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Then you must support paying unrealized gains on your home and stocks each year, even if you don't sell them? Because it's literally the same thing. > How else
by seattle_spring 9y ago
Then you must support paying unrealized gains on your home and stocks each year, even if you don't sell them? Because it's literally the same thing.
> How else would you do it
The same way every other investment works: Tax the gains when the asset is sold.
- lmm 9y ago> Then you must support paying unrealized gains on your home and stocks each year, even if you don't sell them? Yes, I do. I think the whole notion that you pick and choose when to realise gains invites abuse.
- seattle_spring 9y agoThis would bankrupt so many homeowners.
- lmm 9y agoThen prices would fall to the point where people could afford their homes, or governments would run massive surpluses and could lower their tax rates to remove the burden, or some combination of the two effects. It would remove the disincentive to trade homes which is bad for everyone: if I live next to your job and you live next to my job we'd both be better off if we bought and sold each other's houses, but at the moment we're discouraged from doing that because our tax bills would come due.