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!
Having diamond hands, you don’t want to sell, but you owe 28% of the $90k you “made” on the stock, which can be spread out over 9 years.
No it can’t. Unless you are proposing a radically different tax proposal. You owe 28% of the $90k that year. Not in 9 years. This year. $25k owed because a group memed a stock that you owned long before it was a meme.
As to my example being the exception, look at any long term stock chart and you’ll see multi year increases and multi year declines. MSFT was the same price in 1998 and 2001. 3 years of paying taxes on a stock that gave you $0 capital gains and $0 losses. No tax break. Just a tax bill because of Internet stocks were popular for a few years.
Give me $25k today and I’ll agree to pay you back over 9 years without interest. Deal?