• logicbomb@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    At some point, somebody convinced people that unrealized gains were not actually income because you don’t know for sure that you’d make that money, and I think that was a bad idea. Maybe unrealized gains aren’t 1:1 the same thing as income, but the calculations of an income equivalent aren’t going to be complicated.

      • Supervisor194@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        This exactly. At some threshold of worth, you should get taxed an amount based on your worth that will be big enough to force you to realize some gains in order to pay it.

        • bus_factor@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          The issue with realizing the gains is that you have to relinquish control of your company bit by bit. However, you could have the company (which you likely control) give out dividends, or you could use the stock as collateral for a loan. Or just pay yourself a bigger salary.

          • moriquende@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            This is a good question: is it okay for you as a person to control a company that has grown that large? Maybe nudging people to give up control of entities that large is a good side effect.

            • bus_factor@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Give up control to whom? Some megacorp with infinite money would just buy a majority stake (often referred to as a hostile takeover) and wind up owning everything to an even larger extent than today.

                • bus_factor@lemmy.world
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                  14 hours ago

                  Sure, but that’s not what’s going to happen as a side effect of taxing unrealized gains, like what was discussed in this thread until now. A gradual transfer of ownership to the workers would have to be nudged in some other way.

                  In competitive industries (read: tech) this does happen to some extent in the form of stock being part of the compensation, but that’s not going to happen organically for every employment situation.

      • chingadera@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Try being rich you fucking idiot

        It’s a joke y’all, damn. Just pull up on your boots or whatever it is these rich people did to turn on the money