> Should I pay taxes on that unrealized gain? People sure do pay taxes on "unrealized gain" of the houses they live in when the real estate market heats up in

> Should I pay taxes on that unrealized gain? People sure do pay taxes on "unrealized gain" of the houses they live in when the real estate market heats up in their neighborhood, and the property tax assessor gleefully changes their assessment that year. "But equities can go to zero!" Sure, just as a house can go to zero (fire, acts of God-level insurance incidents). "But those are covered by insurance!" Sure, just as you are free to buy options to insure the equities. I'm not really seeing strong arguments based upon some intrinsic property of financial instruments used at scale granting them capital gains treatment against taxing financial instruments like any other property / real asset. There is the whole "hold Grandma's retirement hostage" policy aspect that can be mitigated by a generous cliff and age means test perhaps, I haven't thought about that mitigation much, as well as capital gains at different scales. But at the policy level, capital gains treatment being so non-linearly favorable at scale compared to income tax treatment seems a reasonable topic to explore in public discourse. I'm not averse to capital gains continuing at smaller scales, even at millionaire scales, but I am curious what the economic rationale is to continue that treatment at the billionaire scales when it seems much like income on a more complex level.