The same justification as when you place a bet on black in vegas, it comes up red, and the house takes all the chips you bet.
You can call greed “rational self-interest” and gambling “speculative investment” all you like, but trying to change the language doesn’t change the reality.
When you’re gambling, you might lose, and society shouldn’t subsidize the days you gamble and lose. Only income derived through labor should be truly safe, as labor is useful to civilization, unlike gambling, often with winnings from previous gambling gained using loaded market influence dice and marked insider information cards.
The closest we come to “society” “subsidizing” stock losses is via capital loss deductions. Assuming you aren’t doing particularly crazy tax shenanigans, you are looking at up to 3000 dollars deducted from your taxes per year. For reference, the standard deduction is 13850 for an individual as of 2023.
But the thing about capital gains and losses are that they are only actually a thing when you cash out of the stock market. This means you are actually encouraged to “sell” your shares in a failing company and use it to invest in a company “on the rise”. Which is actually good.
What you are proposing would, ironically, mean only the super rich would be able to trade stocks to begin with. And they would only invest in the “guaranteed” companies like MS and the like which would hurt a lot of medium sized companies and workers.
Also, this all forgets that the vast majority of retirement schemes (even pensions when you look at where the money comes from) are based on investing in stocks. In large part because the idea is to benefit from an overall better economy.
So yeah… your statement about “betting on black” makes no sense and your proposed solution only hurts all but the super-rich.
But the thing about capital gains and losses are that they are only actually a thing when you cash out of the stock market.
Oh hey guys we can’t tax the wealth of the rich because their wealth isn’t in the form of sequential 2 dollar bills and simon didn’t say so it doesn’t count as wealth!
Of course it helps when Wall Street sends lobbyists to make the tax code work to their advantage.
We should have a wealth tax on net worth, if they don’t like cashing out stock to pay it, tough. It is completely workable, but since the oligarch class owns our government, don’t worry, it’ll never happen.
Also this story directly addresses where most of the benefits of this rigged con-game of an economy goes, and most Americans haven’t had significant pensions for a long time.
Following this line of thought - sacrificed alot and you now own a house (shocking in this market I know). Its value goes up 100k in a year due to forces out of your control. You now owe 30k in additional tax.
Should you now be forced to sell your home if you can’t pay this tax?
Following it further- you have a bank account. You save 20k. You now have an asset that is increasing in value - do you now owe tax on this?
There is a bloody good reason taxes are paid when gains are realised, or more accurately when money changes hands.
Primary residences are always protected from tax agents.
Primary residences are absolutely not protected from tax agents. They can and are sold to cover unpaid taxes. While it is true they don’t do it often and will sieze every other asset you own first, that commonly leads to loosing your home as well. Good luck paying your mortgage when you don’t have a car to drive to work anymore and all the funds in your bank account are frozen.
"if you have unpaid taxes, the IRS has the right to seize your home through a tax levy. If the IRS seizes your home for unpaid taxes, it uses the money from the sale to cover the cost of seizing and selling the property. Then, it applies the remainder to your tax bill. You can apply for a refund if there’s any money left. "
https://taxcure.com/tax-problems/tax-levy/home-seizure
What is the justification for taxing a trade that lost money? Said person certainly didn’t generate an income from that trade.
How much would you even tax for a trade that lost money?
The same justification as when you place a bet on black in vegas, it comes up red, and the house takes all the chips you bet.
You can call greed “rational self-interest” and gambling “speculative investment” all you like, but trying to change the language doesn’t change the reality.
When you’re gambling, you might lose, and society shouldn’t subsidize the days you gamble and lose. Only income derived through labor should be truly safe, as labor is useful to civilization, unlike gambling, often with winnings from previous gambling gained using loaded market influence dice and marked insider information cards.
The closest we come to “society” “subsidizing” stock losses is via capital loss deductions. Assuming you aren’t doing particularly crazy tax shenanigans, you are looking at up to 3000 dollars deducted from your taxes per year. For reference, the standard deduction is 13850 for an individual as of 2023.
But the thing about capital gains and losses are that they are only actually a thing when you cash out of the stock market. This means you are actually encouraged to “sell” your shares in a failing company and use it to invest in a company “on the rise”. Which is actually good.
What you are proposing would, ironically, mean only the super rich would be able to trade stocks to begin with. And they would only invest in the “guaranteed” companies like MS and the like which would hurt a lot of medium sized companies and workers.
Also, this all forgets that the vast majority of retirement schemes (even pensions when you look at where the money comes from) are based on investing in stocks. In large part because the idea is to benefit from an overall better economy.
So yeah… your statement about “betting on black” makes no sense and your proposed solution only hurts all but the super-rich.
Oh hey guys we can’t tax the wealth of the rich because their wealth isn’t in the form of sequential 2 dollar bills and simon didn’t say so it doesn’t count as wealth!
Of course it helps when Wall Street sends lobbyists to make the tax code work to their advantage.
We should have a wealth tax on net worth, if they don’t like cashing out stock to pay it, tough. It is completely workable, but since the oligarch class owns our government, don’t worry, it’ll never happen.
Also this story directly addresses where most of the benefits of this rigged con-game of an economy goes, and most Americans haven’t had significant pensions for a long time.
Following this line of thought - sacrificed alot and you now own a house (shocking in this market I know). Its value goes up 100k in a year due to forces out of your control. You now owe 30k in additional tax.
Should you now be forced to sell your home if you can’t pay this tax?
Following it further- you have a bank account. You save 20k. You now have an asset that is increasing in value - do you now owe tax on this?
There is a bloody good reason taxes are paid when gains are realised, or more accurately when money changes hands.
No. Primary residences are always protected from tax agents. Nobody is going to be made homeless by a wealth tax. Take your fearmongering elsewhere.
Primary residences are absolutely not protected from tax agents. They can and are sold to cover unpaid taxes. While it is true they don’t do it often and will sieze every other asset you own first, that commonly leads to loosing your home as well. Good luck paying your mortgage when you don’t have a car to drive to work anymore and all the funds in your bank account are frozen.
"if you have unpaid taxes, the IRS has the right to seize your home through a tax levy. If the IRS seizes your home for unpaid taxes, it uses the money from the sale to cover the cost of seizing and selling the property. Then, it applies the remainder to your tax bill. You can apply for a refund if there’s any money left. " https://taxcure.com/tax-problems/tax-levy/home-seizure