If you're smart enough to amass $1,000,000 in a brokerage account, you should be smart enough to know that it would be stupid to liquidate the whole account to

If you're smart enough to amass $1,000,000 in a brokerage account, you should be smart enough to know that it would be stupid to liquidate the whole account to pay cash for a house, better to get a mortgage now that interest rates are around 3%. In that case you only need to come up with the down payment, and then enjoy that sweet mortgage interest deduction. You should also be smart enough to have a fair amount in a 401(k), in which case you can loan yourself the down payment up to $100,000 and pay no capital gains tax at all. >they'll have to pay 40% on their entire gains Wrong, unless your income is over $1,000,000. Otherwise your capital gains tax will be considerably less, even if you are stupid enough to liquidate your brokerage account to pay cash for your house.