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Comment by arrosenberg

5 days ago

If it's a bad idea, it's a bad faith argument - why would you suggest it? The tax laws shouldn't favor the gross accumulation of wealth, nor the starvation of the treasury, so the laws need to change to force the rich to pay their fair share.

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arrosenberg

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fn-mote  5 days ago

> If it's a bad idea, it's a bad faith argument

I believe the GP is just cautioning rando HN readers that they should not rush out and make their down payment in the manner described, as opposed to liquidating some of their stock options for "real cash" like the GGP had to do.

They are just explaining a reasonable method that the (above) average HN reader could use to be in the same situation as Bezos of having a 0% tax on their down payment.

In the US, there's a pretty massive exemption (well, deferral) for capital gains tax on the sale of a primary residence, so once you have one home to work with, the down payment is (kind of?) tax-free anyway.

  • arrosenberg  5 days ago

    They definitely shouldn't. It's absurd to suggest that because a middle-class homebuyer can get a margin loan through iBroker means that we should let the richest people in history dodge taxes in this way. If no one would actually do that, then it really doesn't matter that they technically can. The obvious solution is to take away the privilege from the wealthy and make them abide the same rules as the rest of us.