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!
Property tax has nothing to do with unrealized gains. It is an attempt to charge a services tax in an equitable way. It is like putting road taxes in gasoline. Framing it as a crude consumption tax would be more appropriate.
The property tax you pay on your home is a tiny fraction of its value. If we were charging those kinds of tiny percentages to billionaires you would be up in arms.
I do not have to argue abolishing property taxes because they do not introduce the kinds of brain dead distortions that “unrealized gains” taxes would. Even still, there are actually carve outs for them in most countries. Where I live, as an example, seniors can defer property tax until the property is sold ( you know, until the wealth has been realized ). As I said above though, it is really a service tax and so, even when delayed, the amount is based on assessed value every year.
If property tax was a model for your unrealized gains tax it would have these features:
- quite a small percentage of the assessed value
- the ability to defer until value had been realized
Based on the discussion here, a tax like that is not going to satisfy the mob.
Like I said, tax the rich. Tax the hell out of them. Just don’t do it in such a broken way.
Stop acting like I am defending rich people or arguing against taxes. I have been very clear that I am not. It seems equally clear that you have no rational response to what I am saying which is why you keep pretending that I am arguing for wealth inequality instead of just math. The people hit hardest by bad tax policy are always the middle class. The same would be true of a wrong-headed unrealized gains tax, no matter how much shouting about billionaires was used to make it more popular.
Maybe we’re strawmaning each other. I would be fine with a 1-2% tax on billionaire wealth that’s sitting as unrealized gains.
Taxing me on the value of my house is absolutely similar to taxing unrealized gains. If my house gained value that doesn’t mean my income did. There is no guarantee that I can afford it. I can’t sell my house to pay the tax. The same arguments used to defend billionaires applies to me as well, but somehow we’re supposed to feel bad for them but we’re ok with the middle class paying essentially the same thing as unrealized gains on the asset they own that’s mostly likely 99% of their net worth.
Can you tell me what is broken with expecting someone that holds $100b in unrealized gains to pay %1 tax on it