Musk allows Twitter to identify billions from Tesla stock sales – E24

On Saturday night, Elon Musk, president and big owner of Tesla, left Twitter message.

There has been a lot of talk about unrealized gains on stocks as a way to evade taxes, so I’m proposing to sell ten percent of my Tesla stock, Musk wrote, sticking to President Joe Biden’s plan to tax billionaires in the United States.

Along with the message, he created a poll that anyone with a Twitter account can vote for.

Do you support this, Musk asks.

At the time of writing, 2.6 million Twitter users have voted for Musk to sell the stock, and a majority of 56 percent said yes. Voting ends at 8 pm on Sunday.

“I will follow the outcome of the vote, no matter which direction things go,” Musk continues Another Twitter message.

$260 billion in tax cuts can be obtained

Before Saturday’s stunt, Musk vehemently opposed President Joe Biden’s plan to tax unrealized stock gains, He writes in the New York Post. Musk is among those who avoid nearly all taxes by keeping their fortune in stocks, according to a tax leak earlier this year.

Musk, whose fortune is the size of two Norwegian budgets, did not pay federal income tax in the United States in 2018.

With the proposed tax on unrealized capital gains, Musk would have to pay out $30 billion, or $260 billion, over the next two years. According to Forbes calculations. That would make up just under ten percent of Musk’s fortune.

Selling 240 billion shares

Musk currently owns 23 percent of the shares in Tesla, According to Reuters. Thus, ten percent of his shares make up 2.3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding shares.

If Musk actually sold the stock, it would be worth about $28 billion, or $240 billion.

It is uncertain how much tax such a sale would incur. The highest tax on stock gains in the United States is 20 percent, but for low-income earners, the tax is zero percent, According to the US Internal Revenue Service.

Musk says he has no income.

I do not take any salary or monetary reward from anywhere. Musk wrote that I only have the shares, so the only way for me to pay taxes is to sell them Saturday evening Twitter message.

Don’t rely on a Twitter poll

Ron Wyden, the senator behind the tax proposal, hit back at Musk’s stunt on Twitter on Sunday.

Whether or not the richest man in the world pays taxes should not depend on a Twitter poll. Time to tax billionaires’ income, says Wyden in press release According to The Hill.

according to Twitter message from economics professor Gabriel Zucman At UC Berkeley, Musk may have to pay about $50 billion in taxes with the new proposal.

– I look forward to the day when it does not depend on Twitter whether the richest man in the world pays any taxes, Zucman writes on Twitter.