Comment on Gary Stevenson: 'Tax wealth or we'll return to the feudal age'
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 day agoAvoiding a “wealth tax” isn’t just a “little tax break”.
Most wealth is on paper. Billionaires don’t just have a billion dollars of cash. I’m technically a multi-millionaire, but if I suddenly got hit with a 5% wealth tax I’d have too sell my house and be homeless to pay it. That’s not right or fair.
Is basically a tax on unrealised gains, and I shouldn’t have to explain to you how that is terrible.
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
no one’s talking about a 5% wealth tax, and few people are even talking about applying it to people with fortunes as paltry as $10,000,000.
Us middle-class shlubs are already paying 1-2% wealth tax on our biggest asset, and that asset doesn’t even generate income. Why should billionaire stock portfolios be exempt?
Asset taxes, whether real estate or equity, encourage those assets to be put to productive use. If you can’t figure out how to extract 1% economic value out of your $100,000,000 company to pay the wealth tax, then maybe you should sell that company to someone who can run it right.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Missed the point of the example.
Unrealised gains should never be counted or taxed because of their very nature. So you even understand the difference between realised and unrealised gains?
Just because someone has more money than you it doesn’t mean they should be unfairly charged with extra taxes. That’s pathetic.
What 1-2% wealth tax are us shlubs already paying? Why are billionaires exempt from this?
You fundamentally don’t understand the difference between the value of a company and the cash on hand of that company.
tburkhol@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
You’re honestly lecturing me about unrealized gains and you don’t even know about Property Tax?!? Primary residence is the closest most people get to an investment portfolio, and they get taxed on its full value, not just the equity fraction they own.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
We don’t have property tax where I live.
crapwittyname@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Billionaires make money on those unrealised gains. Therefore they are an asset, and must be taxed.
GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No they don’t lol. Do you understand what unrealised gains are? It means you haven’t actually made the money. You haven’t got it. It’s an “on paper” gain, not realised until you cash out - at which time it counts as income and you pay income tax/capital gains/etc on it.
Think about it like this: you have $10 to your name. you buy a share for $10. It doubles to $20.
With what you’re suggesting, you would now be hit with a tax bill of say $4………but you have $0 dollars of actual money. How are you going to pay that tax bill?
What if your share lost value though, and dropped to $1? Should you get a tax refund now? Even though? What if it then goes back up to $15, souls you have to now pay tax on your “gain” of $14 from it going from $1 to $15? How often should you have to pay these taxes? Every day? Week?
It’s a truly idiotic idea, ranted by people who clearly have no idea how capital gains and assets work. Is likely driven by jealousy because the people who want it have no assets.