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
You know what else was a "great idea" that was supposed to be only for the wealthy class? The income tax [1]. 100 years later and all of a sudden everyone is paying it.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/the-income...

>>sakopo+tb2
Yup I totally agree, because bad things can happen we shouldn't try to do anything. Much simpler.

>>coffee+0c2
His point was that a tax on unrealized gains can one day be applied to less wealthy people.

I can explain it to you with a simple example:

Imagine, for instance, you're making 50k a year and have a brokerage account that has appreciated by 100k and that you're being taxed 20% on unrealized gains in year x. In year x+1, say your account falls back to where it was before. You paid 20k plus another 10k, and you will need to set aside another 10k. In essence, your income has been reduced to 10k, which could make daily life impossible for many people making 50k annually, especially those with families.

>>clove+LD2
My point was that just because we impose a new tax on unfathomably wealthy people, it doesn't mean that we are inherently going to impose that tax on normal people. We can't be so scared of our own shadow that we are paralyzed into inaction. So scared of new taxes imposed on ourselves that we don't try to tax the uber wealthy. At the end of the day this is a democracy (obv with flaws, but still a democracy.) If politicians start taxing your 100k investment fund the way they are taxing a 100M investment fund, vote them out.