Taxation (was: Is Anonymous E-Cash Dead?)

From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Jul 18 2000 - 15:45:47 MDT


James Wetterau wrote:
>
> Yes, I know that short term capital gains are different from regular
> capital gains. But even in that case, of course tax must be paid, and
> it's at least the same or even worse than capital gains taxes. The
> original post implied that you can avoid capital gains taxes and my
> point is that you can avoid them only by paying the (possibly) worse
> income tax.

I think the point is to let the annual gains compound without
interference, with the personal income tax being charged at the end of
the road, not every year. (Frankly, this is a change in the tax laws
that should have been made decades ago. The government is eating its
seed corn.)

That's the point of creating private foundations which give to public
charities, instead of the philanthropists just giving to the charities
directly - the private foundation's capital can grow free of taxation
before being distributed. (Of course, private foundations have to
distribute at least 5% of their capital per year, but still.)

-- 
        sentience@pobox.com    Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
              http://singinst.org/beyond.html



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