Games Rich People Play

Julian H. Robertson has 2.4 billion dollars. If he paid New York City income tax, which is assessed at 3.6% for all citizens who live in Manhattan, where he owns a coop, he would owe $26 million dollars for the year 2000.

Not exactly chump change, but given what he makes every year, not a bite he would feel, more of a mosquito bite than an snake bite.

When his wife died, in 2010, he donated $27 million to the New York Stem Cell Foundation, for cancer research.
(Sanford Weill got Cornell University Medical College named after him for a donation of $54 million dollars, or maybe it was $154 milion; I lose track, when the numbers get that big).

In order to avoid paying the $26 million dollars to New York City, Julian Robertson had to keep a computer record to document he did not spend more than 183 days in New York City, because if he was physically present in NYC for 184 days, well then he was officially a resident of NYC, but if he spent 183 days, he was not. He could claim residency in New Hampshire, for example, which has no state or city income tax, if he had one of his many homes in New Hampshire.

So, in order to not be taxed that $26 million, Robertson would perform an elaborate dance between one of his homes on Long Island, being sure not to cross the line into NYC before midnight on certain nights. He would voice mail or email his secretary to document which day was a New York City day, based on whether his limousine crossed a city line.

Reading the article about his game playing, by James Stewart in this week's New Yorker, you see, as the details of how Mr. Robertson lived his life, flying from a golf outing in Scotland, landing at an airport beyond the city line in his private jet, you see how people in that upper strata of wealth play the games they play.

Of course, you ask yourself this question: If I had this much money, and I loved to live in my New York City penthouse, over looking Central Park, with all New York City has to offer, would I not be happy to pay my 3.6% share to keep that city the wonder of the planet it is?

My father, who had risen from a cold water flat in the Lower East Side, to a life of comfort and considerable pride and wealth, living in a house he loved in Bethesda, used to say, "I'm happy to have lived long enough, to have been successful enough, and to have an income which requires me to pay such taxes."

I would submit, my father was a closet patriot. He never wore an American flag pin in his Brooks Brother lapels; nor did he fly a flag from his door; nor did he have a sticker on his car with a flag or a support-our-troops logo. He just paid his taxes without any avoidance games. He thought of this as an obligation as a member of the community.

For the rich, however, as Leona Hemsley famously said, "Taxes are for the little people."
The rich believe taxes go down some black hole of government, and are wasted money, spent on unionized government workers who don't deserve their salaries, wasted on programs for the undeserving poor, squandered on road repair projects which could be done more cheaply by private enterprise, misdirected to public works which are unnecessary, flushed down the pipes of public swimming pools which ought to be private businesses, wasted on public parks enjoyed by the hoi polloi, burned up in public schools for people without means or importance.
In short, if $26 million dollars is going to come out of my pocket, I want to give it to stem cell research because I know how best to spend my own money.
And if I spend it the way I want to, I get my name on a building or some special thanks from grateful people who think well of me for donating the money.
If I pay taxes, nobody thanks me and nobody thinks well of me. In fact, they all take a certain satisfaction they've got their pound of flesh out of the rich guy. They take my money and they spit on me.
Of course, this whole evasion of responsibility for the community is rooted in a rejection of the notion of community, of the possibility that city government might be spending taxpayers' money for the common good. It is, most basically, a rejection of the notion of democracy.
It is cynicism in rawest form.
It is Ayn Rand incarnate. Nothing good can come from supporting public institutions run by political figures, even if the mayor of New York is one of the one percenters, a businessman who promised to run the city more like a business.
We could fashion the rules so this sort of thinking and behavior is outlawed.
If we did, there would be people who cry out, oh but then the very rich would take flight from New York City. We'd lose the very rich.
We heard that same sort of talk here in New Hampshire when we discussed taxing the rich.
I said, "Good riddance."
In New York's case, this would be particularly true. How many of the one percenters would actually leave New York?
Posh.