Tim Sweeney: Tax bill would likely end founder control of independent companies
It&#x27;d be pretty easy to levy completely fair and progressive tax structure that only directly impacts the wealthy, and is sufficient to cover the spending.<p>- Tax capital gains &gt;1m a year as regular income.<p>- Fix loopholes that allow for equity as collateral for perpetual loans without ever selling the underlying.<p>- Remove step up in cost basis on inheriting assets.<p>- Tax stock buybacks at same level as dividends.<p>- Don&#x27;t bring back SALT deduction.<p>Pretty easy to justify. Why should capital gains get favorable tax treatment over income, especially for wealthy who have this as a primary income source? Overall, proportion of assets allocated to investment capital would not dip due to change in tax, where else would they put the money?<p>Buybacks are effectively a technique to consolidate wealth primarily for the CEO and board of a company, who are paid primarily in equity comp. Very few companies do buybacks for legitimate operational reasons, like purchasing stock when it&#x27;s undervalued to reduce operational expenses re dividends. It&#x27;s mostly a buy at any price to juice valuations. I&#x27;m not against companies returning money to shareholders, but buybacks shouldn&#x27;t be tax advantaged vs dividends.<p>SALT is a direct handout to wealthy homeowners. The fact that this is even in the spending bill  shows how far the narrative of fixing wealth inequality has deviated from the actual legislation.<p>I suspect Congress doesn&#x27;t do these things because it would actually impact their own finances. And of course they need unilateral agreement on any approach.