Eventually something has to give...

[u/Veshaad]

The bill would provide a $3,000 direct payment to every person in households making $150,000 or less during its first year, which equals $12,000 for a family of four.

[u/Eleventhousand]

I mean, I'm just a regular worker and my RSUs are taxed when they vest. Stock options are taxed when exercised. What's the big deal about taxing them a measly (to them) 5% more?

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Eleventhousand]

The RSUs are taxed because when they vest, they are treated as income (since you didn't buy them). You will also be taxed on capital gains (from the vested price) when you sell.

You don't get taxed annually on the same stock holdings.

[u/Eleventhousand → u/Available_Reveal8068]

Yeah, I know.

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Eleventhousand]

Can you imagine how different your situation would be if you had to pay the value of 5% of your holdings every year?

[u/Eleventhousand → u/Available_Reveal8068]

Yeah, if I had a few hundred billion net worth, and paid five percent tax on that each year, I'd be in a much different situation.

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Eleventhousand]

So you think you would have 25 billion dollars in liquid assets available to pay the tax each year?

(assuming $500 billion net worth)

[u/Due-Commercial7299 → u/Available_Reveal8068]

Are you kidding? You can earn between 20 to 25 billion in interest alone each year on $500 billion of principle, and that's doing zero investments.

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Due-Commercial7299]

You don't get interest from stock holdings.

That's the whole problem with Sanders' plan--the wealth he's seeking to tax isn't cash money sitting in a bank account earning interest. That wealth needs to be liquidated to pay the tax.

[u/figurative_me → u/Available_Reveal8068]

Yes, when they take out a loan against their holdings, we should tax that.

[u/hmccringleberry615 → u/figurative_me]

They already have to pay it back with interest dum dum it’s not free money

[u/figurative_me → u/hmccringleberry615]

Do Americans get any of that interest they’re paying?

[u/hmccringleberry615 → u/figurative_me]

No why should I? … I didn’t loan them money

[u/figurative_me → u/hmccringleberry615]

We were talking about taxes. Taxes are collected to pay for things.

[u/mxzf → u/figurative_me]

The government gets the capital gains taxes from selling stocks to repay the loan (including interest). And that does have to be paid back eventually, regardless of if it's right when the loan is due or if you wait 'til your estate settles it after you die.

[u/thatguy425 → u/figurative_me]

Americans also don’t pay taxes on loans. That’s kind of the whole point of it being a loan.

[u/xkxe003 → u/hmccringleberry615]

Yeah, the bank gets that money. We're talking about taxes. The government would collect those. Dumb dumb.

[u/hmccringleberry615 → u/xkxe003]

Yeah exactly, it’s a loan not earned income. The government doesn’t treat a loan that must be paid back as income, so I’m saying that makes no sense. They have to pay the loan back with interest and if they don’t, the assets they borrowed against aren’t their assets anymore. It’s not free money

[u/nantuckeet → u/hmccringleberry615]

These people you are patiently explaining basic 101 to are so financially illiterate it’s scary.

[u/Hamtrain0 → u/Available_Reveal8068]

I’d probably be able to figure it out, yeah

[u/Due-Commercial7299 → u/Available_Reveal8068]

I do this already. I pay more money in property taxes every year for a house I own.

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/Due-Commercial7299]

What percentage of your net worth is your house, and what percentage of the value of your home is the tax?

My property taxes are a lot less than 5%, and it's still a burden to pay.

[u/olivebranchsound → u/Available_Reveal8068]

You shouldn't be overextended like that. I could pay 5 percent of my wealth every year and be fine. That's your fault for not maintaining adequate liquidity.

You go to the casino and don't separate and save what you make in profit? People need financial literacy classes.

[u/hmccringleberry615 → u/olivebranchsound]

So if you are gonna blame this guy then you have to blame the people that need $12,000 for not maintaining adequate means. Ridiculous

[u/xkxe003 → u/hmccringleberry615]

You serious comparing a billionaire to someone making the median salary? Like you think the rules are applied equally?

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/olivebranchsound]

Is your wealth tied up in business equity, or is it in an investment account or what?

It's not easy to liquidate ownership of a business worth hundreds of billions of dollars without crashing the value.

[u/olivebranchsound → u/Available_Reveal8068]

Am I supposed to feel bad for the stock billionaire? Wahhh my business might lose 5 percent of its value cuz I had to sell some stocks to pay my wealth tax! Stocks aren't allowed to go down. Infinite growth is the only thing keeping my theoretical wealth so astronomically high!

Tough. Maybe don't avoid taxes by giving yourself a 1 dollar salary then, Zuck. Maybe don't subscribe to buy borrow die tax dodging strategies. 

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/olivebranchsound]

Its not about feeling bad for the billionaires. Its about the value drop of the stocks when they (and other billionaires) need to dump stock to raise billions of dollars in cash.

Stocks are allowed to go down. They do all the time. There is no 'infinite growth'. Everyone's 401k and pension fund drops along with it, so our net worth drops too.

[u/olivebranchsound → u/Available_Reveal8068]

Too fuckin' bad lol maybe don't keep your wealth in unrealized gains to avoid taxes. Maybe don't artificially inflate your stock price with buy backs if you can't afford the liquidity necessary to pay your taxes when they get assessed at their current unrealized price and you owe more.

Sounds like the wrong people are getting lectured about sticking to a budget to me lol

Don't get me started on stock market socialism where 401ks are potentially being forced to keep billionaire stocks afloat like SpaceX and Open AI

[u/Available_Reveal8068 → u/olivebranchsound]

Where do you keep your wealth? Mine's mostly in my 401k.

Where's the billions of dollars going to come from to buy the stocks they have to sell to pay the tax? Do you really think there are billions of dollars sitting around to buy these stocks?

[u/olivebranchsound → u/Available_Reveal8068]

So the stock is not even worth that amount in an open market sale, yet they have that valuation? You're reinforcing my point about artificial inflation of value lol are you seriously saying "no one would buy fortune 500 stocks if those companies sold shares to pay a wealth tax" You're a fool. Richie Rich would jump at the chance to get some more shares.

Pensions becoming 401ks is the issue. Who said workers 401ks should artificially inflate bad companies stocks like the recent SpaceX IPO where tax payer subsidy briefly made Elon a trillionaire? Trillionaires like Elon. What better way to insure corporate profits?