Ah, so this bill will tax gains from productive activities like investing in and building companies, while exempting gains from rent seeking activities like real estate.
Why am I not surprised?
Why am I not surprised?
Stocks are held by rich people and techbros, in the minds of the public. Whether something is valuable or not valuable depends on who you empathize with. Right now occupations held by the wealthy are disliked and unpopular.
Really you should just tax income at high rates and investment at near-0%. When people cash out their investments, tax them at ordinary income rates. This is how your 401(k) or IRA already works. You'll need to raise taxes on the affluent who spend instead of save, but that's not a bad thing.
We have property taxes for property, there’s no reason we can’t have investment taxes for securities.
Does this address taxes lost from people being paid in stock units?
The article mentions income taxes are unconstitutional in Washington.
You used to be able to vote only if you owned land. You now can invest at (effective) discount. We've always favored land ownership.
Not to mention the first 250K is exempt. So basically this only effects those who are gaining a lot.
This is a bizarre take.
If I buy a house, don't live in it, and don't rent it, that's limiting supply.
If you buy a house to speculate on housing prices, and then rent it out, _you aren't adding anything_. That's entire point of the phrase "rent seeking". You've dumped capital into a limited-quantity good and then extract rent as it becomes more valuable.
The only exception is those actually expanding the housing supply (which is hugely valuable and should be rewarded!), but this is a tiny tiny fraction of the housing stock! Most commercial real-estate is not any housing-add over if they didn't exist!
In larger multi-tenant buildings, the average person wouldn't buy, and the landlord provides services, like maintenance (and sometimes in gyms/etc in higher end buildings). Sure those services can be purchased on the free market anyways, but bundling is pretty common in business.
I own several rental units. Only freestanding homes. I definitely see myself as providing a value add. I fix things when they break, provide landscaping, provide housing to great people with not-great credit. They don't have to worry about a bunch of different utility bills. All value adds. And I take on plenty of risk where lenders don't want to. I don't get compensated all too well for it either. It's a very active way of investing long term, you may not see the value of, but it's definitely there.
I could easily charge 40% more in rent right now, as could many.