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!

  • Goodie@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • SkyNTP@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Mhm. There’s two very good reason unrealized gains aren’t taxed: volatility and cash flow. Are you and the government expected to swap cash back and forth everyday to correct for changes in the market? No that’s silly. Should people go into debt because they don’t have the cash to pay the taxes of a baseball card they happen to own that is suddenly worth millions? Also silly.

      For that same reason, using unrealized gains as security is dangerous, just like the subprime loans market was!

      • Goodie@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        There’s a very good reason they should be taxed; half a dozen people are richer than god, and basically never pay any real amount of tax.

        • SirDerpy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          This would effectively lock out every small investor from the stock market due to the liability of both success and failure.

          • Goodie@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago

            How so?

            “Oh no, I made money, better put a small percentage of my gains away for tax season, just like I do with all of my income, because I’m American and lack a good PAYE system”.