The Billionaire and Rising GOP Mega-Donor Gaming the Tax System (2022)

> One strategy, in simplified form, works like this: Make two bets that should move in opposite directions. Think of, say, both betting on and against Coca-Cola’s stock. Towards the end of the year, one bet will be up, and one will be down. At 365 days, the last day a trade is considered short-term, sell the one that’s down. A day later, sell the one that’s up.

> Of course, if you consider the trade as a whole, it makes no money. But that isn’t the point. You’ve found a risk-free way to generate two valuable commodities: short-term losses and long-term gains.

They're picking which gain/loss to realize - in both directions, on the same stock - in a way that means they always win.

Suppose during 2023, you make $1B from short-term trading. If that's all that happened, you'd be taxed for short-term capital gains on it. But also, this happens:

July 1, 2022: Place a large bet "A" on S&P 500, and a separate large bet "B" against the S&P 500.

July 1, 2023 (365 days later): Suppose S&P500 is up. Sell your bet B. You lose $1B in short-term gains.

July 2, 2023 (366 days later): Sell your bet A. You make essentially the same amount that you lost yesterday, $1B, but in long-term gains.

Total for 2023: $0B net short-term gains, $1B net long-term gains, taxed at a low rate.

No surprise here, a billionaire donates to the GOP and is a tax scammer, who would have thought. If anyone is keeping up with current US politics, the new Congress has voted to defund the IRS, why ? It is very expensive for the IRS to audit the very rich, by defunding it, the IRS will be unable to prevent tax the fraud by rich and large corporations.

Over the past 20 years, the funding for the IRS has been cut in almost every budget by the GOP majority.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/no-irs-no-income-tax-h...

They're all dishonest, but obviously not to the same degree.

Although, reading the article, it appears Yass actually does it in real life.

I would agree with the greater point that might be getting made here is that it's all of Washington, DC gaming the laws and using their democratically elected "for the people" powers for personal inurement.

I will never judge private citizens for using any law to their advantage. After all, a private citizen is just leveraging what everyone else can.

Unfortunately, we know who writes the laws but the voters in states rarely replace their senators and representatives. I wish this was less of a "team sport" where my guy who is "conservative" or "liberal" has to win and people would be willing to fire a senator or a representative for just one term so our elected officials are reminded who they work for and that we may vote them out at any time. We don't have term limits for these seats but through voting we effectively /could/ replace them every cycle if we wanted.

I have a friend who owns businesses. His business is part of a larger non-profit association and this association lobbies capital hill every year. He personally goes up there and has conversations with them once a year for our state. He like to share a story where he was waiting to meet with a member of the house. The representative came out of his office, his assistant was helping him put on his jacket and he asked his assistant "What is this vote for?" .. He gets his answer and then he asks -- "How are we voting?" ... presumably asking how his party is voting or how his majority whip wants him to vote.

I like this verbiage from a specific website (pragmaticvoters.com):

  A pragmatic voter understands that a politician who is afraid of losing their position is a politician that is willing to govern for the better interest of the people. Politicians should always fear losing their jobs. Through voting, we remind them who they work for.