zlacker

>>southe+(OP)
I wonder if this is coming up just before the election because of the Harris campaign’s suggested policy of capital gains tax on unrealised gains for people who have over $100m in assets? I think this is a great idea personally given what these people are doing to avoid paying tax including taking out loans against their own share portfolios. Worth thinking about what people are willing to do to not pay billions of dollars worth of taxes.

>>andy_p+ex
Unrealized gains taxes is an extractive and totalitarian tax. Someone is always risking 100% loss until they realize those gains. It's an affront to entrepreneurial risk-taking and it's capricious. It would be just as ridiculous to allow someone to write-off unrealized losses.

>>chrisc+fX
There's a gradient of risk, though. Suppose someone is sitting on 5 billion dollars unrealized gains by holding the index fund VT. The idea of "risking 100% loss" in VT is ludicrous.

Maybe unrealized gains tax can be formulated as "cushy gains tax" if riskiness can be quantified in a reasonable way based on an asset's age and metrics over time. Then if an asset's risk score is above X, you don't pay tax. If it drops below X, you start to pay tax.

This would probably lead to more innovation and fewer monopolies, as people are incentivized to invest in riskier companies, and companies are incentivized to self cannibalize to maintain a healthy risk score.