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You have x shares of stock, each worth $a. Your net worth is $ax.

The government wants p% of your wealth, so it takes p * (ax) dollars from you. I hope we can agree that this is the same as a * (px). In other words, they've taken p% of your shares.

Why does any of this depend on mumbo jumbo about FMV and 409A valuations?



You are assuming that you know $a. You don’t know $a for shares of stock in a pre-IPO company.

That’s why FMV and 409A matter here. They allow us find $a in a way that’s acceptable to the IRS. We are talking about taxes, after all.


$a is arbitrary. It doesn't matter how you arrived at it. As long as you provide a reasonable assessment to the IRS, pg's original point (which you objected to) is completely correct: an f% wealth tax is an f% seizure of your shares.

And if you object that you can just lowball that assessment; well yes, and by the way you've just conceded nearly every point made by opponents of the wealth tax.




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