Did I say mandatory? I meant optional! You’re “free” to die in a cardboard box under a freeway as a market capitalist scarecrow warning to the other ants so they keep showing up to make us more!
Did I say mandatory? I meant optional! You’re “free” to die in a cardboard box under a freeway as a market capitalist scarecrow warning to the other ants so they keep showing up to make us more!
I know the 12 year olds will be upset but this is dumb.
Unrealized gains may never be realized. If they ever are, they may be worth less at that point than the tax you paid. It is like taxing everybody on income at the beginning of the year and then telling them tough luck if they get fired and never get that income.
Also, borrowing in assets does not make you wealthier. How much tax should we charge people when they get a mortgage ( not when they sell, when they first borrow ). I mean, somebody just gave you hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why shouldn’t you have to pay tax on that? ( according to the OP at least ).
Anyway, I will stop there. We are not going to get back at the rich by saying a bunch of stupid things. If you don’t like generational wealth, fine. Have an estate tax. If you don’t like windfall wealth, fine. Have a super high progressive tax rate. I have no problem limiting extreme wealth ( it won’t hurt me ). But “tax people I don’t like on things that make no sense” just tells people you cannot think well and are not into math.
If you can buy shit with it, it has value and can be taxed. There’s no need for playing “Schrödinger’s Gains” where the value is simultaneously worthless because it may/may not be realized yet it’s leveraged into material wealth of every kind. It’s like saying rich people don’t have money because it’s all tied up in assets, but somehow they have multiple homes, a yacht, and private jet trips. That is an incredibly disingenuous argument that completely sidesteps how wealth works.
This is both a terrible strawman of advocates for this type of tax reform and a misrepresentation of what realization events are in the US tax code.
Sure “borrowing in assets does not make you wealthier” but it does provide an excellent basis for establishing increases in wealth that have already happened. Realization is a tool to avoid arguments and uncertainty around valuation, not a requirement that taxpayers have cash in a checking account to pay their liabilities. Posting collateral for borrowing inherently involves valuation so could very easily be made a realization event, it fits very neatly into existing law.
It may be a political impossibility but your dismissal doesn’t suggest you’ve really thought about it.
Also “taxing everybody on income at the beginning of the year and then telling them tough luck if they get fired and never get that income”. As someone in a high tax bracket (and state FML) who left the country mid tax year, bless you for thinking this doesn’t happen.
Both my examples are about being taxed on money that may never exist. Your second comment makes me think you did not understand me.
I am not talking about political impossibility. And I am certainly not talking about the difficulty in calculating current market value. I am talking about the poor correlation between current value and the gains that will potentially actually be “realized”. I am talking about bad policy.
Here is an example. Back in the 2000’s, there were people that were taxed on the value of their stock options using exactly this same logic ( the “value” on paper ). Later, when the market crashed, there was not even enough value left in the shares and options to pay the taxes already owing. People literally paid well over 100% tax ( in some cases hundreds of percent ). Who were these super rich people that deserved such tax treatment? Many were relatively young employees of technology companies using equity as compensation. These employees had little wealth before being taxed on their “unrealized gains” and may have been bankrupt after. The whole concept is incredibly flawed.
I personally dislike Elon Musk. But even with him, racing him on what he was worth at the high point would be totally unjust as he is not worth that now. It makes way more sense ( in my view ) to tax him when, and if, any of that wealth materializes. I am no fan of Donald Trump. But I think it would have been totally insane to tax him on the value of his Trump Media “wealth” when it was “valued” at $8 billion. If he gets even $1 billion out of it I will be amazed. Anyway, tax him on that. Tax it at 90% if you want. But don’t tax him on “wealth” that nobody is ever going to see.
I do not know what state you are in but I am unaware of anywhere that would tax you on “unrealized” income from your high-tax bracket salary. Nobody is taxing you on the “unrealized” benefit of your salary. Are you trying to tell me that it does? Where I am, leaving the jurisdiction for more than 6 months would render my income and gains beyond that point non-taxable so the government of course wants a “final return”. Are you talking about something similar?
Again, I am all for taxing the rich. Tax actual gains however you want. What I do not think you should do is tax “unrealized” gains. It is an incredibly flawed idea.