How Peter Thiel gamed the Roth IRA for tax-free billions

More from Propublica’s Secret IRS Files.

The Propublica Secret IRS Files is a large tranche of IRS leaks detailing the tax-structures of the super-wealthy, documenting the ways in which Leona Helmsley was perfectly correct to assert that “taxes are for the little people.”

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/15/guillotines-and-taxes/#carried-interest

The latest reporting examines the way that Peter Thiel and other billionaires are able to abuse the Roth IRA (a savings vehicle that is only supposed to be used by middle-class people to save modest sums for retirement) to evade taxes on billions..

https://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech-mogul-peter-thiel-turned-a-retirement-account-for-the-middle-class-into-a-5-billion-dollar-tax-free-piggy-bank

The Roth IRA is named for William Roth Jr, a Reaganite anti-tax-extremist GOP Delaware Senator who brokered a new retirement savings tool with the Clinton administration in 1997, a tool that was supposed to allow middle-class savings without giving tax-breaks to the wealthy.

People with middle-class incomes can put away assets worth modest sums — $2000/year initially — in a savings account, pay tax on them at current their current value…