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 only make enough money to keep my family in this house and warm over the winter. But I am worth 10 billion dollars and would like a 10million dollar 💵💰 loan and forgiveness as I venture into this unknown business deal. Sounds good? Shake on it?
I am sure if net worth was based strictly on taxed earnings, most rich people would get in line to get their money taxed so that they can boast about it in their yacht owners club meetings
Unrealized gains are the 200 push-ups Im going to do at the gym tomorrow, probably?
They shouldn’t be taxed because they’re just that, unrealized. They may be worth next to nothing one day. If you use them as collateral, you’re still on the hook for the value you originally took out the loan for, regardless of the loss of the investment.
Except they are realized because they are being used to purchase things and/or make more money. It can do nearly all of the things that “realized gains” can do, without being taxed.
It’s bullshit and you know it.
(Because apparently that sentence was too distracting for some people)
If they truly are “unrealized”, then sure don’t tax them. But I think we need to change the definition of that term to include the actions that OP mentioned.
That wasn’t the argument though? Look, I will give it a strikethrough and it will not change the point of my comment in the slightest.
You completely ignore the entire comment except one sentence, and then you tell me to get an education? Lol
Who’s got the shit argument again?
This argument applies to my wages too if I elect not to be paid in USD. Are you arguing that, say, Bitcoin income should be untaxable just because it could depreciate relative to the USD tax liability it generates.
You’re getting confused between a payment & an investment. The medium in which you are paid is irrelevant. The payment is the end of the transaction and therefore is the point at which it is taxed.
Precisely. The medium of value delivery is irrelevant, as soon as you extract value by borrowing against an asset you have completed a transaction and therefore is a point at which it could (/should though that’s the debate I guess) be taxed.
In both cases (payment in bitcoin or borrowing against stock) your remaining position could go to zero leaving you liable for tax you don’t have money to pay, but that’s on you to manage better.
How could you misunderstand his comment so completely?
Bitcoin is not money. You cannot file your tax return with a line-item with the number of Bitcoin you were paid. On a US tax return, you have to say how many USD you were paid. On a Canadian return, it is Canadian dollars. In the UK, it would be GBP.
If I demanded that my US employer paid me in GBP, they may do so. They would also track internally the dates they paid me, the value in USD that they paid me, and the exchange rate to GBP. The tax deducted from my check would be in USD.
This is part of the tax code in every country. You get paid in the currency of that jurisdiction ( regardless of how you choose to take payment ).
If you wanted to receive Bitcoin, it would be an investment. The taxable income would be the value on the day I received it. The value on the day that I sold is irrelevant. This is not “unrealized gains” by any stretch.
You cannot “elect” how to be paid for tax purposes. The currency on your return is a matter of law as are the rules about moving in and out of that currency. This is practically the definition of “realization”.
If you wanted to receive Bitcoin, it would be an investment. The taxable income would be the value on the day I received it. The value on the day that I sold is irrelevant. This is not “unrealized gains” by any stretch.
Then someone better tell the IRS because this is exactly how they treat crypto. And yes, people can elect to be paid in Bitcoin, I recall seeing various stories about it over the years.
You can absolutely elect how to be paid, you can earn income abroad, receive benefits in kind, stock compensation etc. ALL of which may still be taxed. If your tax return only relates to dollar items, lucky you
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.
That’s all great but then why the fuck am I paying property tax on my house that is mostly unrealized gains. Before you go arguing to abolish property tax, I’m fine with it. My property tax goes to make my neighbor better, and provide services and schooling for my neighbors.
Billionaires become rich because their companies benefit from highways, regulated internet, a public educated work force, etc… so they should pay their fare share.
Taxing unrealized gains for 99% is ok, it should be the same for the 1%.
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
Using stock as collateral for loans with insanely low interest rates is very, very common among even engineers in big tech. It’s a well known loophole passed on by the older engineers/managers at the companies to the younger ones. From the perspective of eventually paying the tax it doesn’t help, but inflation will outpace the interest on one of these loans so it does lower the effective rate and more importantly for the economy as a whole is cash earned/spent without having been taxed. Ya it will need to be paid back eventually, but that can take decades.
I think they were realized, in the OP’s example, when they were used as collateral for loans, etc?
If you’re just sitting on unrealized gains, then yea maybe they don’t necessarily need to be taxed. But as soon as you use it as a means to acquiring more money, then they become realized and should be taxed.
The thing about borrowing money might be one of the dumbest things I’ve read here. Do you honestly believe that people who have access to loans (typically at much lower interest rates than us normies), etc., that it doesn’t give them 1000x more opportunity to gain more than any normal person who doesn’t have those means?
Do you actually not understand how having money makes it wayyyyyyy easier to make money?
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.
Yeah it’s really very simple. That person is being purposely obtuse for whatever reason (either they have a ton of unrealized gains that they themselves have been using as leverage for years, or they believe that they are a “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” who will need these lax tax laws in the near future when they are suddenly extremely wealthy somehow).
As soon as you use those “unrealized gains” to make more money, they become realized and should be taxed. Simple.
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, taxing 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.
I was talking about withholding, where I pay taxes that will never come due. On reflection maybe isn’t a perfect analogy.
You haven’t made a persuasive argument (or any argument really) against, you just keep insisting it’s a bad idea.
One thing that stands out is you keep referring to “money that may never exist”. That’s not how tax works. You are taxed on the basis of your income, which is often but not always monetary. This is both intuitive and consistent with existing tax code. If you don’t like it you have a much bigger problem than objecting to taxing unrealized cap gains.
That wealth “materializes” when his company gets a new loan based on the paper value of his assets as collateral, even if he hasn’t materially realized that value yet. If you can get rewarded with new loans and government contracts based on paper valuations, you can pay taxes based on paper valuations.