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Comment by Manuel_D

2 hours ago

That scheme still wouldn't work. When that new corporation is first formed, it's near worthless. After the series of favorable deals, the value of each share in that corporation goes up. Thus it still incurs capital gains taxes.

Of course people will try to cheat taxes, but they'll try to cheat any form of tax: income, capital gains, inheritance taxes, etc. People are good to try and evade taxes regardless of the tax mechanism.

Consumption taxes are regressive: a sales tax is a flat tax that taxes a billion on their $10 latte the same as a poor person. Consumption also doesn't scale linearly with wealth: most billionaires don't consume 1000x as much as a millionaire.