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> Yet, from the start, a small number of entrepreneurs, like Thiel, made an end run around the rules: Open a Roth with $2,000 or less. Get a sweetheart deal to buy a stake in a startup that has a good chance of one day exploding in value. Pay just fractions of a penny per share, a price low enough to buy huge numbers of shares. Watch as all the gains on that stock — no matter how giant — are shielded from taxes forever, as long as the IRA remains untouched until age 59 and a half. Then use the proceeds, still inside the Roth, to make other investments.

What? Am I missing something or is that a horrible explanation of how this works? I still don’t understand how he used a Roth to shield 5 billion from taxes. I’m much more alarmed that he gets deals on startups that nobody else does. That hardly seems fair.



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