An Observation: Pensions do not belong on Wall Street
The Question: What’s the alternative?
The Answer: Equity Paybacks
Discussion
As a tax attorney, I learned to see the economy through the lens of the Internal Revenue Code.
It is a uniquely comprehensive and non-polemical way of looking at our uniquely human way of being together, and apart, through transactions for exchanging money and other property, as individuals (Natural Persons: biological beings that exist, whether the law says they do, or not) and institutions (Legal Persons: legal entities that do not exist in Nature, but only in the law).
Each of these transactions is assigned a characteristic by the tax law, that either contributes to the calculation of a tax due to the government, or does to contribute to the calculation of a tax.
Knowledge of these diverse characterizations for these diverse transactions gives us a framework for understanding how the economy actually functions, physically and legally, free from ideology.
One thing we see when we look at the economy through the lens of the tax code is that the law offers a menu of choices for legally constituting and enterprise, including:
- Sole proprietorship
- General partnership
- Limited partnership/limited liability company
- General business corporation
- Non-profit corporation
- Unincorporated association
- Trust
- Financial institutions: banks, insurance; securities.
When choosing which legal form fits any given enterprise best, the primary considerations are not so much tax planning as financing: the agreements ownership and control.
Shifting to Equity Paybacks 