I don’t really understand what is being advocated for, here. Are we taking away their stock shares? Because 214.8 Bn is absolutely not the liquid assets of Elon Musk.
You can’t buy a house or car with unrealized gains. Are we going to start taxing everybody’s unrealized gains annually or what is the effective bracket?
Ya’ll gotta be more specific and shit. Let’s just tax realized gains, and any loan collaterals based on the stocks, at exceptionally high rates? Or maybe have a very high bracket to justify taking unrealized gain stocks. That feels like it would be way easier than some vague bullshit that could harm consumers more than billionaires.
Speaking of that house to buy, I’m getting taxed on my “unrealized gains” in my home value being estimated higher, despite it being where I live and not really primarily intended as an “investment vehicle”.
So if property tax can apply to stuff I’m not using as “money”, then I have a hard time objecting to the same general principle applied to stocks. The same arguments that can be made about stocks can apply to any property tax.
Are you asking for reform of Real Estate and Property Taxes or are you asking to Tax all unrealized gains?
BTW property taxes are like 0.32%-2.32% and when you sell your home then you have to pay big boy capital gains taxes unless you’ve listed it as your primary residence for more than 3 years.
I think an unrealized gains tax could work if we set the bar high enough that poor people won’t be negatively affected by it. I would also be fine with taxing only realized gains at a much higher rate and leaving unrealized gains alone.
In the Netherlands we have wealth tax so if you have more than 50k€ in cash/stock you start getting progressively taxed on it. No capital gains tax though so don’t get taxed for profits on stocks or when selling your house, these profits are all yours.
I’m assuming pensioning or retirement have some separate system? Because it would be hard to retire on 50k Euro alone. Actually, I assume they don’t have medical costs, so maybe that would be enough…?
I’m saying that we already have the concept of small tax rates against unrealized “gains” for the common folk, so it’s not crazy to think that unrealized gains for the rich folk could be some sort of fair game, on a roughly analogous scale. Mostly the same concerns about unrealized stock value apply to real estate property. The exceptions that I can conceive of would be:
Housing already has the typical property tax priced in. So whatever the effects of the wealth tax would be, it would be novel and thus some sort of adjustment would occur.
Housing has some intrinsic use and is not just a financial vehicle. People want to be in a house and most don’t even want to think of it as an ‘asset’ if they don’t have to. So one’s desire to reside in a primary residence is not dissuaded if you had reason to think you could “earn more” elsewhere. Stock is a more purely speculative financial instrument, so behaviors could be different. If a 3% tax across the board were levied, suddenly the effect is that investment vehicle is handicapped by 3%. So the average S&P return is 10% today, and thus would be effectively 7%, which might trigger some moves. Or if you say ‘3% over 10m’, then you get a shift where relatively less moneyed investors become an advantaged class, which might be interesting.
The small tax rates against unrealized gains are not only for the common folk, rich people own real estate too. Sometimes up to a dozen homes worth dozens of times more than a small family home each.
The unrealized gains tax on investments would also impact the vast majority of “common folk.”
Indiscriminate taxation will not fix our system. We need to tax the rich, not the rich and the poor equally. If anything we should have a negative income tax on the poor.
small tax rates against unrealized gains are not only for the common folk, rich people own real estate too
Then let me rephrase it.
Common folk are taxed on unrealized gains for their two most valuable properties, their house and car. Why shouldn’t wealthy people pay analogous tax on their most valuable properties, regardless of what those are?
You’re mostly right here, except stocks are an asset you can take a loan against with a margin loan or a line of credit. I suggest if you are doing that it SHOULD count as realized gains because you absolutely can use such a loan to buy a house, a car, a yacht, an island in the South Pacific, or an aircraft carrier.
Okay but if you take out a loan then you need to repay the loan with income which is taxed, so…
It’s already being taxed…
That said it’s probably being taxed at a lower rate due to the 2016 reform adding tax breaks for said circumstances and being able to have a lower annual income over the duration of the loan, so I definitely advocate for tax reform that undoes the damage by the GOP at least.
Yeah it’s taxed at a much lower rate. Short term capital gains is a real bitch. Long term isn’t so bad unless you’re liquidating a lot… Like enough to buy a house or car or something we are discussing now. Over 450k ish is taxed 20%, but you can get a margin loan for 3 to 12 percent AND it’s tax deductible lol.
Really, if you aren’t rich with stock you are getting F-ed in the A…
Edit: I misread, I though it was saying “if you aren’t rich with stock you aren’t going to be F-ed in the A by an unrealized gains tax” but it was actually saying “If you’re not rich with stocks then you’re currently being F-ed in the A by our tax system”
If a hypothetical unrealized gains taxed passed today then there is a chance of poor people getting F-ed in the A, especially people with retirement funds or Vanguard share/portfolios. There is even a chance it hurts the poorer 80% more than the richer 20%.
The 2016 Tax Reform is a great example of that, it got tons of support from poor people and middle class and in the end it fucked them all in the A.
Depends on the structure. If it’s 3% on value over 5 million, then the bottom 95% will not even have a dent. If it is paid by even average retirement funds, but funds more expensive Medicaid or your kids college education, you still win. It all depends on the details.
I suppose there might be some sell off to cover the tax bills if the wealthy, but it probably wouldn’t shake the markets too much.
You can repay a loan with money from a different loan. And they only just need enough money to cover the interest. For most of them the repayment doesn’t come until they die and even then they pull as many tricks as possible to make it look like their estate is worth less than it is. Either way the amount of money these guys live off of is a tiny percentage of their entire wealth. 100M loan for a new mansion? That’s not even 0.05% of Elon’s wealth. Even $1 billion is a lot of fucking money. I don’t care how illiquid your wealth is, if it’s over $10B you’re just hoarding it and it’s doing fuck all for the economy.
Okay but that doesn’t justify taxing all unrealized gains for everyone, does it? Just tax the rich, or add laws against perpetual refinance without income.
Sidenote: If Elon Musk could do such a convoluted scheme then he wouldn’t have sold Billions of Tesla stock a couple of years ago and paid Capital Gains taxes in the billions. I believe with all my heart that Elon is such a POS that he would have absolutely wormed his way out of that sort of requirement if it were so easy.
Listen, Jim - how much do you realistically own in unrealized gains? It doesn’t even matter to be honest - since you’re shit posting on the Internet, I wouldn’t put your net worth much higher than $10-20 million - and that’s me being an absolute philanthropist, in terms of how much “benefit of the doubt” I’m willing to afford an Internet shit poster.
Even if you were somehow blessed to have more than that - you still wouldn’t qualify as one who needs to pay this kind of wealth tax.
Where’d you get the idea that it would “tax all unrealized gains”?
For just stocks mine is a pretty lowly $6,198 USD right now, National Average according to Federal Reserve Data says $87,000 Median and $333,945 Mean.
You said:
Even if you were somehow blessed to have more than that - you still wouldn’t qualify as one who needs to pay this kind of wealth tax.
But that’s not what the meme says at all. The meme says nothing except that unrealized gains should be taxed. That’s not good enough, you need to be more specific.
The Vast Majority of US Citizens do not have adequate retirement savings, and we’ve got this Meme saying a 2.98% annual unrealized gains tax is a solution to problems? We need to be a lot more specific about when and how this tax works if we want to avoid harm.
I don’t care how illiquid your wealth is, if it’s over $10B you’re just hoarding it and it’s doing fuck all for the economy.
That wealth is primarily invested in businesses that function within the economy, so “doing fuck all for the economy” is literally a lie, and this act is literally the opposite of “hoarding”.
The business can survive just fine having more owners, each with a smaller piece of the pie. Yes, you lose majority control but boo hoo on still being filthy rich.
Okay but if you take out a loan then you need to repay the loan with income which is taxed, so…
Part of the problem is there are shell games around the repayment. I thought this could be handled by any use of the stock as collateral should count as a ‘sale’ for tax purposes, and any taxes on those proceeds that would be “double taxed” as folks are so afraid of can be offset by tax credits if the loan is ‘properly’ repaid in a normal way. So if you loan but repay normally, ok, you gave the government a ‘0% loan’, but you are still “fairly” taxed other than that, and the 0% loan is a small price to pay for access to your wealth.
They can do what they already do and use their unrealized gains as collateral for a loan and use that to pay the tax of they don’t want to realize the gains. This is already how they spend their money without realizing gains. I don’t see the issue with them doing the same for taxes as they do for their yachts and private jets.
If Elon Musk can immediately liquefy $50 billion to buy a social media website, these parasites can liquefy $5 billion to pay for the roads their services rely on
Alright but the meme doesn’t say that. The meme just says they have unrealized gains and that we should take them. That’s poorly thought out, the bracket should be clearly defined before we even think about making an unrealized gains tax, because I guarantee you there are some GOP reps who salivate at the idea of taxing grandmothers of their inadequate retirement funds.
It’s already a thing and has been for quite some time. It’s called mark to market. Most people and companies use it to enjoy unrealized losses, but unrealized gains are in play. It’s not a new concept. It’s just that it’s an election at the individual level rather than a requirement.
Taxing these billionares this way would equate to taxing you for your houses value going up even though your not selling. Just like how proprty tax works in most states.
The more wealthy should be paying higher taxes, but im not sure wealth tax directly is the way to do it. But this isnt my area of expertise, so im not against it either.
Yeah sorry, I ended up giving a low effort nonsense reply to an equally nonsensical reply. Perpetual cycle of stupidity over here.
I meant to say we do tax unrealized gains with property but we also tax capital gains upon realization. The user before me said we “manage not tax things like houses and cars”.
I don’t really understand what is being advocated for, here. Are we taking away their stock shares? Because 214.8 Bn is absolutely not the liquid assets of Elon Musk.
You can’t buy a house or car with unrealized gains. Are we going to start taxing everybody’s unrealized gains annually or what is the effective bracket?
Ya’ll gotta be more specific and shit. Let’s just tax realized gains, and any loan collaterals based on the stocks, at exceptionally high rates? Or maybe have a very high bracket to justify taking unrealized gain stocks. That feels like it would be way easier than some vague bullshit that could harm consumers more than billionaires.
Speaking of that house to buy, I’m getting taxed on my “unrealized gains” in my home value being estimated higher, despite it being where I live and not really primarily intended as an “investment vehicle”.
So if property tax can apply to stuff I’m not using as “money”, then I have a hard time objecting to the same general principle applied to stocks. The same arguments that can be made about stocks can apply to any property tax.
Are you asking for reform of Real Estate and Property Taxes or are you asking to Tax all unrealized gains?
BTW property taxes are like 0.32%-2.32% and when you sell your home then you have to pay big boy capital gains taxes unless you’ve listed it as your primary residence for more than 3 years.
I think an unrealized gains tax could work if we set the bar high enough that poor people won’t be negatively affected by it. I would also be fine with taxing only realized gains at a much higher rate and leaving unrealized gains alone.
In the Netherlands we have wealth tax so if you have more than 50k€ in cash/stock you start getting progressively taxed on it. No capital gains tax though so don’t get taxed for profits on stocks or when selling your house, these profits are all yours.
I’m assuming pensioning or retirement have some separate system? Because it would be hard to retire on 50k Euro alone. Actually, I assume they don’t have medical costs, so maybe that would be enough…?
I’m saying that we already have the concept of small tax rates against unrealized “gains” for the common folk, so it’s not crazy to think that unrealized gains for the rich folk could be some sort of fair game, on a roughly analogous scale. Mostly the same concerns about unrealized stock value apply to real estate property. The exceptions that I can conceive of would be:
Housing already has the typical property tax priced in. So whatever the effects of the wealth tax would be, it would be novel and thus some sort of adjustment would occur.
Housing has some intrinsic use and is not just a financial vehicle. People want to be in a house and most don’t even want to think of it as an ‘asset’ if they don’t have to. So one’s desire to reside in a primary residence is not dissuaded if you had reason to think you could “earn more” elsewhere. Stock is a more purely speculative financial instrument, so behaviors could be different. If a 3% tax across the board were levied, suddenly the effect is that investment vehicle is handicapped by 3%. So the average S&P return is 10% today, and thus would be effectively 7%, which might trigger some moves. Or if you say ‘3% over 10m’, then you get a shift where relatively less moneyed investors become an advantaged class, which might be interesting.
The small tax rates against unrealized gains are not only for the common folk, rich people own real estate too. Sometimes up to a dozen homes worth dozens of times more than a small family home each.
The unrealized gains tax on investments would also impact the vast majority of “common folk.”
Indiscriminate taxation will not fix our system. We need to tax the rich, not the rich and the poor equally. If anything we should have a negative income tax on the poor.
Then let me rephrase it.
Common folk are taxed on unrealized gains for their two most valuable properties, their house and car. Why shouldn’t wealthy people pay analogous tax on their most valuable properties, regardless of what those are?
They should be, who the fuck said otherwise?
You’re mostly right here, except stocks are an asset you can take a loan against with a margin loan or a line of credit. I suggest if you are doing that it SHOULD count as realized gains because you absolutely can use such a loan to buy a house, a car, a yacht, an island in the South Pacific, or an aircraft carrier.
Okay but if you take out a loan then you need to repay the loan with income which is taxed, so…
It’s already being taxed…
That said it’s probably being taxed at a lower rate due to the 2016 reform adding tax breaks for said circumstances and being able to have a lower annual income over the duration of the loan, so I definitely advocate for tax reform that undoes the damage by the GOP at least.
Yeah it’s taxed at a much lower rate. Short term capital gains is a real bitch. Long term isn’t so bad unless you’re liquidating a lot… Like enough to buy a house or car or something we are discussing now. Over 450k ish is taxed 20%, but you can get a margin loan for 3 to 12 percent AND it’s tax deductible lol.
Really, if you aren’t rich with stock you are getting F-ed in the A…
Sorry I misread your comment before I responded.
NBD, I saw this first actually.
Edit: I misread, I though it was saying “if you aren’t rich with stock you aren’t going to be F-ed in the A by an unrealized gains tax” but it was actually saying “If you’re not rich with stocks then you’re currently being F-ed in the A by our tax system”
If a hypothetical unrealized gains taxed passed today then there is a chance of poor people getting F-ed in the A, especially people with retirement funds or Vanguard share/portfolios. There is even a chance it hurts the poorer 80% more than the richer 20%.
The 2016 Tax Reform is a great example of that, it got tons of support from poor people and middle class and in the end it fucked them all in the A.
Depends on the structure. If it’s 3% on value over 5 million, then the bottom 95% will not even have a dent. If it is paid by even average retirement funds, but funds more expensive Medicaid or your kids college education, you still win. It all depends on the details.
I suppose there might be some sell off to cover the tax bills if the wealthy, but it probably wouldn’t shake the markets too much.
You can repay a loan with money from a different loan. And they only just need enough money to cover the interest. For most of them the repayment doesn’t come until they die and even then they pull as many tricks as possible to make it look like their estate is worth less than it is. Either way the amount of money these guys live off of is a tiny percentage of their entire wealth. 100M loan for a new mansion? That’s not even 0.05% of Elon’s wealth. Even $1 billion is a lot of fucking money. I don’t care how illiquid your wealth is, if it’s over $10B you’re just hoarding it and it’s doing fuck all for the economy.
Okay but that doesn’t justify taxing all unrealized gains for everyone, does it? Just tax the rich, or add laws against perpetual refinance without income.
Sidenote: If Elon Musk could do such a convoluted scheme then he wouldn’t have sold Billions of Tesla stock a couple of years ago and paid Capital Gains taxes in the billions. I believe with all my heart that Elon is such a POS that he would have absolutely wormed his way out of that sort of requirement if it were so easy.
Listen, Jim - how much do you realistically own in unrealized gains? It doesn’t even matter to be honest - since you’re shit posting on the Internet, I wouldn’t put your net worth much higher than $10-20 million - and that’s me being an absolute philanthropist, in terms of how much “benefit of the doubt” I’m willing to afford an Internet shit poster.
Even if you were somehow blessed to have more than that - you still wouldn’t qualify as one who needs to pay this kind of wealth tax.
Where’d you get the idea that it would “tax all unrealized gains”?
For just stocks mine is a pretty lowly $6,198 USD right now, National Average according to Federal Reserve Data says $87,000 Median and $333,945 Mean.
You said:
But that’s not what the meme says at all. The meme says nothing except that unrealized gains should be taxed. That’s not good enough, you need to be more specific.
The Vast Majority of US Citizens do not have adequate retirement savings, and we’ve got this Meme saying a 2.98% annual unrealized gains tax is a solution to problems? We need to be a lot more specific about when and how this tax works if we want to avoid harm.
That wealth is primarily invested in businesses that function within the economy, so “doing fuck all for the economy” is literally a lie, and this act is literally the opposite of “hoarding”.
You, uh, don’t think maybe more of those unrealized gains should go to the actual workers? What the fuck?
Do the “actual workers” also pay up if the business suffers losses, then?
Can’t have it both ways.
Yeah, they tend to get laid off. That’s having it both ways.
The business can survive just fine having more owners, each with a smaller piece of the pie. Yes, you lose majority control but boo hoo on still being filthy rich.
Part of the problem is there are shell games around the repayment. I thought this could be handled by any use of the stock as collateral should count as a ‘sale’ for tax purposes, and any taxes on those proceeds that would be “double taxed” as folks are so afraid of can be offset by tax credits if the loan is ‘properly’ repaid in a normal way. So if you loan but repay normally, ok, you gave the government a ‘0% loan’, but you are still “fairly” taxed other than that, and the 0% loan is a small price to pay for access to your wealth.
They can do what they already do and use their unrealized gains as collateral for a loan and use that to pay the tax of they don’t want to realize the gains. This is already how they spend their money without realizing gains. I don’t see the issue with them doing the same for taxes as they do for their yachts and private jets.
You’re late Bjornir, like 5 people in this comment thread have said the same thing.
If Elon Musk can immediately liquefy $50 billion to buy a social media website, these parasites can liquefy $5 billion to pay for the roads their services rely on
Alright but the meme doesn’t say that. The meme just says they have unrealized gains and that we should take them. That’s poorly thought out, the bracket should be clearly defined before we even think about making an unrealized gains tax, because I guarantee you there are some GOP reps who salivate at the idea of taxing grandmothers of their inadequate retirement funds.
read the room dude
No, I will be semantic and overly technical until the day I die.
Yes you absolutely can.
Go to the bank. Show them your balance sheet. Loan money. Pay for stuff.
It’s already a thing and has been for quite some time. It’s called mark to market. Most people and companies use it to enjoy unrealized losses, but unrealized gains are in play. It’s not a new concept. It’s just that it’s an election at the individual level rather than a requirement.
We manage not tax things like houses and cars on unrealized gains. Why should stock or art, or anything be different?
We tax houses with unrealized gains when they sell, also.
Umm… when they sell… they are realized?
Taxing these billionares this way would equate to taxing you for your houses value going up even though your not selling. Just like how proprty tax works in most states.
The more wealthy should be paying higher taxes, but im not sure wealth tax directly is the way to do it. But this isnt my area of expertise, so im not against it either.
Yeah sorry, I ended up giving a low effort nonsense reply to an equally nonsensical reply. Perpetual cycle of stupidity over here.
I meant to say we do tax unrealized gains with property but we also tax capital gains upon realization. The user before me said we “manage not tax things like houses and cars”.
Umm. My brain is broken. Somone on the internet just admitted they were wrong.
Faith in humanity +10.