This is exactly right. Marriage is a commitment to deny yourself so you put the good of the other first.
When I hear people talk about marriage (or any commitment) these days, I sometimes wonder if they're from a distant planet. When any long-term commitment is some form of oppression from which we must be liberated, bonds like marriage cannot work. This is justified in the pursuit of happiness. Ironically, those who seem happiest are those willing to make (and keep) binding commitments.
> Only if the alternative was holding it in some other tax-advantaged account like a traditional IRA.
How much revenue (income tax, capital gains, whatever) does the IRS receive for an investment whose value drops to $0?
Also, no fraud needed to happen. He earned the money from Confinity, paid taxes on it, invested in some of his (very risky) shares with the IRA and then it paid off over the next 2+ decades.
If you have evidence of this kind of fraud, please let us know. If it were to exist, you'd probably see some evidence (e.g. parallel books, skepticism from investors). ProPublica has tax and other records and they seem to have no evidence that supports your claim whatsoever.
Isn't the most likely story that he put his shares in this account, his company did take off and now he has continued to grow it?
Since you're beyond convincing, I won't try to. Maybe the article itself can?
> In an interview with ProPublica, Pensco founder Tom Anderson recalled how Thiel and other PayPal executives had wanted to put startup shares of the company into traditional IRAs.
> Anderson dangled something sweeter.
> “I said, ‘If you really think this is going to be big, you know, you might want to consider this new Roth,’” recalled Anderson, who is now retired. If the investment ballooned, he remembered saying, “‘you’re not going to pay tax on it when you take it out.’ It’s a no-brainer."
> The math was compelling. Thiel wouldn’t get a tax break up front, but he’d avoid an immense tax bill later on if the investment surged in value.
For everyone else who is open minded:
Thiel's IRA held Confinity shares. In 1999, Confinity wasn't worth much. In 2021 the company now known as PayPal is worth quite a bit. Confinity could have just as easily folded, been a victim of the dot com bubble, failed to make a deal with Elon Musk's x.com and lost to them, or had any number of disasters along the way that would have wiped out that portfolio.
Even ProPublica's reporting admits this was a risk. The investment adviser's words are "If you really think this is going to be big, you know, you might want to consider this new Roth."
Ironically, because startups fail so much more frequently than they succeed and because the federal government doesn't tax wealth but income, which can be artificially minimized in relatively simple ways, the government would probably be better off if all startup shares in all companies were held in Roth IRAs, since they'd be taking an up-front cut of a likely failed investment.
Thiel's vast fortune held in a Roth IRA is a corner case, but any talk of it "depriving" the government of revenue when he pre-paid taxes in good faith according to the law and thereby took a fairly significant risk without the benefit of hindsight seems like pure envy.
What is the goal here: to make revenue for the government or to punish successful investors?
Thiel paid taxes on his Roth IRA - when he put the money in. As a result, the government didn't have to wait till he was 59.5 years old to get their cut. Thiel for his part was willing to use that money for risky investments. As in, the cash deposited in that account could have well gone to $0 if not for the fact that Thiel is a gifted investor. In that case, the IRA would have been worth nothing but the government would have still gotten their cut ahead of time.
Management and mitigation of risk - both for individuals AND the government - is literally the reason Roth IRAs exist. This is indeed the law working absolutely as intended.
Anyone could follow the Thiel strategy, except for the fact that ordinary Americans are forbidden from investing in risky investments because they're deemed too stupid by that same government and that Thiel is probably a better investor than just about anyone else.
Roth IRAs are not some bizarre tax loophole. They're an extremely common vehicle for people planning for retirement - unless their income is too high, that is. Many companies even offer Roth 401(k)s or other Roth vehicles for retirement as well. And taxes are indeed paid when the money is put in.
If someone follows the rules and is extremely successful with their investment strategy with money in a Roth IRA, then what's the problem?
When I hear people talk about marriage (or any commitment) these days, I sometimes wonder if they're from a distant planet. When any long-term commitment is some form of oppression from which we must be liberated, bonds like marriage cannot work. This is justified in the pursuit of happiness. Ironically, those who seem happiest are those willing to make (and keep) binding commitments.