you mentioned. (Not that they aren't important.) The IRS just doesn't have the manpower and expertise to challenge all of the bogus property valuations.
I don’t want to be cruel when I say this but it’s sort of impossible to address this. I do not believe the IRS even has the brain power, let alone resources, to contest property valuations. Property valuation has countless subjective factors and multiple ways to calculate based on market, NOI, projections, etc. Everyone who is good at valuation is working in CRE already as it’s a valuable skill set. You could put a property up for market and 10 different bidders could have massively different valuations based on their values and the data they want to use, so it’s sort of impossible to determine the true value of a property until money has exchanged hands and two people have agreed how much it was worth to sell and buy.
@@Justanothermusicnerdxo Property valuations are often a factor of local government. There is a long history in Chicago of wealthier zip codes getting very favorable evaluations and poor ones less so, but it's basically favoritism and corruption in the assessors office. It also leads to the wealthy underpaying for services and the poor paying a higher percent when it comes to property taxes. The laws, as I understand them, also allow property owners some leverage in shopping around for favorable valuations in different situations. And as you said, the effort it takes to assess them and the numerous values that pop out mean it's hard to contest things at any level or point.
@@Justanothermusicnerdxo Well yeah but my town needs to tax me so they have a sort of standard that tells me my house is a certain value based I think on the tax history and which has nothing to do with the value on the market which changes - of course I could profit from those changes but I would have to sell and to do that I'd need a place to live, which is why I bought the house...just the one, can't afford another...unless I sell. And so on and so on in a circle....
Perhaps your best video yet. Concise, expertly prepared information relayed so clearly. The politicians responsible for these loopholes damned us to these dark days we’re living in.
Yup, the government will pay for the stadium and force people out of their homes for the space to build it. Because a sports stadium is a necessary public good apparently, but healthcare, housing, and education aren't
Billionares should not exist. Full stop What's the point of democracy, if we have few people having all the power via money instead then directly by being dictators?
yeah let's take it away from the billionaire who built 2487 EV chargers for 500 million and give it to the beurocrats who built 7 chargers for 7.5 billion dollars
thank you for covering it! it’s always been a topic i’ve been curious about but never found a concise and easy to understand video/article. much appreciated for all your work and research into videos like this!
my dad taught me to use the 'borrow' out of the 'buy borrow die' (we r middle class, idk where he thinks ill get the money to borrow a million dollars from the bank)
Effective or bracketed? Just federal or including state, local, property, and/or sales? Solely income, including capital gains, or alternative minimum? You can’t just throw out a percentage without clarifying what it’s a percentage _of._
80 percent and make em do public good to lower the rate - like fund affordable housing projects - just fund em. Boom. Okay, thanks, you may now pay 50 percent this year.
Great video Leeja! I'll have to come back and watch it again when I'm a little more sober. That trick of borrowing against your stock, and getting a low interest loan, is called hypothecation. It works great until the market or stock takes a dip. A big enough loss of value, and the lender can keep those stocks. But billionaires can usually afford to lose that stock anyway, so not much risk for them.
My uncle once asked why I didn’t lease a car and write it off - he legit forgot not everyone can do that? I’m not wrapping my car and advertising, but that’s how he pays for all his cars lol
even tho im not from us i really enjoy your work Leeja, i like learning whats going on in there bc it very much effects the rest of the world, keep up the good work!!
The big question about a wealth tax is if it would trigger a massive sell-off of stock which could devalue every stock on the market and cause a depression.
@ Rome, as in the end of the republic and the rise of empire, when Rome turned away from elected leader’s and returned to the age of kings and emperors or the age of Caesars, the beginning of the end,, when wealth, autocracy and religious extremism brought, the age of reason to an end, the way misinformation and propaganda are used now, its hard not to draw parallels to the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, the beginning of the dark ages, when faith outranked facts and scientists were burnt ass heretics.
A wealth tax isn't unprecedented. A wealth tax already exists, it just ONLY applies to middle class families. It's just not called a wealth tax, it's called property tax... oh, and it does factor in unrealized gains (yeah, you notice how your property tax goes up every year, that's not the state passing a tax increase each year, that's the county assessor estimating how much the value of your property is worth). A wealth tax is just applying the same logic applied to property and applying it to other assets as well... And unlike the property tax, it would explicitly exclude the middle class.
@@leobigelow7021 did you mean, "until it doesn't", because stating it in the past tense implies that at some point we have seen a wealth tax that taxes all assets and that it was at some point applied to the middle class as well as the highest wealth individuals. And yes, there is always the risk that if such a tax were implemented that it would eventually have changes made to it to apply to more people. Of course, realistically, any congress, at any time, could pass new taxes for the middle class. They wouldn't have to hide behind some long game of creating a tax that only affects the wealthiest Americans and then later slowly raising the temperature like boiling a frog in a pot to trick people. They could just pass a tax act that looks like a cut for the middle class until you read the fine print and realize that there is already planned increases hidden in the text that will kick in a few years down the road when no one is paying attention... oh wait, that's exactly what happened with Trump's tax plan.
@@smileyeagle1021 When the income tax was originally implemented it only applied to the very wealthy. Not anymore. You're a fool if you believe the same thing won't happen here. And there are serious moral and Constitutional issues with the Federal government taking the unprecedented step of taxing people not on what they earn but what they have. It's also impossible to implement. Have you thought through the ramifications of requiring everyone in the country to report the value of every asset they have every year?
@@leobigelow7021 So on taxing people on the values of assets. Right now that happens with property tax. It's not totally clear cut, and when it comes to paying those taxes, it's often possible for a homeowner to shop around for a low valuation, while also shopping for high valuations when it comes to selling a property, or using it as collateral. Though for a lot of other assets, the values would be pretty clear and easy. The type of investments most people would have, like stocks, mutual funds, EFTs and that sort of thing? Every single quarter (if not every single day) they can get an up to date listing of all of those values, because that can already figure into various tax liabilities, and because investors are kind of big into having numbers, and companies are big into providing these numbers. Now, I know the problem you'd likely have gotten to, what happens when the government taxes you on unrealized gains but you don't actually have the cash to pay? The whole 'middle class investor' problem? Easy, exempt some amount proportional to the person's actual income. I also don't see the spread of income tax 'from the rich' to everybody as a bad thing. If we're going to tax people in a way that taxes them on their ability to pay, income would seem to me the fairest way. If we raised taxes through things like sales tax, those are regressive and hit poor people worse. As I listed above, property tax and such runs into messy problems where assessed values can be gamed.
You are fortunate because billionaires dont exist, because of taxes. Like are you stupid, this was literally explained in the video? The whole reason why they dont pay tax is because they dont have money to tax. Its the bankers you should hate, not billionaires. Which is strange, christianity knew for centuries that interest is evil and creates unfairness. Whoever introduced banking to the christian world is the one to blame for all that has transpired since. Whomst could it have been...
Thanks for another massively informative video. Aside from all that... Thanks for the text on the preview "loopholes of the rich and (the) famous" My brain sang that part like the good Charlotte song 😂
Also if you're getting a 1% loan and inflation is growing at 3% you actually make 2% on your money. So rich people borrow as much as possible because their loan principle dwindles over time. If you have assets inflation doean't affect you and may even work for you.
thanks for the pointers on tax loopholes... (probably not the intention of this video lol) definitely going to rewatch this video every tax season capital gains is taxed differently based on long term or short term. that sweet sweet IRA... i need to focus growing it more XD taxing the sale of capital instead of the gains... i think will hurt the 99% not the 1%.
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🗞️ Go to ground.news/Leeja to stay fully informed on US Politics and more. Subscribe through my link for 50% off for unlimited access on the Vantage plan.
Literally only reason she's mad is that she can't make billions herself with her babbling
@@swires1mf you ain’t a billionaire your not part of there team lol
@@dankmagic1622 * you're * their
@@dankmagic1622the top ten percent of this country pays over 70% of our taxes. Even with these loopholes they are still paying more than the bottom 50% which pay less than 4%. The the upper class subsidies the poor
@@QuentinJones-g3o Who taught you tax law? She literally just explained how it works exactly the OPPOSITE of what you're claiming with your propaganda.
Remember: it's tax evasion when you do it, trickle down economics when they do it
I've never seen that damn trickle and neither did my father or my grandfather, still waiting for Hoovers trickle down to kick in...
Yep, hyperindividualism from people who don’t care to know what hyperindividualism is.
Largely because their staff to similar ends ensures they don’t have to know…
Trickle down is as phony as these globalist affection for this country..
That´s why we moved to Europe back in 2019! America has dumbed down in recent years and too many gullible folks are duped into voting against their own interests! I guess sometimes certain gullible folks had to eat poop to learn their lessons!
@@jamesburrows3602
Speaking of Hoovers, yeah, it's less trickle down and more... they have bought vacuum machines and are sucking everything they can up.
When you evade taxes, you're placed under arrest. When they evade taxes, they get a pat on the back.
They aren’t evading, they are avoiding.
There's no reasonable reason why these "loopholes" can't be closed. It's been rigged against the regular folk and none of us have the power to do much about it...Well...
Us everyday working people are who keep the whole system afloat. Not the billionaires. We have much more power than many people realize.
That´s why we moved to Europe back in 2019! America has dumbed down in recent years and too many gullible folks are duped into voting against their own interests! I guess sometimes certain gullible folks had to eat poop to learn their lessons!
Only 3.5% of the population needs to demand change (PEACEFULLY) to affects change, according to the most recent studies. Getting 3.5% of the population to cooperate in a single way though, that's still millions of Americans... I don't know if you know this but Americans are famously kind of @$$holes. Plus you got to contend with the plutocrats money and propaganda mainstream media... To be honest, that's still going to be a hard sell 😕
They’re not gaming the system at all. They set it up and it’s running basically as intended.
Best response
The accuracy. It hurts.
Your right about gaming the system, but buying the polictians and changing the Tax laws to have loop holes means its a good investment by the "donor"...
Well antitrust law has only recently been enforced since almost 60 years ago and the irs is funded so little that they only have the resources to go after people who can’t afford to defend themselves.
@@raypalmer7733
I recently started rewatching Leverage. In the second episode, they pointed out how easy it is for a representative to be bought in 2008: $100,000 upfront investment to get them elected, $10,000 every two years.
In a video game, if there's a massive exploit (or exploits) some players use to get massively OP, the game gets patched.
We need to patch capitalism, if we insist on using it.
That or a hard reset because these billionaires are wearing plot armor.
@@CaptainCrunch230and what would that do? Cause the same outcome, but with difficulty people.
Why patch capitalism ?
Why not move on from it ?
Or maybe, you need to be innovative, creative, and apply yourself.
@UndertakerU2ber like Elon musk?
Loopholes that are never closed regardless which "side" is in control.
Imagine that.
honestly this is why our tax code and our laws are so complicated and hundreds if not thousands of pages long, they intentionally create these loopholes so that they and their wealthy friends can all benefit
Both parties have been bought by plutocrats, where the real power is. And that power was stolen from us, one dollar at a time.
The Democrats used to be worker oriented when unions were the primary source of campaign funding for the Democratic Party. But then Republicans went after the unions in an effort to drive the Democrats toward corporate campaign funding; and it worked.
True Facts same Bird always corruption
its sad that money buys what you want (loopholes), but what you really want is not worth the money spent to get it.
The problem is they own everything.
De-privatize, re-publicize
Yeah, that works beautifully in China.
Yeah, that's called nationalization, ex-appropriation, confiscation, collectivization. The last people that did that were called communists, and they did it behind something called The Iron Curtain. Do you want to wear the same label? 'Cause in the ol' U. S. of A., a senator by the name of Joseph McCarthy rallied the whole country behind him to go after people that either wore that label, or mistakenly got labelled that way, and the nation was never the same afterwards.
in the Bible there was a law that commanded that every 50 years, every Israelite was supposed to return to their original piece of allotted land, all debt should be forgiven, and the slaves were set free, unless they were foreigners.
Which is basically a lawful hard reset. Capitalism needs that similar regulation that would deflate the stupid Buy Borrow Die cycles.
I just don’t get it … they have so much wealth they can never use it in a thousand lifetimes. Why are they so afraid of taxes? Selfishness.
Reptiles in suits
I think it often comes down to arrogance. Belief that they truly are "worth" that much.
Plus a general disdain for the hoi polloi, of course.
Because being rich isn't just about having money, but power.
@@scifirealism5943 I hear that nowadays, you can even buy a President!
@@MultipleOffenses yep
this is single handedly the most informative, concise and understandable video on billionaire wealth inequality ive even seen and possibly the best one in existence. thank you ma’am.
Agreed. This primer should be in every school. The Peter Thiel ploy is straight up fraud. He owes us penalties and interest
Until Capital can no longer control the state, this will always be a problem.
the various states is responsible to supervise these corporations-granting tax breaks to these corporation made it extremely unpopular
the various states is responsible to supervise these corporations-granting tax breaks to these corporation made it extremely unpopular
the various states is responsible to supervise these corporations-granting tax breaks to these corporation made it extremely unpopular
Capitalism divides people into the very few rich and everyone else.
Thank you, Leeja, for covering this topic because apparently, the mainstream media won't do it.
❤❤❤❤❤❤
Cuz they are owned by the rich
Was just about to comment along these same lines... Our " mainstream news " are the main contributor's and or owners of these news channels so of course they are not gonna report factual if at all about this subject.@@Mgfpl
Mainstream media is either owned by the super-rich or are too terrified of the super-rich to say anything.
But the machinations of the super-rich are largely known. There is precious little anyone can do about it. There is plenty we can collectively do, like a general labour strike. But “we” are not monolithic in our beliefs. The top 2-3% think everything is fine. The next 10-15% think that at most minor tweaks are maybe needed. The last 80% are too distracted by simple survival to do anything.
@@Mgfpl This. The corporate media are good dogs and won't bite their owners.
In Grand Theft Auto Online, I've made close to a billion dollars. As someone who makes in-game money hand-over-fist, I am constantly asked by newer players "how do I make money like you?" The answer is always the same: have a shitload of money already. I make more money in an hour than any less economically advantaged player makes in a day.
Why do I bring this up? Because Grand Theft Auto is supposed to be a satire of modern life. It isn't. In a lot of disturbingly accurate ways, it's a direct 1-to-1 comparison. And the only part of GTA that compares favourably to real life is that we players get to respawn when we are killed.
It's so true.
I got tired of playing that game because in order to substantially get more money in the game you literally have to invest in "businesses" that you have to pool in even more time and money.
Eventually I stopped playing because I realized that "working" in-game was less fun and less rewarding than working a real job.
These days whenever I play with my wife we usually just hop between servers while looking for modders to give us money (we played on PC).
I guess in that sense it has some semblance to real life; you either cheat, start off wealthy, or do both.
Only a "small loan" of a few GTA modders dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on us like in the old days!
Nowadays the best way to make money is to just run an external menu (the game can't detect it since it's not injected), have bunker supplies, use the menu to force it to produce instantly, sell one bit of production with only a few k's of value, make the menu mod the sell amount to somewhere around 2 million, and if the menu is good it should immediately finish the mission. Boom free 2m per minute which looks entirely legit to the game because it's from your business, with minimal effort.
@@SleepyMatt-zzz I actually like grinding the CEO Special Cargo. I've gotten so good at the missions that I actually use it as a kind of meditative trance. A way to decompress from the real world.
And that it’s significantly cheaper to go to the hospital in GTA than it is in the USA lol
I'm currently writing a thesis paper for my English class arguing the stance that being a billionaire is never ethical in modern America. This video was super informative and interesting as always & helpful for my paper! Thank you Leeja! :)
Arguing against billionaires in an English class (humanities) at a university? You're already Musk's worst nigntmare.
I'd love to read it!
As a former Deloitte auditor current Tax Accountant, I approve of this video....
I love how you make a complicated topic easy to understand for the average everyday Joe like me
Their are idiots that think this is fine because they believe when they get rich they will be able to benefit from these loopholes. In reality these people will never be able to accumulate this amount of wealth.
Exactly it's not obtainable.
80 years only to make 900,000 USD.
Buy a house for 360k over thirty years plus taxes and property taxes. After wards 76 years old left with 120k you have medical expenses and body failures. I live until 82 net worth 30k that's it a college degree savings of a 25 year old. Congratulations you worked 71 years for free
Ohhhh we learned about this in my sociology of stratification class and I've been waiting for you to talk about this ever since!!
I doubt Elizabeth Warren was the only person to state this, but she’s the first politician I heard about coming up with a progressive income tax.
That's because the US already has a Progressive Tax system. A Progressive Tax system means that higher tax brackets only have the income in that tax bracket taxed at that rate. Example: if the tax rate is 10% for income under 50k, and over 50k is 20% , and you make 60k, then the first 50k would be taxed at 10% and then the rest (10k) would be taxed at 20%, not have the whole 60k at 20%
@@jakestavinsky3480 doesn't that tax system cut off at 250k though? So the richest .1% pay the same tax percentage as the upper middle class? She proposed additional brackets at $1mill and $2mill, as far as I remember
Income tax is the most progressive tax we have in the US currently. That’s why all the talk is about abolishing income tax and instating a flat tax, which is regressive, penalizing the poor far more than the wealthy.
@@jakestavinsky3480
True. But the rates for the higher brackets have been progressively lowered over the past decades, so it’s not as progressive as it once was.
That being said, the truly wealthy don’t pay income taxes; they pay capital gains taxes, which are lower than income taxes. Hence why executives take compensation in company shares instead of income. Ideally it would mean they have a stake in the success of the company; but they still do well even when they’re bad at their job and the company fails.
It used to make sense to have lower capital gains taxes when the only companies worth investing in were American because it encouraged investment and growth within the country; but now they get the same lower rate when they invest in companies in Indonesia or China.
The advantage to having high marginal tax rates used to be that executives would not take extremely high salaries since it would be taxed at a higher rate; and that ensured they had enough within the company to pay workers well and they continually re-invested in the company to help it grow and succeed. So executives would invest outside of their company to make money instead, which had the pluses mentioned above. Getting paid in stock options instead was partly a way to get around the high marginal tax rates. They’ve gamed the system so they always get paid well while workers get left behind.
Bernie Sanders: "Am I a joke to you?"
Don't forget
#MedicareForAll
Something we all need.
My parent recently had a scare with kidney stones. My first fear when hearing they were in the ICU wasn't, how are they gonna pay for this? It was worrying about their health.
I don't get how non corrupt..... Oops I misspelled that, because lobbying isn't corruption clearly, anyways, how non incentivized people can argue that going bankrupt because you happened to get cancer is a good thing actually. It's like arguing that "enhanced" interrogation by the CIA is more effective, while if you do it long enough anyone admits to anything and studies show it doesn't need to be factually accurate.
Healthcare isn't actually free over here, there are some upfront fees meant to discourage misuse. But last time I looked it up it was equivalent to like $130-150 at most in a 12 months period, afterwards it's free upfront.
When wealthy people invest in businesses, they don’t even use their own money. They borrow money from banks to invest, and when their investments work out, they make money despite having to pay back the loans (since the interest rates are generally lower than their profits; and of course if you’re Tronald Dump, you just don’t pay back the loans much of the time). But when those investments fail, they get tax breaks to keep from losing their own money. We essentially subsidize their losses when they lose money on investments or they get bailed out by the government in some situations (it’s no coincidence that the executives of Enron walked away with almost exactly the amount of money their employees and investors lost; and they weren’t really penalized for driving Enron into the ground while pumping up their stock prices and cooking the books to hide their losses).
It’s a win-win situation for the wealthy. It’s socialism for the wealthy and hard nosed capitalism for everyone else. The system is rigged to ensure that the wealthy stay wealthy no matter what. It’s extremely difficult for a wealthy person to fail completely. Even when they go bankrupt, they still always seem to have the capital to emerge from bankruptcy without losing everything and they always seem to get back to being wealthy again.
Leeja. You're a gem! Love your analysis and work that you put into your chanel.
This is a PSA and a goddamn masterclass in how the rich game the system. Thank u Leeja, this tax topic is difficult to explain in laymen’s terms and u did it with ease! 🎉🎉
woah leeja... I genuinely think this is one of your best videos to date. thanks for making quality content and making education on these topics more accessible, you rock!
i feel like i’ve waited years for new leeja, but it’s been one week
Right?!
8:33 I’m dyyyyyyying at the name Jeff YAAAAAAAAASS
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASS
He’s the ultimate Yass-man?!😂
Yass; they do all be dedder'n fook, jimmeh...
I'm wearing my Reagan Ruins Everything shirt right now that my sister got me for Christmas. Looking forward to wearing it out and about. 🥳
All I got to say is Carlin said it best 30 years ago. The rich and the owners of this country are "in a big club, and you ain't in it." Eat the rich
I remember listening to him say that when I was a kid and thinking "Come on, George, it's not that bad..."
A few decades later and now I fully understand just how right he was.
And you never will be. As a Canadian I am astonished to hear that so many Americans have the mentality that they’re temporarily embarrassed billionaires, rather than accepting reality.
This needs to go viral.
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And then, after Paul generates all the wealth, he'll write a theoretical book, followed by a racket all called "Rich Guy, Poor Guy," and then the people who follow think they understand and invest at 11% while carrying debt at 20%, won't understand why they aren't also billionaires.
Not to mention the black hole money pit that is tech "research and development." Tech companies always walk a tight rope of compensating for the fact that they "don't make money" by gaining market share to lure investors in. Once they can't gain more market share, the whole thing unravels. Meanwhile billions of dollars wound up in bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. Uber likes to say they don't make money... their revenue was $37 billion last year. Where do you think all that money goes? If you think it actually costs Uber $37 billion to run their business for a year, I have a bridge to sell you.
If Trump passes the "No Tax on Tips", watch the Uber rich use "Tips" as means to avoid even more taxes as the "Tips" value is not capped, so imagine a $ Billion Dollar salary is now a "Tip" which is tax free.
For sure Trump isn't supporting "No Tax on Tips" for the benefit of those in the service industry.
this is a master class in wealth inequality and also video making amazing!!!!
will be referring to this administration as president musk until further notice
I was talking to someone briefly about this topic and mentioned that I don’t think billionaires should exist. The response I got was “How do you think you get to have that phone in your hands?” The only response I could give back to that was “With the exploitation of manufacturers in other countries willing to take advantage of their lower classes through cheap labor.” I had to paraphrase those quotes, but you get the idea. To be fair that person grew up believing in Reaganomics so that likely influences their perspective.
So clearly explained. I’ve never heard or read another that comes close to this clarity and thoroughness.
You rock, as always, Leeja!
Another more mundane, but extremely common tax avoidance scheme is just regular commercial real estate. One party buys a property at which time they must state on their tax returns the value of the land and the building seperately. The buyer routinely overstates the value of the building and understates the value of the land. Why? land cannot be depreciated by IRS rules, since it rarely loses value over time. The building can be depreciated. So real income is offset by inflated building depreciation. There is probably more money escaping taxation this way that all the ways you mentioned. (Not that they aren't important.) The IRS just doesn't have the manpower and expertise to challenge all of the bogus property valuations.
I don’t want to be cruel when I say this but it’s sort of impossible to address this.
I do not believe the IRS even has the brain power, let alone resources, to contest property valuations.
Property valuation has countless subjective factors and multiple ways to calculate based on market, NOI, projections, etc. Everyone who is good at valuation is working in CRE already as it’s a valuable skill set.
You could put a property up for market and 10 different bidders could have massively different valuations based on their values and the data they want to use, so it’s sort of impossible to determine the true value of a property until money has exchanged hands and two people have agreed how much it was worth to sell and buy.
@@Justanothermusicnerdxo Property valuations are often a factor of local government. There is a long history in Chicago of wealthier zip codes getting very favorable evaluations and poor ones less so, but it's basically favoritism and corruption in the assessors office. It also leads to the wealthy underpaying for services and the poor paying a higher percent when it comes to property taxes.
The laws, as I understand them, also allow property owners some leverage in shopping around for favorable valuations in different situations. And as you said, the effort it takes to assess them and the numerous values that pop out mean it's hard to contest things at any level or point.
Interesting.
@@Justanothermusicnerdxo Well yeah but my town needs to tax me so they have a sort of standard that tells me my house is a certain value based I think on the tax history and which has nothing to do with the value on the market which changes - of course I could profit from those changes but I would have to sell and to do that I'd need a place to live, which is why I bought the house...just the one, can't afford another...unless I sell.
And so on and so on in a circle....
Billionaires shouldn't even exist. Nobody needs that much money. You are basically just hoarding at that point.
I’m a retired CPA, who work in tax for nearly 50 years on both sides of the fence and aware of all these loopholes.
Perhaps your best video yet. Concise, expertly prepared information relayed so clearly. The politicians responsible for these loopholes damned us to these dark days we’re living in.
Aaaand this is one reason Luigi is considered a folk hero and no one gave a shit about Brian Thompson
Another greatly informative video! Thank you Leeja! ❤
Love your videos!
The owners dont even have to pay for the sports stadium. The poor do and the poor work at the stadium to be broke unles the are the owner of biznass
Yep
Yup, the government will pay for the stadium and force people out of their homes for the space to build it. Because a sports stadium is a necessary public good apparently, but healthcare, housing, and education aren't
Not to mention how often tax money is used to cover that stuff too.
All facts.
FRONTLINE:
"AGE OF EASY MONEY" ... great show to watch, right now, don't wait for the shaky shaky over the next few years.
Leeja, we Brits need a Thatcher ruined everything tee. Raegan would smile up at you if you did 🇬🇧
🇺🇲: Reagan ruined everything
🇬🇧: Thatcher ruined everything
🇨🇦: Mulroney ruined everything
🇩🇪: Kohl ruined everything
No, we need a "UNDO THE REAGAN REVOLUTION *NOW!!!*"
fantastic video, great explanations and examples of each case, thanks
Billionaires should be taxed for half their worth in my opinion.
hll yea
Billionares should not exist. Full stop
What's the point of democracy, if we have few people having all the power via money instead then directly by being dictators?
@no_name4796 I wish that too but we live in a Capitalist reality unfortunately.
yeah let's take it away from the billionaire who built 2487 EV chargers for 500 million and give it to the beurocrats who built 7 chargers for 7.5 billion dollars
@@aaronjjacques who said anything about giving anything to bureaucrats?
Great video, thank you! This shit needs to be spoken aloud.
Leeja for president!😅
thank you for covering it! it’s always been a topic i’ve been curious about but never found a concise and easy to understand video/article. much appreciated for all your work and research into videos like this!
Best way to build a bridge to those who like 'the other team' is remind them that corporations run more than government.
Thanks for the class. In my wildest dreams, I'll be implementing your advice. Thanks again. 😂😂💙💙
Many thanks and happy new year 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤
there is NO LAW for the Ruling class....
There’s Luigi
There never was - cash and guns beat “law.”
Best, most concise explanation I've come across. Thank you.
Thank You.
I hate it here
Solid year of videos! Thanks again Leeja! You are awesome and appreciated.
Thanks for tutorial
Thanks for doing what you do Leeja
AWESOME VIDEO
Happy New Year, Leeja 🎉
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And remember - if the penalty for breaking a law is a fine, that law only applies to the lower and middle class!
Excellent presentation of complex concepts using clear language.
thanks for information
my dad taught me to use the 'borrow' out of the 'buy borrow die' (we r middle class, idk where he thinks ill get the money to borrow a million dollars from the bank)
I pay over 35% in taxes. Millionaires and up should do the same.
Effective or bracketed? Just federal or including state, local, property, and/or sales? Solely income, including capital gains, or alternative minimum? You can’t just throw out a percentage without clarifying what it’s a percentage _of._
80 percent and make em do public good to lower the rate - like fund affordable housing projects - just fund em. Boom. Okay, thanks, you may now pay 50 percent this year.
As usual this was well worth my time to watch,thank you for creating it.👍
Happy New Year!
Great video Leeja! I'll have to come back and watch it again when I'm a little more sober. That trick of borrowing against your stock, and getting a low interest loan, is called hypothecation. It works great until the market or stock takes a dip. A big enough loss of value, and the lender can keep those stocks. But billionaires can usually afford to lose that stock anyway, so not much risk for them.
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Thank you for breaking this stuff down and making unbearable but important topics much more palatable ❤️
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Thank you!!!
My uncle once asked why I didn’t lease a car and write it off - he legit forgot not everyone can do that? I’m not wrapping my car and advertising, but that’s how he pays for all his cars lol
Your uncle's cluelessness to how the system functions for everyone else is a keen insight into how the wealthy always think
Happy New Year Leeja!
Our government is unjust! 😢
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You explain this so well. Thank you.
Phenomenal video with great breakdowns.
well done. You leave me speechless again as the power of the rich and how it hurts all is made very clear
Billionaires are dragons. We should be treating them accordingly.
even tho im not from us i really enjoy your work Leeja, i like learning whats going on in there bc it very much effects the rest of the world, keep up the good work!!
Keep up the good fight!
This is so important
TY Leeja for very informative Vidya.
Brilliant!
The big question about a wealth tax is if it would trigger a massive sell-off of stock which could devalue every stock on the market and cause a depression.
YEP! That is exactly how it works. It's not that hard to comprehend.
THE NEXT 4 YEARS IS GOING TO BE HELL FOR THE POOR AND RICH IS GOING TO GET RICHIER SIMPLE
Every year is hell for the poor, red or blue in the big white house.
So it will be just like the last four years? lol
The exploitation is so clear and maddening. I feel like I'm being gaslit on a daily basis by idiots and and bootlickers.
It's not clear. It's completely one-sided and absurd, and if you want to find an idiot, look in the mirror.
@@leobigelow7021bootlicker
@leobigelow7021 you've exclusively commented excessively on this post. Get lost, bootlicker.
Happy new year to you Leeja! 😊
Its the final days of Rome, all over again.
ROME? Hoover's and Coolidge's America!
"After me, the flood" Louis 14, the Sun King, grandson was overthrown in the French Revolution.
@ Rome, as in the end of the republic and the rise of empire, when Rome turned away from elected leader’s and returned to the age of kings and emperors or the age of Caesars, the beginning of the end,, when wealth, autocracy and religious extremism brought, the age of reason to an end, the way misinformation and propaganda are used now, its hard not to draw parallels to the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, the beginning of the dark ages, when faith outranked facts and scientists were burnt ass heretics.
A wealth tax isn't unprecedented. A wealth tax already exists, it just ONLY applies to middle class families. It's just not called a wealth tax, it's called property tax... oh, and it does factor in unrealized gains (yeah, you notice how your property tax goes up every year, that's not the state passing a tax increase each year, that's the county assessor estimating how much the value of your property is worth). A wealth tax is just applying the same logic applied to property and applying it to other assets as well... And unlike the property tax, it would explicitly exclude the middle class.
Until it didn't.
@@leobigelow7021 did you mean, "until it doesn't", because stating it in the past tense implies that at some point we have seen a wealth tax that taxes all assets and that it was at some point applied to the middle class as well as the highest wealth individuals. And yes, there is always the risk that if such a tax were implemented that it would eventually have changes made to it to apply to more people. Of course, realistically, any congress, at any time, could pass new taxes for the middle class. They wouldn't have to hide behind some long game of creating a tax that only affects the wealthiest Americans and then later slowly raising the temperature like boiling a frog in a pot to trick people. They could just pass a tax act that looks like a cut for the middle class until you read the fine print and realize that there is already planned increases hidden in the text that will kick in a few years down the road when no one is paying attention... oh wait, that's exactly what happened with Trump's tax plan.
@@smileyeagle1021 When the income tax was originally implemented it only applied to the very wealthy. Not anymore. You're a fool if you believe the same thing won't happen here. And there are serious moral and Constitutional issues with the Federal government taking the unprecedented step of taxing people not on what they earn but what they have. It's also impossible to implement. Have you thought through the ramifications of requiring everyone in the country to report the value of every asset they have every year?
@@leobigelow7021 So on taxing people on the values of assets. Right now that happens with property tax. It's not totally clear cut, and when it comes to paying those taxes, it's often possible for a homeowner to shop around for a low valuation, while also shopping for high valuations when it comes to selling a property, or using it as collateral.
Though for a lot of other assets, the values would be pretty clear and easy. The type of investments most people would have, like stocks, mutual funds, EFTs and that sort of thing? Every single quarter (if not every single day) they can get an up to date listing of all of those values, because that can already figure into various tax liabilities, and because investors are kind of big into having numbers, and companies are big into providing these numbers.
Now, I know the problem you'd likely have gotten to, what happens when the government taxes you on unrealized gains but you don't actually have the cash to pay? The whole 'middle class investor' problem? Easy, exempt some amount proportional to the person's actual income.
I also don't see the spread of income tax 'from the rich' to everybody as a bad thing. If we're going to tax people in a way that taxes them on their ability to pay, income would seem to me the fairest way. If we raised taxes through things like sales tax, those are regressive and hit poor people worse. As I listed above, property tax and such runs into messy problems where assessed values can be gamed.
OMG! This whole process is SICK!!! 🤮
Happy new year! Ended 2024 with a real banger!
Excellent!
I hate this hellscape so much! It’s beyond time to dine! #EatThaFugginRICH
Tax billionaires out of existence..
You are fortunate because billionaires dont exist, because of taxes.
Like are you stupid, this was literally explained in the video? The whole reason why they dont pay tax is because they dont have money to tax.
Its the bankers you should hate, not billionaires. Which is strange, christianity knew for centuries that interest is evil and creates unfairness. Whoever introduced banking to the christian world is the one to blame for all that has transpired since. Whomst could it have been...
Thanks for another massively informative video. Aside from all that... Thanks for the text on the preview "loopholes of the rich and (the) famous" My brain sang that part like the good Charlotte song 😂
Also if you're getting a 1% loan and inflation is growing at 3% you actually make 2% on your money. So rich people borrow as much as possible because their loan principle dwindles over time. If you have assets inflation doean't affect you and may even work for you.
My coworker was adamant about the unrealized tax. I kept telling him you dont make over 100 million. His logic one day he will. What!?
thanks for the pointers on tax loopholes... (probably not the intention of this video lol) definitely going to rewatch this video every tax season
capital gains is taxed differently based on long term or short term. that sweet sweet IRA... i need to focus growing it more XD
taxing the sale of capital instead of the gains... i think will hurt the 99% not the 1%.