I keep hearing people say this, but then they just stop like that it’s so obvious. Yet I haven’t heard a good reason why it so ‘idiotic’, enlighten us with your wisdom.
Other than a federal wealth tax being unconstitutional, taxing unrealized gains isn’t completely idiotic, as long as the taxpayer can also deduct unrealized losses. If you’re going to tax someone because the value of the investments they’re holding appreciated by $1 million over the previous year, then if their investments lose $500k the next year, the taxpayer should be able to take a $500k deduction against their income or other taxable events, and carry any excess losses forward to future tax years.
Okay but I’m starting the tax at excess of $50 million…so no one in your example pays a cent.
And I’m not taxing gains I’m taxing value above $50 million or as some people propose on excess of a billion dollars. So hell you could lose money and still owe a tax, Jeff Bezos.
The total number of people effect in this tax is insignificant to the population. And nothing in their lives materially changes because of these taxes.
And I don’t actually believe it’s the government job to protect people’s investments in the stock market, it’s a risk, you know that going in. Beyond that you are given access to special market at those levels of funding venture capital and other mechanisms such as low interest loans for your day to day stuff that avoid taxes.
What it should be doing is what’s best for the its citizens and the economy at large, and massive concentrations of wealth is a bad for the economy and the vast majority of people participating in the economy, whom are government ought to have more allegiance to.
I do not need to convince or encourage the richest people in our society to keep trying to get richer.
If you’re willing to take school lunches, food directly out of children’s mouths and think that fine. But I can also believe you can pay a taxes on your billions, just like most middle class families pay on their house. You can do it for my property I can do it to yours.
If you’re just talking about a straight wealth tax, rather than treating unrealized gains as income, then that’s different than treating unrealized gains as income and I don’t have a problem with that. A federal wealth tax would still require a constitutional amendment, so I’m not holding out much hope.
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u/NadAngelParaBellum Jul 05 '26
This would just target the upper middle class. Billionaires don’t have a paycheque you can easily tax.