Buy, Borrow, Die
Ever wonder how Jeff Bezos buys his mega-yachts or pays for rockets?
Well, hes a multi-billionaire would be the obvious answer. But that describes his wealth, not his income. His wealth comes from his stocks in Amazon.
This is true of many billionaires, and millionaires.
How do they actually pay for things? Do they sell their stocks and use that cash to buy those mansions and rockets? No because that would mean they have to pay capital gains tax.
So, what do they do instead?
They follow whats been called buy, borrow, die, which enables them to live extravagant lives, pay little or no taxes, and pass on their wealth to their kids (also without paying taxes).
Its simple, really:
1. Buy stocks, and amass a fortune as those stocks climb in price.
2. Borrow money from investment banks using those stocks as collateral, but without selling them. Since theyre low-interest loans, its not taxable. Use this money to pay for anything you want.
3. Die, and pass those stocks on to your kids. Thanks to the stepped-up basis, they will owe nothing in capital gains taxes if they sold them (the clock gets re-set to when they inherited them).
Isnt that great? Shouldnt we all be enraged by this?
God bless America!
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
Well, hes a multi-billionaire would be the obvious answer. But that describes his wealth, not his income. His wealth comes from his stocks in Amazon.
This is true of many billionaires, and millionaires.
How do they actually pay for things? Do they sell their stocks and use that cash to buy those mansions and rockets? No because that would mean they have to pay capital gains tax.
So, what do they do instead?
They follow whats been called buy, borrow, die, which enables them to live extravagant lives, pay little or no taxes, and pass on their wealth to their kids (also without paying taxes).
Its simple, really:
1. Buy stocks, and amass a fortune as those stocks climb in price.
2. Borrow money from investment banks using those stocks as collateral, but without selling them. Since theyre low-interest loans, its not taxable. Use this money to pay for anything you want.
3. Die, and pass those stocks on to your kids. Thanks to the stepped-up basis, they will owe nothing in capital gains taxes if they sold them (the clock gets re-set to when they inherited them).
Isnt that great? Shouldnt we all be enraged by this?
God bless America!
Americas billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
Comments (54)
A spouse dying also works. I don't recommend it. But that's how it can work too.
Short of that raise the income tax (inheritance tax, etc.) to at least 90%. Too high? It used to be that high. In those days there were about half as many millionaires and billionaires back in the ancient Depression and Post WWII boom days as there are now. Many of the current crop of -illionaire parasites got their start in the 1970s.
Quoting L'éléphant
Especially if one IS the rich spouse.
No, we're not talking about cash or "one rich spouse". We're on topic here as below:
Quoting Mikie
This is the topic.
So, please excuse my joke at your expense.
Agreed. There are many things we can do any of them would be a start. Close these loopholes; wealth tax; higher corporate and individual taxes; higher capital gains tax; get rid of the social security cap. You name it.
Quoting L'éléphant
I guess this would fall under die, yeah. Rather than to kids, you have it to your spouse. The stepped-up basis applies there too.
Quoting BC
Simpler in theory, but I think much more drastic and therefore less likely for success. Government taking private property isnt a good look for most Americans.
The tax code is complicated by design, as you know and always manages to favor the wealthy. That can be undone just as it was done.
Of course, and it requires the Revolution to be over, such that the people could actually expropriate the expropriators. We are nowhere close to a constructive revolution, so I don't think the rich have to worry about pitchfork-armed peasants descending on them this year or next.
On the other hand, rewriting tax law such that 90% of income, inheritance, capital gains, and so on are collected by the IRS requires that the financial and social elite join with the government elite and labor elite to forge an alliance on behalf of the working class -- that group that composes 80% to 90% of the population. This doesn't require a revolution, but it probably requires something that feels like a national existential crisis. The Great Depression was the last time the elites came together with a program to redistribute wealth downward to the working class. FDR, the New Deal, and the post WWII boom were part of that. During those 40 years, wealth among the [white] working class was greatly increased, and wealth among the rich was greatly reduced,
The first time the American elites came together to redesign the system was the Civil War. One would rather not take that route again to achieve social justice -- the body count was quite high.
lol. No problem. :up:
None of those are things we can do. That's the point. they're all things government can do.
Things we can do;
1. Put a brick through the window of the nearest Amazon
2. Put a brick through the window of the nearest such investment bank
3. Put a brick through the window of the nearest...
You get the picture. It involves bricks.
Simples.
Ha! 'Loan repayments'... Good one...
Sure. Listen up kids.
1.Get some money. *
2. Get an accountant and a lawyer.
* Money is accumulated by 'entrepreneurs' taking a cut from the trade of others, as the name suggests (Fr. - between-takers), and definitely not by working hard and playing fair.
The enraged people are usually those that want more (envy the super rich) rather than feel pity for those that have less in my experience.
A large issue is simply lack of education. The opportunities are their but so many just had no idea they were available then feel annoyed by those that took advantage of a opportunity they were not aware of. Better to learn, take it on the chin and soldier on and do the best you can rather than scream not fair! at billionaires.
:rofl: That's how to make a small fortune out of a large one.
Quoting I like sushi
:100: Like Trump, for example.
All you seem to be doing here is proving my point that people are not educated about how to manage their money. Start in your early twenties and you will be fine. Just takes a little discipline and forward thinking. Very, very few people today are completely unable to put aside something on a monthly basis.
You may have mis-read that comment.
So minimum wage $15,000 approx, 5% = $750/year invested over let's say 30 years is a total investment of $22,500. Now I would be personally surprised and pleased if that figure could be doubled after inflation by wise investment, but let's be wildly optimistic and say it could be multiplied by 10.
You'd be almost a quarter of the way to being a millionaire! only three more lifetimes to go.
I understand that people do not appreciate what compound interest can do if left alone over decades. All that said, it would be good if minimum salaries came with some kind of automatic pension investment rather than just having those with a greater disposable income to benefit more easily longterm. How would this be implemented though tough question. I do not see skimming off the top as being a optimal way forward.
My point was that it is not that hard to get to a million NOT that difficult to do for most people. Of course if someone lacks ability to get a job above minimum wage their entire life then that sucks. Some people are not capable but MOST are.
It is always the case that the richest countries have the poorest people sadly. It was the same for the British Empire. Now the minimum in UK is far better than US I imagine.
Thats a good question. Its not that Bezos has no income he does. Millions (even billions) cash on hand. Repaying a loan isnt difficult, especially when the interest rate is so low. But the point is to avoid paying taxes.
Quoting I like sushi
Is this a joke?
Quoting I like sushi
Apparently not.
1) That is not how most people become millionaires.
2) If it were so simple, everyone would do it. Perhaps ask yourself why they cant. (If you think its laziness or lack of education, Ill leave you to it.)
Quoting I like sushi
Hundreds of millions of people.
When 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, are in enormous amounts of debt, dont have a $400 emergency fund, and whose real wages have flatlined for 40 years yeah, your thoughts on this matter are not only ignorant, but callous.
At the end of the day I've found that its simply people being convinced that a billionaire's self interest is somehow their personal self-interest. There is a significant portion of the population that has been convinced that all taxation is a waste or theft. There's more that have been convinced that "They deserve it" because they've worked harder than everyone else. And then there are people who hope to take advantage of those cheats themselves one day.
In my experience, you're not going to change these people's minds unless great suffering occurs for them. Thus corruption will build until it finally damages people, then people will fight..
Do you think some kind of scheme should be put into place to help minimum wage workers in later life? I do. Maybe open up a pension/saving scheme to set up like I said? Good idea or bad idea?
Why not? Why is lobbying your government to get a bigger cut of rich people's wealth always the only thing which is for some reason ruled out in the great 'American Dream' spirit of entrepreneurialism?
Apparently, you can put babies on spikes* if it's going to make a profit and 'well done you' for your hard work and dedication, any complex financial fabrication you like, even literally printing money... but lobby government, strike, campaign... apparently that's not hard work any more, that's not an entrepreneurial way of acquiring more money, it's suddenly become lazy sponging off the state.
*
I practiced regular saving from my first job onward. My problem was that, while I had learned thrift as a child, as an adult I didn't know what to do with extra cash besides saving it. Even without investing it, savings made life much easier. (Eventually I did figure out investing.)
I also agree with that. I just disagree that it will make anyone rich.
A million dollars isn't what it used to be. Real estate is the vehicle that has made many people millionaires. Buying and paying for a house does require discipline (else the bank will take your house back). Policy makers understood that mortgages would keep people's noses to the grindstone in a way that renting didn't.
The problem with the valuable house is that you can't sell it and still live in it. But on a balance sheet, property and cash can make one "a millionaire".
Cliche inflation makes poor homeless fools of us all. https://www.foxtons.co.uk/discover/2018/10/what-does-A1m-buy-you-in-london
I remember when a $64,000 question was a seriously hard question that you had to go in a sound-proof booth to answer. and there were 3 dollars to the pound in those days.
Yes, the self-made multi-millionaire (multimillionaires to billionaires) is a fiction. Becoming rich requires the contributions of banks, investors, governments, etc. to convert a bright idea (or just as easily a bad idea) into substantial wealth.
According to informed sources...
In 1995 musk founded Zip2, a company that provided maps and business directories to online newspapers (he borrowed $28,000). In 1999 Zip2 was bought by the computer manufacturer Compaq for $307 million, and Musk then founded an online financial services company, X.com, which later became PayPal, which specialized in transferring money online.
Musk apparently started his rise to uber-riches by selling services--no need for big plant investments, machinery, megatons of ore, etc. Just office space, young workers, and internet connections; selling new services to a new and rapidly expanding businesses. Beats me why PayPal was a success, but then, I don't have an entrepreneurial bone in my body,
Well if he's got billions in income, he's theoretically paying income tax.
Right. $64,000 questions are now handled at walk-up kiosks on busy streets.
Thats fine. Most people cant afford to invest in stocks or save 5% a month. Most are in debt up to their eyes. So how does it get done? How about we pay them more?
Again, real wages have stagnated. Which is why you have more debt which is why you have people living paycheck to paycheck. To remark that hey if you cant beat them, join them and that its easy, is just ignorant. Especially given the context of this thread.
This applies to some people. But look at the general trend. You know well enough that real wages have flatlined since the late 70s. Thats a robust explanatory data point. Telling people to thrift or wherever yeah, its just not realistic in the context of 37% of Americans not being able to afford a $400 emergency:
https://fortune.com/2023/05/23/inflation-economy-consumer-finances-americans-cant-cover-emergency-expense-federal-reserve/amp/
That being said Im in favor of consuming less and financial education.
Yes:
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/wp-content/uploads/ProPublica-Billionaires-Fact-Sheet-Updated.pdf
When it says his wealth increased, that means his Amazon stock increased in value. That's not income or even real money until he sells the stocks.
I could explain some of it, but won't.
Quoting I like sushi
Good idea on paper. I would like an automatic benefit plan for minimum wage. The good argument is, the retail and food sectors really need people to work at low wage. They need people to stay at that level. The bad argument is, any employment benefits, including health coverage, is part of the compensation package. That is, you need to include that in the calculation of their overall compensation. So, the cost to the employers is much higher than the actual per hour rate. Labor is one of the most expensive costs in running a business. (Don't worry, come staff reduction, the highly compensated employees are always the ones being scrutinized. But this is for another topic).
The problem is, pension doesn't always mean people can make ends meet. One, if they're married, they need to stay married so that money can go along way -- one household only. The ones who can afford to be alone in retirement are those that were highly paid during their active working years (not minimum wage).
Second, shit can happen to anyone. Irresponsible money handling can still lead to broke-ass life despite the high income production.
This can be a good topic on a separate thread.
Absolutely true.
And for families that have stable but insufficient income and expenses they can not defer or live without, like feeding, housing, and clothing themselves and their children; day care and pre-school (which enables both partners to work); medical expenses; car payments and house payments, savings isn't an option. Add on to that student loan payments and credit card payments. At this point for many families, frugality is not optional, it is mandatory. Savings accounts are just wishful thinking.
However, not everyone who is working class is equally distressed. Single workers and working couples without children have a better chance of getting ahead financially. The trap many fall into is that as their income increases, so does their spending. They are spending more, presumably living better, but still not saving anything, maybe running out of cash before the next payday. This trap captures professional class members also. Frequent flights, trips to Europe, better food and alcohol, fashionable clothing and larger dwellings -- it's easy to outspend the family's combined salaries.
I am well aware that the people in the bottom two deciles of the income distribution are pretty much screwed economically, no matter what they do. They either can not get work, can not get work with an adequate wage, or have too little income and overwhelming expenses (like from chronic disease or natural disaster),
The solution for everyone in the bottom 9 deciles is a greater share of the GDP pie. Who gets the biggest pieces of pie is a matter of POLICY, not talent, luck, prudent investing, or any such thing. Since the 1970s, policy makers have been steering the pie slices to the top decile of income and the very top layer of wealth, the richest .0001%. 90% of us are dividing up a couple of small pieces and arguing over the crumbs.
No comment to add, just felt that this truism needed to be repeated for the benefit of those to whom shit hasn't happened yet.
Yes, I am ignorant about US. If the majority of people in the US are literally living to pay check to pay check I imagine the US economy will collapse soon enough. I do know that the richest nations have the largest degree of poverty compared to its counterparts. That is the nature of economic growth.
Thats fine so then why come to this thread, which is mostly about how the wealthy avoid paying taxes and go on about how people should simply save more money, as if its easy to become one of them?
How is that anything but a Marie Antionette-like dismissal of the plight of the 90% of Americans who are getting screwed?
Quoting I like sushi
Maybe apply equal skepticism to feelings, without a basis in fact whatsoever. I have a number of other sources, if interested.
Sure. I heard it called lifestyle creep. I like that. As your salary increases, so does your spending so you remain even, or even get into debt. But you dont save and dont invest.
Quoting BC
:100:
Uummm... there's no such thing as a "true" tax rate, including paper gains on investments.
Quoting I like sushi
Its true Im not interested in discussing ignorant comments. Bye.
Quoting LuckyR
They explain their calculations. The term true tax rate is not a technical term.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-we-calculated-the-true-tax-rates-of-the-wealthiest
Anyway: the wealthy dont pay as much in taxes, and in fact sometimes avoid paying anything at all. Especially on capital gains, which are already lower than what an average person pays in taxes as a percentage of income. Its currently capped at 20% but as the OP discusses, thats often avoided completely.
And its exactly where they house most of their wealth. They borrow off of it, and then pass it off to kids or spouse tax-free. Hence buy, borrow, die.
Economic disasters have a proven track record.
(my emphasis)
Quoting Isaac
4. vote differently (known as democracy :wink:)
But some folks work hard to vilify and stigmatize the word "socialism" and anything they can associate with that. One place to start, to put up a fight? :fire: (This wouldn't amount to vilifying and stigmatizing the word "capitalism" and anything that might be associated with that.)
I shouldn't think voting differently would be a good idea since I expect the people included in the 'we' already vote for the more progressive candidate.
It's not our votes that are the problem. It's the others'
Voting is just a snapshot of the way the electorate feel at the time about the candidates and their policies. It's like taking a photograph. More participation just gives a more accurate snapshot to the returning officer, but it doesn't actually change anything about the way things are with the populace. They still think what they think, make the choices they make... You've just let the returning officer know in a bit more detail what that is.
Real change requires changing that reality, changing the way people actually think and behave, so that next time there's an election, the photo looks better.
True, but he is able to borrow against the value and spend what he has borrowed. So, it's like he has sold the stock, functionally anyhow, but he doesn't have to pay taxes on it.
The problem here goes beyond just tax avoidance though. Human ability tends to follow a roughly normal distribution. Wealth follows a power law distribution. This gets down to the issue of returns on capital generating a system where inequality expands if positive action isn't taken.
I would generally never want to invoke anything that the CCP does as an example to follow, but they do indeed seem to get around this somewhat by making themselves owners, often majority owners, of large firms, allowing them to essentially put these capital gains to public use. That and they get to place folks on the boards and direct company policy based on public needs.
Of course, the net effect isn't good because the Chinese system is incredibly opaque, unaccountable, and open to abuse. Nor is it even really needed for the CCP to have leverage. Jack Ma, the Chinese Bezos, began giving some pretty mild critiques of the CCP re: liberalizing the finance sector... and then he disappeared for months. Obviously, this is not the way to do things, but there is something interesting about the idea of firms that are "large enough," being partly owned by the public (or by the workers at said firms, having unions on the boards, something done in Germany, etc.)
In any event, the labor share of all income in developed countries has been trending down for half a century now. We will probably see over 50% of all income go to capital in the medium term. This is bad news for places with high wealth inequality. E.g., American income inequality is not nearly as bad as wealth inequality, where the top 1% owns 15+ times the share of the bottom 50%, and 90+% of all stocks and bonds are owned by the top 10%. AI will probably also have the effect of making returns on capital outpace wage growth.
My point was that if we want to tax Bezo's wealth, we'll have to have a progressive federal property tax. Income tax wouldn't do it.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
So far, the main force resulting in redistribution is the occasional economic collapse, like the Great Depression. Those events reset everything. I've lately started thinking that leftism has always been a kind of cultural phantom. It appears to be there, but it's not real. All of the victories assigned to the left were actually the result of various catastrophic events. Or maybe I just have the apolitical blues.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
We have the postal service. :razz: And we have a heavily regulated financial industry.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
That may be true, but most of us aren't doing that badly. We aren't starving, for the most part. We don't live in shanty towns unless we particularly want to. I guess my question would be: what really is the problem we're hoping to fix?
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
So we have incredibly rich people in the world. Is that an evil unto itself? Or is it that we need those funds to help people who are actually starving? How are you looking at it?
I would aspire to something greater than simply not having people starving in the street. IMHO, the main purpose of the state is to promote the freedom of its citizens. No state is secure when its people are unhappy, and a free people will not willingly choose what makes them unhappy. America in particular suffers from an artificial division between the public and private spheres, which is itself born of a conception of freedom that focuses too much on negative freedom, and not enough on reflexive freedom and social freedom.
To quickly define these terms:
Negative Freedom is defined by a subjects freedom relative to the external world. It is freedom from external barriers that restrict ones ability to act.
Reflexive Freedom is defined by subjects freedom relative to themselves. To quote Hegel, individuals are free if their actions are solely guided by their own intentions. Thus, man is a free being [when he] is in a position not to let himself be determined by natural drives. i.e., when his actions are not subject to contingency. Later philosophers have also noted that authenticity, and thus the free space and guidance needed for us to discover our authentic selves, is another component of reflexive freedom.
Social Freedom is required because reflexive freedom only looks inward; it does not tie individual choices to any objective moral code. This being the case, an individual possessing such freedom may still choose to deprive others of their freedom. (This the contradiction inherent in globalizing Nietzsches revaluation of all values). Since individuals will invariably have conflicting goals, there is no guarantee than anyone will be able to achieve such a self-directed way of life. Negative freedom is also contradictory because the rational [reflexive] can come on the scene only as a restriction on [negative] freedom. E.g., being free to become a doctor means being free to choose restrictions on ones actions because that role entails certain duties.
Social Freedom then is the collective resolution of these contradictions through the creation of social institutions. Institutions, the state chief among them, objectify morality in such a way that individuals goals align, allowing people to freely choose actions that promote each others freedom and wellbeing. Institutions achieve this by shaping the identities of their members, such that they derive their feeling of selfhood from, and recognize [their] own essence in, membership.
In the language of contemporary economics, we would say that institutions change members tastes, shifting their social welfare function such that they increasingly weigh the welfare of others when ranking social states. In doing so, institutions help resolve collective action problems.
We are free when we do what it is that we want to do, and we can only be collectively free when we are guided into supporting one another's freedom.
This and all quotes above from Hegel's Philosophy of Right.
Yes. For two reasons.
1. There is ample evidence that high levels of economic inequality lead to a greater risk of state capture by those with wealth. In our system, wealth can buy you political power and political influence, which in turn allows the wealthy to countermand the interests and expressed policy preferences of the vast bulk of the population.
I don't buy into narratives that "the rich decide everything," in modern democracies. Far from it, the rich are often divided between each other on most salient political issues; they have differing opinions on social issues, abortion, religion, etc. However, when they do agree on issues, against the preferences of the lower and middle class, they get their way more often than not.
Further, great concentrations of economic power have a corrosive effect on the rule of law (e.g., a wealthy heir in upstate New York getting probation in a plea deal involving the rape of four different minors versus people being made felons and losing their voting rights over driving without a license), make tax collection more difficult (when money is more concentrated, it is harder to tax and tax evasion efforts better funded), and generally tends to degrade regulation. Higher inequality also seems to track with lower levels of "trust busting," and an increase in oligopolies achieving monopoly profits. Greater inequality also tends to lower social mobility; the rich are more likely to stay rich, the poor less likely to rise.
2. Inequality itself is bad because human being naturally judge themselves based on those around them; we are naturally hierarchical. Hierarchy isn't necessarily bad; divisions that are too deep are.. To put it in psychological terms, I agree with Hegel that private property plays an important role in objectifying our will to ourselves and others. Think about how you learn things about someone from the books they display in their book case, or why teens blanket their rooms in posters. But when a great deal of people's total wealth adds up to essentially nothing compared with a small cadre of elites, their property becomes irrelevant to objectifying their will.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained
[quoteOr is it that we need those funds to help people who are actually starving? How are you looking at it?[/quote]
This too. In the American context, we see that seniors are the demographic group least likely to live in poverty. Children are the group most likely to live in poverty. Extending a stipend similar to Social Security for children, something we tried briefly during the pandemic, could go a long way. Moreover, we have $31+ trillion in debt that needs to be paid off, and ballooning deficits to pay for existing programs for seniors. At the same time, there aren't many good places to cut. Liberals like to go after defense spending, but as someone who watches defense policy closely I think the last thing we want to do is see less investment in the Pacific fleet. China is commissioning twice the tonnage in warships as the US and commissions over 100 times more commercial tonnage, almost more than the rest of the world combined (commercial shipping is a good indication of naval "surge production" potential during a war). Programs like the NGAD fighter, B-21, and Ford Class supercarriers are crucial for deterrence and avoiding a war, especially as China's rather professional leadership elite is eroded by Xi's play to be emperor in all but name.
Lincoln's vision of freedom was about social mobility. Masters may be happy, but they aren't free because they're cemented into a particular role by law. In a free society, people can choose the role they wish to invest their spirits in. But roles are like robots: they're pre-programmed to some extent. You have to surrender to a role in order to engage the world and secure your own well-being.
A prime example of people who lost sight of their spirits is the German soldiers at the Nuremburg trials, who defended their actions by saying they were soldiers. Soldiers do what they're told. Soldier is a role, and it's correct that they do what they're told, but a human being can withdraw from the role of soldier and invest in some other. So identifying entirely with a role can result in a failure to take responsibility for one's actions.
For Lincoln, slavery wasn't evil because it made people suffer. He believed suffering is just part of any life. What made slavery evil was that it blinded people to their potential and to their responsibility.
I'm not sure if this definition of freedom fits with your analysis. It's true that free people, in Lincoln's sense of the word, choose the paths that they believe are right. If that's what you mean by "free people will not willingly choose what makes them unhappy", then we're in agreement.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Maybe if you gave some real-life examples, I might understand this better. As it stands, I really have no idea what it means.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I see what you're saying, this is what I'm seeing, though.
1) The wealthy don't need to control the US government to control the US population. They control us because they can take their jobs somewhere else if we want to play hardball. This is globalization. You can't make Americans happier by attacking the wealthy because that will increase poverty. In other words, I think the solution you're reaching for would have to be global. It would require a global government. There isn't one.
Thanks so much for your post. It was a really interesting read.
If @Mikie had the ear of {all voters} then there wouldn't even be a problem in the first place. He's talking to those who agree there's a problem - what can 'we' do about it. Those who don't agree obviously aren't going to do any of those things are they, because...you know...they don't agree.
Telling people who don't agree there's a problem what steps they can take to solve the problem seems more than a little daft.
So no. The only question to consider is what those of us who agree there's a problem can do about it, and if we're outnumbered by those who don't agree there's a problem, then voting is pointless, we already know we're going to lose, there's nothing to be gained by giving the returning officer a more accurate picture of the scale of that loss.