> Imagine a 70 year old grandma owning a house in SF... it's price rises 20% in a year, what is she to do? She has no money... the only thing she can do is sell

> Imagine a 70 year old grandma owning a house in SF... it's price rises 20% in a year, what is she to do? She has no money... the only thing she can do is sell the house! Even worse, what happens when there's a crisis, and house prices fall 20%? You lost more than you gained, and you still owe last year's tax! I'm... not sure this is right. But! Let's take it at face value for a moment. A major problem in SF is that folks who are entirely concentrated in housing investments are likely to stymie the building of necessary services and density increases because meeting housing demand tends to make their house cheaper, and investment and essential services might negatively impact property values. We see these forces at play all over the city. And while it's easy to say, "Oh yeah we totally wanna keep those Mission Grannies in their homes," the reality in SF is that nearly all the homes owned are rented out to said grannies. > only top 0.1% and like ordinary income is fundamentally incompatible - I agree that capital gains should be taxed like income (and with the tax / offshore assets reforms that the US has done in the past few years, it's uniquely positioned among countries to actually implement such tax), but I see no reason why it shouldn't apply to everybody (same as income tax). Given that taxation is fundamentally different in its impact between the rich and the poor, it seems like it's reasonable to have the rules differ to be sensitive to it. Even if that is only a transient condition, it is not like we're in a world where the US tax code isn't complicated and this will be the proverbial straw.