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Let's play the rich get everything. The rules are the rich get everything. participation is mandatory.
(lemmy.world)
Did I say mandatory? I meant optional! You're "free" to die in a cardboard box under a freeway as a market capitalist scarecrow warning to the other ants so they keep showing up to make us more!
Ultra net worth individuals, especially ones like Jeff Bezos with a lot of his net worth tied up in one company, can take a personal loan using his stock as collateral to keep up his lifestyle without needing to sell (and be taxed on) anything. It's only really available for the 1%
Anyone can buy stocks in a margin account and then borrow against it as margin, and use that margin to make more money. If you can open a brokerage account, you can do this.
Shit can turn on you real fast though and you can lose a lot of money since you're borrowing against the value of a fluctuating asset.
E.g $1000 stocks let's you buy $400 on margin, but if that $1000 becomes worth less than $700 you gotta pay back that $400, but now you gotta sell at $700 or pony up more cash and that $400 you bought is also only worth $200, so you sell $200 of your $700 and suddenly you've lost 50% of the value
I've never made 6 figures before, but was asked to show my investment portfolio value when applying for a mortgage as it was part of my assets. Assets the bank could seize if I didn't pay my bill.
TIL I'm the 1%.
The poster you're replying to is talking about something else. There's a point where the terms you can get for loans using your stock portfolio as collateral are so good that you can count on your stock value growing faster than interest payments on the loan, enabling you to take out loans that amount to free money and live off of them (or use them on more investments that grow faster allowing you to take larger loans, etc).
Banks don't mind because they reliably get their interest payments, can count on settling the account when the person dies, and of course there's the social capital of being the institution that ultra wealthy people bank with. For an ultra-rich person it's how they can have the liquidity to live an ultra-rich lifestyle even if all of their wealth is tied up in the market.
I still think anyone can do that, just on a smaller scale. Either way, sounds risky. Stocks sometimes go down as it turns out.
TIL I can use my stock as collateral in a mortgage
That's strange. I've had a few mortgages now and have never been asked to show my investment portfolio. Where are you and what bank asked for the info?
Canada. All of the banks I applied at asked for total assets, including TD and Scotiabank.
They can be used as collateral because they are assets that have value. You can use your car or house as collateral too, and neither requires payment of federal income tax.
There isn't a federal tax on most assets. It's income that's taxed. If your assets gain value they can be sold, at which point you pay taxes on that income, though often at a reduced rate (e.g. Capital Gains Tax for selling stock at a profit).
Except most state/local governments do have property taxes on houses, land, and cars. Not unrealistic to apply the same towards other assets. Specially since taxing homes and cars is counterintuitive because you're taxing necessities, while taxing monetary/investment assets like stocks would make more sense to encourage more spending instead of just hoarding the money.
Most states don't tax cars outside of sales tax.
They may have registration, but that's different than tax and only applies of you use the vehicle on public land.
Property tax is usually school districts and municipalities, and is well-under 1% most planned.
And you can do the same thing. He got a loan using his stock as collateral. The stock has value. The bank can use that value to issue the loan as they see fit within federal regulations. They can do the same with your less than $100m portfolio.
How about we just make things fair so that the ultra rich pay their share? This is not the way. It literally makes no sense.