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!
You’d have to put some controls in there for that solution to work. Hitting new homeowners with an immediate tax on “earning” $1,000,000 to pay for their house seems a bit cruel.
The unrealized gains is for 100 millionaires or more. I don’t think there is anyone with 100million in unrealized home value.
Capital gains are applied against a cost basis, in the case of your homeowner, their purchase price. Unless the house appreciates in value there is 0 capital gain, even if you made the mortgage a realization event and for some reason implemented this with no residence exemption or tax brackets. It’s mad how this point has to be repeatedly explained through this thread.