This reminds me of Trump supporters who said, "Because he beat the IRS and paid zero taxes means he's smarter than the system."
Your argument is along the same lines: Theil followed the law, ergo nothing "sinister" happened.
Which is the same as: "It isn't sinister because there is no law."
Yet, where did laws come from? Oh right, from people who have ethics. Because our ethics do not come from laws; our morals do, but not our ethics. Morality is an invented extension of ethics, which is codified into law when people think something shitty is happening (well, that's how it SHOULD happen... but that's the School-House-Rock version)
IMHO, and many others (sadly, to your "dismay") Theil is being a greedy pig exploiting vagaries of the law for his MASSIVE gain, and there needs to be laws to prevent this kind of behavior because it is only available to the super wealthy, and it makes the elite class even more untouchable (plus a thousand other second-order effects).
This isn't some complicated double-dutch tax sheltering scheme though. It's functionally the same as using your Roth IRA to buy a lottery ticket and winning. The vast majority of startups fail.
It's just a super simple investment that succeeded because his startup won.
Again: I have a problem with someone investing in their startup using a government tax-protected shelter, and then making a killing off of it: that is double dipping, and scum-baggy.
Simple law: you cannot invest in your own company in your own Roth IRA because it is blatantly unfair to other investors who don't have similar insider trading abilities.
> Simple law: you cannot invest in your own company in your own Roth IRA because it is blatantly unfair to other investors who don't have similar insider trading abilities.
Why can't other investors create their own startups and invest their money similarly?
Startup founders take a lot of risk. There is a big chance his investment could have been zero. It is strange that ProPublica does not understand this basic concept.
Where is their report on millions of Roth accounts that went to zero?
This isn't a Leetcode puzzle. It's a question of how you want society to be organized. Do you really think it's reasonable to have loopholes that allow certain semi-random people to totally escape the income tax system? What possible good could that do for society?
> By your logic: You are free to invest like him in early stage startups. You will be out zilch, so why not do what he did?
1. Accredited investor rules
2. Please find me a startup which will allow me to buy shares at $0.001/share while simultaneous selling to other investors at a price of 500k[0].
3. If you say to start my own and invest in my own company that I am working for in my Roth, I'll remind you that it's explicit not allowed, and the fact that it's not allowed is the thing that most people are taking issue with.
[0] Yes, that's not the full valuation issue, but it's enough to see that the value at the time wasn't really legitimate.
"With financial support from friends and family, he raised $1 million" - from his wiki.
Yeah, I don't think this person was hurting for the paltry sum they invested. It also sounds like they would've been just fine if it had failed (aka just move on to the next venture until you hit jackpot).
The rich get richer I guess, and random folks on the internet applaud the pilfering of the commons (dodging taxes).
I mean, you're already not allowed to use a Roth to invest in a company that you're an officer of, major shareholder in, etc (with many other restrictions), so I'm not sure how adding a new law would have changed this (since the existing ones appear to have just been ignored)
Your argument is along the same lines: Theil followed the law, ergo nothing "sinister" happened.
Which is the same as: "It isn't sinister because there is no law."
Yet, where did laws come from? Oh right, from people who have ethics. Because our ethics do not come from laws; our morals do, but not our ethics. Morality is an invented extension of ethics, which is codified into law when people think something shitty is happening (well, that's how it SHOULD happen... but that's the School-House-Rock version)
IMHO, and many others (sadly, to your "dismay") Theil is being a greedy pig exploiting vagaries of the law for his MASSIVE gain, and there needs to be laws to prevent this kind of behavior because it is only available to the super wealthy, and it makes the elite class even more untouchable (plus a thousand other second-order effects).