🧩 BND Motif Index · M899
Buy, borrow, die
The very rich are said to pay little or no income tax by never drawing a paycheck: they buy assets, borrow against them and die holding them, or move wherever the tax is lowest.
- 4claims filed under it
- 1left show it came up on
- 1center show it came up on
- 1right show it came up on
- 2claims retold online
⚠️ A story people tell, not a claim that it's true.
A motif is the shape of a story as its tellers tell it, named the way a folklorist names a tale type, so the same story told about other people, by the other side or in another year lands in the same place. Some of the claims below are true, many are false. Arguing against a story is often a story of its own, its answer (Voter fraud is answered by Voter suppression, Lawfare by No one is above the law), and we file it there; where no answer has a motif yet, the arguments against a story sit with its tellings.
🪜 Its family
what it rests on, what rests on it, and the motifs that answer it
🪜 rests on 🧩 Class conflict
🔗 goes with: 🧩 Wealth hoarding
🎙️ Who it came up with
the shows we follow where its claims came up, by the show's lean
🫏 left 1
⚖️ center 1
🐘 right 1
"Came up on" means one of its claims was heard on the show: told, reported or argued against. We don't yet mark which. Show leans are our own grouping of the shows we transcribe.
📰 In the news
the stories its claims were told about, the most told first (matched by our tools, so a link can be wrong)
- 📰 Meta and Zuckerberg reach deal to keep him in California amid billionaire tax threat 2026-10-22 to 2026-10-25
🧶 Its claims
what's been told in this shape, newest first, in our words, with where each was heard
- 2026-10-23 “Billionaires evade taxes by borrowing against their brokerage accounts to avoid capital gains taxes.”
🎙️ The Majority Report (podcast) 🎙️ The Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC) - 2026-10-23 “Wealthy individuals will flee the United States for other countries to avoid national wealth taxes.”
🎙️ PBD Podcast (podcast) - 2026-10-22 “Meta created a new class of stock so Mark Zuckerberg can avoid paying a California wealth tax.” 🧶 people online
- 2026-10-12 “Billionaires avoid paying personal income taxes by leveraging assets and debt rather than taking traditional paychecks.” 🧶 people online
M899 · first seen 2026-10-12 · last 2026-10-24 · what this is · how the index works