Ask HN: What's your bar for ultra wealthy individual and why? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's your bar for ultra wealthy individual and why?

5 pointsprakhar89712 comments

Represents Total Wealth.

A. <$1M

B. $1M-$10M

C. $10M-$100M

D. $100M-$1B

E. $1B-$10B

F. $10B-$100B

G. $100B-$1T

H. >$1T

Also, how much do you think someone should be taxed above your bar?

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Obviously totally arbitrary and meaningless, but I'd say (C).

With a wealth of 10M, drawing 4% = 400k/year, a person or family would be able to not work ever again, and live a very comfortable upper-middle class life anywhere they wanted, equivalent to a high-end doctor/lawyer/FANG income & lifestyle but without the actual job, etc.

Below that, (B) is still very wealthy, a very nice cushion and enough to take a few years off or even retire, but with some compromises on location/lifestyle, and more risk of needing to work again or cut back if investment returns aren't as expected.

Somewhat related you may find the poll feature [1] useful. Requires at least 200 karma which you are above.

I don't know the answer to your question. I suppose it would vary by region, inflation, economic stability and of course that persons burn rate. If they were a philanthropist then perhaps H. >$1T to sustain their personal contributions throughout part of their lifetime and remain wealthy until the end. If they had a simple life and lived in a region with a low cost of living then perhaps most of those answers could be correct given you stipulated Ultra.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll

For US and comparable economies, D.

Obviously it varies by economic region.

The tax question gets complicated because of several factors. At the very least, every discussion of reforming the tax code, at least in the US, falls apart because of issues (real or imagined) with, ignorance of, or confusion about one or more of:

1. Wealth vs income 2. Earned income vs capital gains 3. liquid vs illiquid wealth 3. Marginal taxation 4. Estate tax

My thoughts have evolved over the years as I've learned and grown in experience, but while I strongly believe the current situation is both unconscionable and unsustainable, I don't know what the perfect solution would be.

My current off the cuff straw man for the US would be something like:

1. Earned income and capital gains taxed the same

2. Progressive marginal income tax with a bottom rate of 1% (to possibly even less, but not zero) and a top rate well above 75% -- probably 90%.

3. Some way to tax the "ghost income" of wealthy folks building loan ladders to avoid showing any actual income while still having liquidity. They get a large loan at favorable rates based upon their capital or paper wealth , spend the moneys over time and doing token debt service. When the balloon payment comes due, they get another loan to cover that and more. With enough wealth, this can continue for a lifetime. By keeping wealth in shell companies and/or trusts, often over several lifetimes.

4. Marginal estate taxes, with the first couple million exempt. I haven't thought hard about how high the rates should go.

5. Reform's to the laws and regulations around the myriad ways of skirting the system.

My experience with complex systems leads me to believe that the only way to make progress here is to focus the goals of the system and simplify the system as much as possible while still achieving the goals.

US political forces leave me little hope of progress in my lifetime, but I would love to be surprised.

What would be the outcome of this? Are you trying to reduce the gap between the poor and the wealthy?

Yes? Sort of?

Depends what you mean by "gap".

I certainly think the power dynamic we currently have in the US is bad. The wealthy are insulated from most, if not all, of the troubles facing the rest of society. Yet they still extract benefit from, and have considerable control and influence over, society at large.

That's not healthy for anyone but the wealthy. Maybe not even them, long term, but that's more of a philosophical question.

Not sure if that answers your question or not.

I think that the effective tax rates for people should go up with income and assets. Once you have more than a million Dollars (hard money)[1,2] worth of assets, your tax rate should be more than 50%.

*Note that in 2023 dollars, that's more than $10,000,000

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_dollar

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_(United_States_coin)

In what context? Since you're talking about taxes, you're asking in the context of a country, but didn't specify which one nor did you tell us what this "Total Wealth" is (e.g. all cash? Publically traded stock? Real estate? A whole private company? Art? An unmined mine?).

I'm not looking to defend the top 0.1% who are generally under-taxed. But we cannot discuss a complex topic but ignoring all the parts that make it complex. Plus "ultra wealthy" in e.g. California (USA) and Somalia are like E+ Vs. B+.

I do not like specific dollar amounts. Prefer a lifestyle scale. If you have less than 5 meals a week (not by choice) you are very poor.

If you have less than 7 meal a week, you are poor.

If you have a meal a day and not 3 a day you are upper poor.

If you have 3 meals a day but have to eat at home you are lower middle class.

If you can go out to eat a few times a week you are middle class.

If you could go out to eat most meals you are upper middle class.

If you can go out for ALL meals you are lower upper class.

If you can have ALL your meals delivered you are upper class.

If you have a full time chef you are upper upper class.

This scale doesn't really work globally. There are many poor people in Singapore who eat out three times a day, because there are subsidized hawker meals that cost less than cooking by yourself. Also, "could" is fuzzy: I could eat "ALL" meals if I wanted to, but I don't particularly want to.

I don’t really think about it, to be honest.

Honestly why not $100K :) That is ridiculously rich compared to the rest of the world.

Wealth is more about living frugally and within your means, than showing off extravagance IMO. There's always "more" thats out of your reach.

So if I pick F: $10B; we're going to really turn the screws on the deca-billionaires? They are mobile, they can just move to Lichtenstein or Monaco or Singapore, they probably have 20-passports and a private jet already.

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