Death & Taxes

[legion]

It does make me angry, but it is an entirely different matter to describing mortgage interest as a tax. Which is what you did. And what I commented on.

Considering the banks relationship with the central bank, and the central bank's relationship with the government, being fleeced by the banks is a tax as far as I'm concerned. Land and house prices are inflated by the banks access to cheap money from the central bank, and loose money is the avowed policy of Mr Abe and all those that love quantitive easing.

In the end the tax payer is on the hook to finance the government bonds which the central bank require to inflate the market, and the banks are paying back their cheap loans to the central bank with our money. So in my opinion it is a hidden tax.

So we are doubly screwed.

[wagyl]

being fleeced by the banks.

Hi there. I've got a job but I find it hard to save a lot of money. I'm looking for a house. Can you give me access to money for about twenty years?

Great! How much do you want for not having easy liquid access to that money you've loaned me for that long period? If something happens and I am unable to pay you back after all, it is a little troublesome and nasty PR to kick me out on the street so I suppose you will factor potential for bad debts into the rate you end up charging me.

So, what rates can you offer me?


Maybe lending money for cheap is not such a great proposition after all.

If they could offer for less and still be a commercial proposition, the banks are in competition so one of them would.

Or do you think that the banks are all in conspiracy to wring you dry?

[Wage Slave]

How do I delete a post?

[Wage Slave]

Considering the banks relationship with the central bank, and the central bank's relationship with the government, being fleeced by the banks is a tax as far as I'm concerned. Land and house prices are inflated by the banks access to cheap money from the central bank, and loose money is the avowed policy of Mr Abe and all those that love quantitive easing.

In the end the tax payer is on the hook to finance the government bonds which the central bank require to inflate the market, and the banks are paying back their cheap loans to the central bank with our money. So in my opinion it is a hidden tax.

So we are doubly screwed.

Did you ever study economics or did you pick it up as you went along?

[wagyl]

And if you really want to burst a blood vessel, wait until you realise that the major part of the price of your house and land is just the planning permission to build a building on it, and that right is arbitrarily created from nothing by the municipality. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/23 ... ly_insane/ The new value doesn't even go to the municipality, just to the lucky bastard who owned the land at the time of the zoning change.

[wagyl]

How do I delete a post?

If you are the last post in the thread, there is a delete option, but that option disappears if there are posts after yours, so we can see when you have been back and tried to alter the record.

[Wage Slave]

How do I delete a post?

If you are the last post in the thread, there is a delete option, but that option disappears if there are posts after yours, so we can see when you have been back and tried to alter the record.

I see. But I can edit it so I can alter the record anyway.

[wagyl]

Yeah, but you can't pretend it was never there, like you can if it was deleted. We can see that there has been an edit, even if we can't see what used to be there.

[Wage Slave]

True.

[Samurai_Jerk]

You seem to be deliberately missing the point in your eagerness to hand over the fruits of your parents' labour to the taxman. By your argument they are now taxed three times, twice by the UK, once by Japan. I already pay tax in Japan, income tax, city tax, property tax etc, and my kids will pay tax on what I have left when I die.

Interesting you raise the Cayman Islands, a British protectorate, ie, defended by the British navy, and an infamous tax haven. One of Thatcher's first acts was to change the law to allow Dennis to park their money abroad, safely away from the taxman, and the liability of being in an onshore bank, ie, subject to the risk of the bank going under due to unwise investments. Gee, I wonder where the origins of the financial crisis lie?

But if I understand your argument you are now saying because the tax havens exist Japan is justified in taxing everything they can, just to make it "fair". By fair you mean wealthy people can afford dedicated accountants to help them evade tax, little people have to pay up and not complain.

Who was it that called me house nigger a while back? Tax is about control, and it is certainly working on you. You should move to Hokkaido with all the other sheep.

And remember, the nominal value of a house is not what most people paid for it, with interest we pay far more than the given price of the house. So while you are taxed on the supposed "value" of the house, the cost of the house was far greater.

You're the one missing the point here. The only way you could argue that Japan is taxing your dead parents is if they were trying to tax the estate. They're not. They're only taxing the person who resides in Japan on what he receives. In other words you.

I've already said I don't like Japan's new scheme, I think the exclusions are too low, and I think the upper rate is too high. How is that being a sheep?

My point is that I don't have a problem with inheritance tax in principle which you seem to and I think it's fairer than estate tax. What I actually believe is there should be an inheritance tax instead of an estate tax and only on liquid assets.

[Wage Slave]

What I actually believe is there should be an inheritance tax instead of an estate tax and only on liquid assets.

What do you mean? If an asset is truly illiquid it has no or almost no market value so it isn't taxable anyway. Or do you consider houses and land as not liquid? Cos they are liquid, just significantly less liquid than many investments.

[wagyl]

Once you start separating out different classes of assets with different treatment, then you start getting schemes to exploit those differences, like the company formed to take out a loan to top up funds to buy a residential rental high rise mansion described by Asahi Shimbun a couple of pages back in this thread, as a way to gift 600 million yen to a child totally tax free.

Or indeed get Starbucks or Google or Vodafone or Amazon parking intellectual property rights in a low tax jurisdiction and charging sister subsidiaries large amounts to license that intellectual property. These schemes are fine legally, now people are trying to say that they are wrong morally. I happen to be one of those people who say that if they are meant to be illegal it is up to the legislature to make them illegal.

The advice linked about the exit tax had the following to say to advise foreigners with a whole lot of shares: You have five years to change your PR to a work visa, or to change your investment portfolio to increase real estate and cash at the expense of shares. Hell, even Chibaka advised us to invest in classic cars to avoid capital gains tax liability.

(as an aside, I wonder how Immigration reacts if you try to hand in your PR and change to a work visa. Not that that is necessary for my investments, I keep my 500 million in cash)

[Wage Slave]

Once you start separating out different classes of assets with different treatment, then you start getting schemes to exploit those differences, like the company formed to take out a loan to top up funds to buy a residential rental high rise mansion described by Asahi Shimbun a couple of pages back in this thread, as a way to gift 600 million yen to a child totally tax free.

Very true.

Or indeed get Starbucks or Google or Vodafone or Amazon parking intellectual property rights in a low tax jurisdiction and charging sister subsidiaries large amounts to license that intellectual property. These schemes are fine legally, now people are trying to say that they are wrong morally. I happen to be one of those people who say that if they are meant to be illegal it is up to the legislature to make them illegal.

And I agree with this too but you can't go after just the particular caper they are running at the moment. You will always be playing catch up because it takes ages to draft, consider, revise, pass legislation and then implement it. While the tax dodgers of course can turn on a sixpence and implement plan B or C or D.

So, you have to get broad brush and draconian on them. So far, the so called Google Tax in the UK is showing promise. Amazon have already fallen into line. I see Australia has something similiar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_tax

The advice linked about the exit tax had the following to say to advise foreigners with a whole lot of shares: You have five years to change your PR to a work visa, or to change your investment portfolio to increase real estate and cash at the expense of shares. Hell, even Chibaka advised us to invest in classic cars to avoid capital gains tax liability.

The link from PWC I linked said it had been put back to 2525 for foreigners.

Not that that is necessary for my investments, I keep my 500 million in cash)

Indeed. Chasing capital gains and interest is so grubbingly middle income, isn't it?

[wagyl]

The link from PWC I linked said it had been put back to 2525 for foreigners.

I think you were trying to say 2025.

I was going to comment on that but I am no expert. I do however get the feeling that a careful reading of that PwC piece is meaning that it applies from 2015 for Japanese nationals and 2020 for foreign nationals. It is instructive that the text does not include the figure 2025 anywhere. Once again, not that any of us are likely to be liable. It is the Japanese guys in their fifties sent out to be president of the foreign subsidiary who will be the ones getting a headache over all this.

[Wage Slave]

The link from PWC I linked said it had been put back to 2525 for foreigners.

I think you were trying to say 2025.

I was going to comment on that but I am no expert. I do however get the feeling that a careful reading of that PwC piece is meaning that it applies from 2015 for Japanese nationals and 2020 for foreign nationals. It is instructive that the text does not include the figure 2025 anywhere. Once again, not that any of us are likely to be liable. It is the Japanese guys in their fifties sent out to be president of the foreign subsidiary who will be the ones getting a headache over all this.

Yes, you are absolutely right. In true Japanese fashion it's convoluted. 2020 is the earliest any foreigner can be liable because this tax now has it's own 5 years in the last 10 eligibility clock that starts from June 2015. So much for the worries about deterring people posted here for a couple of years to benefit us all with their unique and near superhuman skills and knowledge.

2525 Which, in the year, was also the name of the first single I owned. And that's perhaps even more embarrassing.

And as for the Japanese chaps who get posted abroad - As long as they return and don't sell the assets in the meantime they will be refunded I think.

[wagyl]

It is only embarrassing if man is still alive and woman can survive then.

[Samurai_Jerk]

What I actually believe is there should be an inheritance tax instead of an estate tax and only on liquid assets.

What do you mean? If an asset is truly illiquid it has no or almost no market value so it isn't taxable anyway. Or do you consider houses and land as not liquid? Cos they are liquid, just significantly less liquid than many investments.

Real estate is not a liquid asset.

The best approach is not to tax anything till it's been converted to cash. People being forced to sell assets to pay a tax bill on the value of those same assets is pretty fucked up.

This is a tangent but the US is really shitty with taxes on prizes. Win a car or a luxury vacation on a game show and you have to pay taxes on it.

[Yokohammer]

This is a tangent but the US is really shitty with taxes on prizes. Win a car or a luxury vacation on a game show and you have to pay taxes on it.

Wow ... that really is kinda shitty.

How about the lottery? In Japan lottery winnings are tax free (at least they were last time I checked), so even if you win the 600,000,000 big one you get the whole thing tax free.


~ Tapatalking ~

[Samurai_Jerk]

This is a tangent but the US is really shitty with taxes on prizes. Win a car or a luxury vacation on a game show and you have to pay taxes on it.

Wow ... that really is kinda shitty.

How about the lottery? In Japan lottery winnings are tax free (at least they were last time I checked), so even if you win the 600,000,000 big one you get the whole thing tax free.

Lottery and gambling winnings are also taxed but at least those are cash. That also means that if I were to win that 600 million yen lotto, I'd owe Uncle Sam a lot of money.

[Yokohammer]

This is a tangent but the US is really shitty with taxes on prizes. Win a car or a luxury vacation on a game show and you have to pay taxes on it.

Wow ... that really is kinda shitty.

How about the lottery? In Japan lottery winnings are tax free (at least they were last time I checked), so even if you win the 600,000,000 big one you get the whole thing tax free.

Lottery and gambling winnings are also taxed but at least those are cash. That also means that if I were to win that 600 million yen lotto, I'd owe Uncle Sam a lot of money.

Oh right ... I forgot about that IRS global reach thing. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave ...

Japan will catch up with the US example soon enough, I'm sure.


~ Tapatalking ~

[Wage Slave]

Real estate is not a liquid asset.

The best approach is not to tax anything till it's been converted to cash. People being forced to sell assets to pay a tax bill on the value of those same assets is pretty fucked up.

OK, it's a not purely liquid asset but it is also not illiquid. But I get what you mean now. However, I don't think it would work at all. Everyone could avoid inheritance/estate tax simply by investing in property or other less than instantly saleable assets and trying to keep track of when things were sold later and collecting the tax then would be difficult and expensive. When someone passes on there needs to be a settlement and closure.

As it is, no-one is really forced to sell property as long as the tax bill is paid from other assets. Also, if there are a number of beneficiaries of the estate, which is usual, dividing property or art collections up will be fraught with expense and difficulty. The good thing about cash is that it is divisible and can be used for whatever you want. Most beneficiaries want to see their share of the money in their account and as soon as possible.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Real estate is not a liquid asset.

The best approach is not to tax anything till it's been converted to cash. People being forced to sell assets to pay a tax bill on the value of those same assets is pretty fucked up.

OK, it's a not purely liquid asset but it is also not illiquid. But I get what you mean now. However, I don't think it would work at all. Everyone could avoid inheritance/estate tax simply by investing in property or other less than instantly saleable assets and trying to keep track of when things were sold later and collecting the tax then would be difficult and expensive. When someone passes on there needs to be a settlement and closure.

As it is, no-one is really forced to sell property as long as the tax bill is paid from other assets. Also, if there are a number of beneficiaries of the estate, which is usual, dividing property or art collections up will be fraught with expense and difficulty. The good thing about cash is that it is divisible and can be used for whatever you want. Most beneficiaries want to see their share of the money in their account and as soon as possible.

How is that more difficult than keeping track of capital gains?

When I say forced I don't mean anyone tells you you have to sell your house. I mean that a tax bill is due, you don't have the money to pay for it, and you end up selling it because it's the only way to raise the money. How can you say that never happens to anyone?

[Wage Slave]

Real estate is not a liquid asset.

The best approach is not to tax anything till it's been converted to cash. People being forced to sell assets to pay a tax bill on the value of those same assets is pretty fucked up.

OK, it's a not purely liquid asset but it is also not illiquid. But I get what you mean now. However, I don't think it would work at all. Everyone could avoid inheritance/estate tax simply by investing in property or other less than instantly saleable assets and trying to keep track of when things were sold later and collecting the tax then would be difficult and expensive. When someone passes on there needs to be a settlement and closure.

As it is, no-one is really forced to sell property as long as the tax bill is paid from other assets. Also, if there are a number of beneficiaries of the estate, which is usual, dividing property or art collections up will be fraught with expense and difficulty. The good thing about cash is that it is divisible and can be used for whatever you want. Most beneficiaries want to see their share of the money in their account and as soon as possible.

How is that more difficult than keeping track of capital gains?

When I say forced I don't mean anyone tells you you have to sell your house. I mean that a tax bill is due, you don't have the money to pay for it, and you end up selling it because it's the only way to raise the money. How can you say that never happens to anyone?

It does happen of course but if you are really concerned to hang on to the property then there are ways to avoid having to sell. You could take out a mortgage on it and buy it yourself. The fact is most people want their share of the money not their share of a property.

All taxes are going to cause dis-benefit to people - that's their nature. Some people believe that all inheritance/estate tax is fundamentally unjust and I can see the argument. Personally I am neutral - It's not the best but I also don't think it is an abomination. And, if you are going to abolish it, you also have to say what other tax will be used to make up the income.

And keeping track of capital gains is difficult, expensive and prone to avoidance and evasion. Tax needs to be, as far as possible, easy, quick, cheap to collect and difficult to avoid or evade. That's why income tax, property tax and sales tax are the mainstays.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I actually have a problem with property tax since it basically means there is no true ownership by individuals but practically speaking I don't think it can be done away with.

[Wage Slave]

I actually have a problem with property tax since it basically means there is no true ownership by individuals

I'm not with you. How's that?

[Samurai_Jerk]

I actually have a problem with property tax since it basically means there is no true ownership by individuals

I'm not with you. How's that?

If you have to pay taxes to keep your property, you don't own it. You're just renting it.

[Wage Slave]

I actually have a problem with property tax since it basically means there is no true ownership by individuals

I'm not with you. How's that?

If you have to pay taxes to keep your property, you don't own it. You're just renting it.

That's pretty hard to sustain. If it's sold and you get the money, then you own it. A tax doesn't dilute ownership one tiny little bit. All it does is impose a cost of ownership. Lots of other things have a cost of ownership - In my case I own shares via a website trading platform. They charge for custody and safekeeping every quarter. That doesn't alter the fact I own the shares.

If you own a car and want to use it, then you have to store it somewhere, change the oil, pay for shaken every two years, pay tax and so on - does that mean you don't really own the car?

[Coligny]

WS... That's quite a stupid comparison...

I can collect as many cars in my bunker without paying any fee as long as I don't use them on public roads. I cann even drive them on track days or in my field if I want.
Property taxe if you are the owner just mean you have one less leach to pay to keep your stuff.
And if you have to pay to keep sumthing, it's not yours. Ask any sugar daddy about that issue.

[Samurai_Jerk]

WS... That's quite a stupid comparison...

I can collect as many cars in my bunker without paying any fee as long as I don't use them on public roads. I cann even drive them on track days or in my field if I want.
Property taxe if you are the owner just mean you have one less leach to pay to keep your stuff.
And if you have to pay to keep sumthing, it's not yours. Ask any sugar daddy about that issue.

What he said.

[chibaka]

WS... That's quite a stupid comparison...

I can collect as many cars in my bunker without paying any fee as long as I don't use them on public roads. I cann even drive them on track days or in my field if I want.
Property taxe if you are the owner just mean you have one less leach to pay to keep your stuff.
And if you have to pay to keep sumthing, it's not yours. Ask any sugar daddy about that issue.

And you can sell the car after a week for double your purchase price, no one cares....