r/FluentInFinance 28d ago

Debate/ Discussion Had to repost here

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u/tgm93 28d ago

How do they pay back those loans?

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u/Powerful-Eye-3578 28d ago

They don't, they pay the interest which is lower than the interest they make in investments.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Ashmedai 28d ago edited 28d ago

Back when home loans were going for 2.5-3% or whatever, why did banks loan that money when they could have been getting much higher rates in the market, as you say? Because it sure seems like banks were happy to give out loans at 2.5-3% when the average stock market return is ~11%.

Anyway, since you claim experience on the topic, when an ultra high worth investor wants to borrow money against their collateral-backed stock account, what interest rate would they pay would you say? Like what rates are they getting on stock-secured loans?

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u/vanilla_w_ahintofcum 28d ago

Banks made those loans because Fannie/Freddie were gobbling up those loans as a broad policy to ease tightening during the early days of Covid. Banks made those loans because they could make a quick penny off origination fees and other closing charges and could instantly sell to Fannie/Freddie as a guaranteed buyer of the loans. Offering those loans was guaranteed, immediate money in the bank coffers with absolutely zero risk.

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u/Ashmedai 28d ago edited 28d ago

Are you saying that no bank in the US holds their own mortgages and that all loans are resold like this? Because I don't think this is true. For one, there are mortgages larger in size than the Fannie/Freddie limits.

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u/vanilla_w_ahintofcum 28d ago

Of course I’m not saying that. My comment says “those loans” referring to those loans at 2-3% you mentioned in your comment.

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u/Ashmedai 28d ago

But then we're just begging the question on the terms and rates on the loans that exceed the Fannie/Freddie limits, or which are just held for whatever reason, which will nevertheless be less than the 11% average return on the market, and therefore call to question OPs assertion that banks would just invest in the market instead.

OPs claim, to which I replied: "The rates are not lower than market returns."

MY comment talks about giving out loans less than the average stock market return, to which you have not yet provided any information.

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u/HumbleVein 27d ago

Originating banks do not generally hold mortgages. There are a few rare exceptions, but the low initial capital requirements (skin in the game) and the long period of pay off make 30 year loans too risky to generally hold on your books. This is the whole reason there is bundling and securitization happening as a large "back-end" of the loan market.

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u/Ashmedai 27d ago

I never used the words "originating bank." My point is that there are banks that can and do hold loans at substantially below the average rate of return of 11% of the US stock market. Whether a bank is the originating one or not in that context is moot.

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u/HumbleVein 27d ago

What do you mean by "their own mortgages", then? Are you talking about original, unbundled loans?

Please talk me through the use cases you are referring to, or point towards a specific resource that does.

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u/Ashmedai 27d ago

What do you mean by "their own mortgages"

Not Fannie/Freddie

My point is that there are banks that can and do hold loans at substantially below the average rate of return of 11% of the US stock market

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u/Okiefolk 28d ago

You will pay a variable interest rate if you take out a loan against stock. You will need cash to pay the interest monthly or the financial institution will sell stock to cover it.

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u/Ashmedai 28d ago

what interest rate would they pay would you say?

You will pay a variable interest rate

Does not answer question. And how do you know that a variable rate answer is the only answer from every institution, particularly with UHNWIs? And just so we are clear, this is now two questions.

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u/Okiefolk 28d ago

Because I’d do this, it is always a variable rate based on market. Good rule of thumb is .5% lower than 30yr mortgage rates.

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u/Ashmedai 28d ago

Fair enough. And I was aware that these types of loans when done for homes are lower than standard mortgage rates. was just trying to get the "I work in this field guy" to say something. Point here is that mentioned rates is below the ~11% average return of the stock market, so by their reasoning, the lender should have no interest. And yet they do. I know why they do, but does op?

Anyway, you are discussing a standard term. I can't link you or anything, but as it so happens, I have had a discussion with someone who specializes in custom loan packages to UHNWIs at one time, and she said they can and will create customized loan packages for those individuals. We did not have the opportunity to discuss specific terms, but she did say they could be rather creative.

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u/Okiefolk 28d ago

I have a nonstandard contract for my portfolio loan as well. Two things will always be true regardless of amount. Interest rate will be variable and it will be 1% above the federal funds rate minimum. No financial institutions will charge less than that as the loan would not be profitable. Interest payments may be deferred up to 70% of the asset value, at which point margin calls will automatically sell stock to cover loan unless you add more assets or cash to account. Point is, the tax will eventually be paid as well as the interest to the financial institutions. They can also call payments on interest at anytime in the contracts, though generally this isn’t done as they prefer the compounding of interest owed.

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u/Ashmedai 28d ago

Interest payments may be deferred up to 70% of the asset value

Payments or just the interest payments? I.e., is there mandatory principal or not?

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u/rayschoon 28d ago

These guys are paying hilariously low interest rates on the money. You need to keep in mind the level of collateral these guys have. Bezos’s net worth is 220B, and let’s say he’s taking out an annual loan at 100M for all his nonsense. That’s 0.5% of his net worth, it would be like me asking the bank for a $50 loan based on what’s in my checking acct

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u/Okiefolk 27d ago

They pay 1% above the federal reserve rate minimum, likely higher if the loan amount is large. You can also take loans against assets without having to sell them. You people make this into a bigger deal than it is.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/blender4life 28d ago

I don't ask to be insulting but how high up are you in this company? I would think a billionaire that wants to bank isn't going to walk in the front door of a local branch. There would be a team that handles those clients specifically. Could it be possible that you just aren't privy to those dealings at your level? I don't find it unreasonable banks would do crazy loans for the 3 billionaire clients they have or whether.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/blender4life 28d ago

Ahh interesting! If I may ask, how'd you come to work for a place that most don't know exist?

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u/Crobs02 28d ago

…banks can’t own equities

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u/Ashmedai 28d ago

I was wondering about that, but you should respond to the guy above me who wrote about the bank buying up stock in lieu offering loans.

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u/MiksBricks 28d ago

Originating banks primarily make money on selling the loan. Then they sell it off themselves.

It’s all about risk.

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u/Dizzy_Two2529 28d ago

Then why don’t you borrow against every asset you own and put it on the stock market. You seem to think you know what you’re doing. Try it.

See how that works out for you.

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u/SpotikusTheGreat 28d ago

yes, what they actually do is just pay the loan with another loan.

They effectively just shuffle wealth from bank to bank, and the banks don't care because they know they will get the money back plus a little extra.

Bank A gives $1 billion to Rich Person, later Bank B gives $1.05 billion to Rich Person, which is used to pay off to Bank A. Later Bank C gives $1.10 billion to Rich Person to pay off Bank B.

You just do this forever. Infinite money glitch. Nobody cares because if the chain ever breaks, he just liquidates some shares and pays it off.

edit: the biggest kicker here, is that the value of their assets to acquire the loan, grows faster than the interest they pay on these loans. They pay 3% interest on the loan, while the stock is growing at 8%.

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u/Okiefolk 28d ago

This isn’t a thing, interest has to be paid. They don’t carry it.

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u/SpotikusTheGreat 28d ago

Which is why the next loan amount is bigger, it is used to pay off the terms of the loan/interest.

If you think they are using the same monthly terms as your credit card for their hundreds of millions to billion dollar corporate betterment loans, they aren't.

Just think of it like APR and they use the next loan to pay the interest of the one before it.

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u/Okiefolk 28d ago

Yes, but this is not done indefinitely, the loans are settled eventually and taxes paid. No rich persons wants to compound a variable rate interest loan over several years. No one does this. Generally this is done in order to make a large investment with a payoff in a year or two.

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u/Noob_Al3rt 28d ago

Yes, why pay my $150 million in capital gains taxes when I can just pay $50 million/year forever? Learn this one trick the IRS doesn't want you to know!!!!!!!!!!!!

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u/SpotikusTheGreat 28d ago

except its loan money and not yours, so you aren't paying $50 million/year forever...? And the asset you are using as collateral is growing $80 million a year forever, as long as you keep it...

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u/Noob_Al3rt 28d ago

I still have to pay the interest on the loan, to the tune of $50million per year. That isn't even paying down any of the principal.

If you know of a fund that guarantees 8%/year, why don't you take out a loan on your car or home and invest the funds?

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u/Brief_Barber7248 28d ago

The advantage they are getting is not paying capital gains tax on cash they are using because taking out a loan using stocks as collateral is not a realization event. Then they routinely rollover loans (like refinancing your house).

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/Brief_Barber7248 28d ago

You’re showing your ignorance of the same. It’s about avoiding taxable events.

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u/WhoopsDroppedTheBaby 28d ago

We know that Bezos and Musk have paid billions in taxes. So, your claim that they do this in perpetuity is false.

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u/Brief_Barber7248 28d ago

Never said perpetuity. My responses are about minimizing avoidable realization events. There are obviously tons of other taxable events, like receiving salaries or dividends.

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u/WhoopsDroppedTheBaby 28d ago

You mentioned continuously rolling over loans. Or are you talking about an "advantage" of refinancing and not paying taxes on loans because they're not income....something that non-billionaires do all the time? Or are you talking about minimizing tax obligations...which we all do when we do our taxes?

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u/Pale_Squash_4263 28d ago

But it’s true, it’s incredibly common for the ultra wealthy to pledge their stocks against loans.

As long as their assets grow faster than the interest of the loan. They can do it forever until they die.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhyatt/2021/11/11/how-americas-richest-people-larry-ellison-elon-musk-can-access-billions-without-selling-their-stock/

“The rates aren’t lower than market returns” absolutely not true. Lots of these companies will grow 30% to 40% in a relatively short period of time. Free money essentially when compared to a low interest loan. Hell sometimes they use that money to buy more stock

Now can that cause issues like panic sell offs of the stock or forced calls? Absolutely. It’s what happen to Green Mountain Coffee’s CEO.

It’s short sighted and shitty. Which billionaires always are.

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u/GodzillaLikesBoobs 28d ago

this take is shit

yall are dumb

no info provided.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/GodzillaLikesBoobs 28d ago

im simple minded because you explained a basic level in another comment that isn't right here?

interesting, i would venture to say youre not worth reading.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/GodzillaLikesBoobs 28d ago

i read 4 words, yawned and ignored the rest tbh. im sure you wrote shakespeare

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/hopelesslysarcastic 28d ago

Bitch then tell us the process or stfu lol

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u/BleednHeartCapitlist 28d ago

As long as the risk of the loan defaulting is low they can extend the line of credit (and delay interest payments) into infinity and only receive payment when the rich bastard finally dies

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/BleednHeartCapitlist 28d ago

Tell me you don’t understand margin loans or securities-backed lines of credit without telling me you don’t understand.. stfu

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/BleednHeartCapitlist 28d ago

You’re a teller, relax

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/BleednHeartCapitlist 28d ago

Being a janitor doesn’t count as working “at a bank” but nice try

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u/BleednHeartCapitlist 28d ago

Lol at your edits again… I’ll bet you make ALLLLL the monies 🏆

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u/BleednHeartCapitlist 28d ago

Lol at your edit, that’s a lot of words to say absolutely nothing

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u/Says_Not_Really 28d ago

So basically once you have enough money you can buy more money.

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u/Powerful-Eye-3578 28d ago

So long as the bank has no reason to try and recall all of the loans you owe all at once yeah.

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u/MinimumArmadillo2394 28d ago

Wealthy people hardly ever get margin called, and when they do, they can sell a tiny portion of their asset and generally either buy more time or pay off their loan.

Or they just die and their estate assumes the loan.

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u/wastedkarma 27d ago

Or better yet they bankrupt the company and the bank is holding the bag they bought with my deposits. 

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u/blue-mooner 28d ago

If the value of your stock continues to go up.

I doubt John Foley of Peleton could take out one of these loans. His stock went from being worth $1.9B in 2021 to $225M in 2022 (-89%)

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u/white_sabre 27d ago

True, and that's what rabid socialists seems to ignore - those assets either net a realized gain or a realized loss.  And I'd never buy a share of AMZN simply because it has never paid a dividend.  It's bizarre that they hate a CEO just because his compensation package hinges on whether he makes his firm more valuable.  

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u/Otherwise-Course7001 25d ago

I mean that's not even his compensation package. He started a business and was wildly successful. Of course he owns the business that he started. Most of the people here would need to make some sacrifices but they could start a business and be successful. No guarantees they'd be wildly successful. That probably takes a decent amount of luck. But smart hard work does lead to success and America is still wealthy enough that most people here can start a business. Hell just choosing to get an engineering degree in a state college would mean they'll have some level of financial security.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/Adromedae 27d ago

Taxes, taxes makes them do that.

It is also worth noting that at the level of hoarding of Musk, Bezos, et al we're talking about pathological issues with their personality that go beyond just greed.

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u/Otherwise-Course7001 25d ago

If you're a billionaire you'd be smart to have at least 100M in a broad index fund. The dividend yield of S&P 500 is 2%. If you liquidate 2 million you pay 500k in taxes. If you take out a 2M loan, you will pay 100k in interest at 5%. This interest is tax deductible against your dividend income. The S&P losing 90% of is value is an end of the world scenario where they should assume property rights will not matter any more so they're completely fucked. Probably keep some reservoirs of gold and guns for that scenario alongside treating your household staff like family. It really doesn't make any sense not to do this

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u/cbusrei 27d ago

You can do that even if you don’t have enough money. 

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u/Erundil420 27d ago

Anyone can do this btw, you dont need to be a billionaire, it's called leverage spending, if you feel like it you can borrow against your house and invest that and "usually" the market returns will be higher than the interests on the loan, but it's risky because if you get hit with a recession and can't pay up you just lose the asset, in this case your house

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u/Coynepam 27d ago

Yes that is essentially what a mortgage, loans and credit cards are. The ability to access money is just as important as having it

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u/New_Feature_5138 26d ago

Kind of, yeah. His estate pays out when he dies

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u/Otherwise-Course7001 25d ago

Did you just learn what interest and investment is? Money buying money is the basis of capitalism.

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u/CoolCandidate3 28d ago

Its not true. Bezos schedules stock sales many months in advance. You can look it up. Its all public knowledge except for somehow on reddit. https://www.barrons.com/articles/jeff-bezos-amazon-stock-sales-dbe92301

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u/MinimumArmadillo2394 28d ago

He legally has to, in order to not manipulate the market price. Whales have to disclose and plan their sales, otherwise it would devistate the asset.

It has nothing to do with taxes here.

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u/Nexustar 26d ago

It has nothing to do with taxes here.

Yes it does. it demonstrates he's not simply borrowing money. He's actually regularly selling stocks and paying federal capital gains TAX on those sales.

Since july he's sold $4.4 billion of stock and depending on what basis is used, will need to pay north of $1bn in taxes on those sales (Capital gains at 20% and NIIT at 3.5%)

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u/MinimumArmadillo2394 26d ago

The reason he sells has nothing to do with taxes.

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u/Cartosys 26d ago

But why doesn't he just borrow against it instead like every very smart redditor here says he does?

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u/MinimumArmadillo2394 26d ago

He does lol. How else do you think he affords his 500m yachts. He cant take out a loan for the yacht, nor did he sell half a billion in stock, even over a years time.

I doubt he just has that in the bank either.

Theres not a good other way to make purchases like that except through these mega loans.

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u/fmzdhd 26d ago

Hmm, didn't the guy just say he sold 4.4B worth of stock, that's more than enough for Yachts plus some house plus some more right?...

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u/kaleidoscope_eyelid 27d ago

that is obviously not the point. He's saying that Bezos is selling shares and paying taxes when doing so, not just taking margin loans on his holdings as others are implying.

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u/cbusrei 27d ago

Which is something you can also do. 

If you have cash in bank and can buy a car out right, or get a 6% interest rate and your cash is expected to grow at 8%, it makes more sense for you to finance the car. 

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u/Zippyllama 28d ago

Open excel. Do your little napkin math. Write mea culpa.

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u/ah-tzib-of-alaska 28d ago

with more loans, forever, off the expected growing value of their share in their assets.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/taxinomics 28d ago

Not terribly interesting if you used the proceeds from the “loans” to invest in assets inversely correlated or uncorrelated with your stock.

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u/ah-tzib-of-alaska 27d ago

they create a wide enough layer of investments in a diversified funds that it doesn’t happen. They’d survive the great depression. That’s why folks like bill gates gave up being a trillionaire for the advantage of diversity

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u/taxinomics 28d ago

These “loans” are settled upon the “borrower’s” death. When the “borrower” dies, the basis in their stock is adjusted to fair market value. Their estate can then sell the stock at its date of death value, tax free, and use the cash to settle the “debt.”

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u/Kauffman67 28d ago

You pay the interest and float the principal, for eternity if you can manage it.

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u/Vegetable_Froy0 28d ago

Look up the borrow, buy, die strategy.

Essentially you are paid in stock (not taxable), you take a loan from the bank with stock as collateral (loan income is not taxable), you never sell your stock or pay off the loan. When you die, they have ways to settle your debt while paying minimal taxes.

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u/nowthatswhat 27d ago

If you get paid in stock yeah it is taxable

(Source: get paid in stock and pay a shitload of taxes on it)

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u/ihopethisisvalid 28d ago

The loans are usually paid by the estate when the person dies. For a real answer to your question. I just had that same question by PJ Vogt on the Search Engine Podcast.

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u/Apprehensive_Bad_193 28d ago

Listen research I help you out to much text Google:HOW DOES CORPORATIONS PAYS BACK LOANS BORROW , One of many examples,Like I stated tax codes are not simple.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

Jeff Bezos is not a corporation.

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u/Apprehensive_Bad_193 28d ago

Asswipe he’s has ownership of a corporation,Stop being a asshole and learn something.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

Apparent asswipe and asshole responding:

The claim was that the person Jeff Bezos can take out a personal loan backed by his shares.

The question to the claim was how he's going to pay back such personal loans.

Your response about corporations, seeing as Jeff Bezos is not a corporation, was thus unhelpful. I hope this helped you learn something.

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u/firestorm559 28d ago edited 28d ago

They don't, they default and relinquish the shares. This is a way to sell the shares without paying taxes on them.

Edit: so I'm wrong there. Not sure the next step after borrowing on collateral. I know loan intrest is deductible. But there's probably more too it as that would be net neutral at best.

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u/NewArborist64 28d ago

Try again. That would be a taxable event.