A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
Related communities:
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 don't agree with unrealized gains taxes in general, but the instant they are used as collateral, or if value in any way is extracted from them (even loan value), they become realized gains, and should be taxed.
So you agree with the post then, given that that's basically verbatim what the post is saying.
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
The top 10% own 67% of the wealth in the U.S.
The tax rate during the New Deal (which corresponded with the largest jump in GDP and middle class growth) on people earning $200k and over (now would be like earning $2.5 million/year) was 95%.
During the 50's through the early 80's, that tax on the wealthiest was at 70%.
Now it's at 37%, less than half of what it was during the best years of growth our country ever experienced.
This Unrealized gains tax would only impact people worth more than $100 million who do not pay at least a 25% tax rate on their income.
Additionally, you'd only pay taxes on unrealized capital gains if at least 80% of your wealth is in tradeable assets (i.e., not shares of private startups or real estate). One caveat is that there would be a deferred tax of up to 10% on unrealized capital gains upon exit.
In short, it would not apply to most startup founders or investors, but would impact top hedge fund managers.
They can afford it. TAX THEM.
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%.
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.
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?
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.
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.
I figured they were just another billionaire apologist.
I think a law stating you can't borrow against unrealized gains would be sensible.
You can keep your unrealized gains forever, live of your dividends for all i care, and pay no tax. But realizing them, either through selling or borrowing against, triggers a taxation.