Comment on But how would they be able to live on that?
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 months agoSpeaking of that house to buy, I’m getting taxed on my “unrealized gains” in my home value being estimated higher, despite our being where I live and not really primarily intended as an “investment vehicle”.
So if property tax can apply to stuff I’m not using as “money”, then I have a hard time objecting to the same general principle applied to stocks. The same arguments that can be made about stocks can apply to any property tax.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 months ago
Are you asking for reform of Real Estate and Property Taxes or are you asking to Tax all unrealized gains?
BTW property taxes are like 0.32%-2.32% and when you sell your home then you have to pay big boy capital gains taxes unless you’ve listed it as your primary residence for more than 3 years.
I think an unrealized gains tax could work if we set the bar high enough that poor people won’t be negatively affected by it.
Obi@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
I’m the Netherlands we have wealth tax so if you have more than 50k€ in cash/stock you start getting progressively taxed on it.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 months ago
I’m assuming pensioning or retirement have some separate system? Because it would be hard to retire on 50k Euro alone. Actually, I assume they don’t have medical costs, so maybe that would be enough…?
jj4211@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’m saying that we already have the concept of small tax rates against unrealized “gains” for the common folk, so it’s not crazy to think that unrealized gains for the rich folk could be some sort of fair game, on a roughly analogous scale. Mostly the same concerns about unrealized stock value apply to real estate property. The exceptions that I can conceive of would be:
Housing already has the typical property tax priced in. So whatever the effects of the wealth tax would be, it would be novel and thus some sort of adjustment would occur.
Housing has some intrinsic use and is not just a financial vehicle. People want to be in a house and most don’t even want to think of it as an ‘asset’ if they don’t have to. So one’s desire to reside in a primary residence is not dissuaded if you had reason to think you could “earn more” elsewhere. Stock is a more purely speculative financial instrument, so behaviors could be different. If a 3% tax across the board were levied, suddenly the effect is that investment vehicle is handicapped by 3%. So the average S&P return is 10% today, and thus would be effectively 7%, which might trigger some moves. Or if you say ‘3% over 10m’, then you get a shift where relatively less moneyed investors become an advantaged class, which might be interesting.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 2 months ago
The small tax rates against unrealized gains are not only for the common folk, rich people own real estate too. Sometimes up to a dozen homes worth dozens of times more than a small family home each.
The unrealized gains tax on investments would also impact the vast majority of “common folk.”
Indiscriminate taxation will not fix our system. We need to tax the rich, not the rich and the poor equally. If anything we should have a negative income tax on the poor.
AA5B@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Then let me rephrase it.
Common folk are taxed on unrealized gains for their two most valuable properties, their house and car. Why shouldn’t wealthy people pay analogous tax on their most valuable properties, regardless of what those are?