We'd like to send a big TLO attaboy to the offspring of Oil Overlord Harold Hamm!
These winners of the birth lottery are becoming official billionaires thanks to the generosity of their greedy father!
According to Bloomberg, Hamm – a MAGA-lover who's worked hard over the years to plunder our state's natural resources and make sure Oklahoma schools are as cash-strapped as possible – executed "one of the largest wealth transfers in U.S. history last week" when he gave each of his five little Hamms a stake worth about $2.3 billion in Continental Resources Inc.
Hamm channeled his inner-Logan Roy and gave this quote:
“I have said for a long time Continental is a company built to last,” Hamm said in a statement. “This process has been going on for over a decade with two primary objectives of proper succession planning and long-term continuity of the company.”
I have to admit, I'm a little jealous that I don't have parents to give me a billion-dollar stake in their company. Don't get me wrong – I guess it's cool that my dad's passed down to me a wide variety of paintings, leather masks, and caricature sketches over the years – but nothing's better than cold hard cash that I could use to buy Gotebo.
Best of all for the Hamm kids, the money is all tax-free. Via Bloomberg:
Like other ultra-rich Americans, Hamm’s massive gift, years in the making, is likely to be passed down largely tax-free.
Hamm, 76, seems to have relied on two of the most common loopholes for avoiding the U.S.’s 40% estate-and-gift tax levy as he shifted the majority of his fortune. The key to these techniques, both perfectly legal, is to carefully structure transactions so they benefit heirs but aren’t technically gifts at all. Democrats had proposed shutting down the strategies in prior versions of President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, which is now stalled in Congress.
Despite the transfers, Hamm has assured investors that he retains control of Continental because his children aren’t allowed to sell shares until his death.
Although I'm a thousandaire and not a billionaire, I also try my best to pay as little in taxes as possible, so I can't fault a Hamm too much here. That being said, what moron would connect other people becoming billionaires to your own death? I don't care how much the kids claim they love Papa Hamm, I don't have to watch my back at every family gathering and know that my kids are secretly praying for my death.
Anyway, I guess we'd like to congratulate the new billionaire Hamms. If any of them want to use a fraction of their wealth to buy this website for a lot of me, hit me up.
