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!

  • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    7 hours 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!

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      We’re talking about the stock market. And it would be quarterly or annual. Please stop exaggerating.

      • Mcdolan@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Yeah owning a baseball card worth money sure whatever, if you pawn that card sorry, pay taxes. You use that card a to secure a loan with lower interest rates than you’d get without then sorry, you are realizing gains whether or not you want to admit it. This goes along one of the lawsuits against Trump. He lied to get favorable interest rates by overvaluing his assets to get better interest rates. If that’s against the law why the fuck is that not counted as a “gain” to use assets to secure favorable interest rates?

    • Goodie@lemmy.world
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      7 hours 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.world
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        7 hours ago

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

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          No it wouldn’t. The proposal out there right now has a floor of something like a million dollars. Most of us will never need to worry about that.

        • Goodie@lemmy.world
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          6 hours 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”.

          • SirDerpy@lemmy.world
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            5 hours ago

            You’ve likely made a false assumption of stable value. Questions probably demonstrates best: Individuals are to pay taxes on value at what point in time? What if it was worth much more just previous to the time? What if it’s worth much less immediately after that time?

            The time will probably be Dec. 31st. A small investor can get wiped out by poor holiday earnings. Or, far more likely, stocks will be artificially shorted by hedge funds in January to create the same situation. With options shenanigans and asymmetric rules, it’s trivially easy for the big fish to immediately eat everyone else.

            • Goodie@lemmy.world
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              5 hours ago

              Someone here has made a false assumption. In fact, I’m pretty sure we both have made several. The question is who has made a fatal false assumption? Let’s go.

              My root comment, at the top of all of this, was my idea that perhaps we should consider gains “realized” when they are sold OR used as a collateral in a loan.

              Your assertion is that it would wipe out small investors.

              I would question how many small investors are using their small investments as collateral in a loan?

              • SirDerpy@lemmy.world
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                4 hours ago

                Anyone doing more than DCA retirement has collateralized their holdings for margin, prerequisite to options.

                  • SirDerpy@lemmy.world
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                    4 hours ago

                    I said investors, not zero-effort DCA into a managed fund. My “degenerate” ways bought my freedom. I didn’t have to beat the big fish, just people like you who think they’re the smartest person in the room.