from Hacker News

What Happens When Tony Hsieh Dies with $1B, with No Estate Planning

by burritofanatic on 10/14/23, 1:45 AM with 35 comments

• by obblekk on 10/14/23, 2:37 AM

  “Moreover, incapacity is a near certainty for all people: there will be a period however brief, in which a person can no longer manage their own affairs, requiring help.”

  I’d never thought of it this way, but it’s a thought provoking reality.

• by quickthrower2 on 10/14/23, 1:53 AM

  > $391,232,000 goes to the IRS.

  Insane! On the one hand this mistake is a rare case of the rich paying a lot of tax. But very odd not to have tried to avoid this by (whatever rich people do)

• by zetazzed on 10/14/23, 2:42 AM

  Estate tax only kicks in > $12M. But probate kicks in if your assets are > $170k! I don't support extensive tax trickery to get out of estate tax (unless you count giving it all to charity as tax hacking, which I definitely don't), but I have been converted to advise everyone with heirs and meaningful assets to set up a trust and work with an estate lawyer to make sure they can bypass probate when needed. Otherwise funds can be tied up for a lengthy period of time (and incur a lot of lawyer fees) even in simple cases.

• by Scoundreller on 10/14/23, 2:29 AM

  > He gave people money to quit at the end of employee orientation if they didn’t believe they would be a bad fit

  It's sad that I wasn't 100% immediately sure this was a typo, but I'm pretty sure it is.

• by oldbbsnickname on 10/14/23, 6:50 AM

  PSA: Everyone do their family a favor: Setup a preneed. Prepay and pre-arrange your final costs and wishes. Headstones can also be custom designed.

• by ploden on 10/14/23, 2:36 AM

  > Instead of subjecting his gross estate to the federal estate tax, Hsieh could have set up a trust in which he has no control over, transfer his assets into it, then have a trustee continue to carry out his goals

  The real outrage is that this is legal.

• by benreesman on 10/14/23, 2:47 AM

  Arguing about this is nipping at the margins. Capture is monotone increasing. The donor class needs their teeth kicked in from time to time (Magna Carta, tennis court, countless).

  Trying to unfuck estate law is a tourniquet.

  We don’t need to curb-stomp the donor class to make them “pay their fair share”, we need to wreck their shit to make the incumbents powerless.

  Human nature has a bad memory leak. You have to restart the process sometimes.

  If we don’t find a peaceful way to do it, nature will find a violent way to do it.