this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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Billionaires are hoarding trillions in untaxed wealth. They want the Supreme Court to keep it that way (www.rollingstone.com)
submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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A new report from Americans for Tax Fairness found that America’s richest families accumulated $8.5 trillion in untaxed capital gains in 2022

America’s wealthiest families held an astounding $8.5 trillion in untaxed profits in 2022. According to a report from the nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness, which analyzed Federal Reserve data, “one in every six dollars (18 percent of the nation’s unrealized gains is held by these roughly 64,000 ultra-wealthy households, who make up less than 0.05 percent of the population.” The report comes as the Supreme Court gears up to decide a case that could preemptively block any efforts to tax the wealth of billionaires.

The data looks at “quiet” income generated by “centi-millionaires,” Americans holding at least $100 million in wealth, and billionaires through unrealized capital gains. Those gains accumulate, untaxed, as assets and investments like stocks, real estate, bonds, and other investments increase in value. If those assets are not sold — or “realized” — they are not taxed, yet America’s wealthiest families can leverage that on-paper value increase to secure favorable loans with low-interest rates in lieu of using taxable income to finance their lifestyle.

“Of the $139 trillion in America’s national wealth, almost three-quarters (73 percent) is held by the richest 10 percent of households, over one-third (35 percent) by the richest 1 percent, and an astounding 11 percent — $15.2 trillion — is held by the handful of fortunate households that make up the billionaire and centi-millionaire class,” the report says. “The wealthiest 1 percent of households hold 44 percent of national unrealized gains ($21.2 trillion), with billionaires and centi-millionaires alone controlling 18 percent ($8.5 trillion).”

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[–] go_go_gadget@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The solution here isn’t to tax unsold goods

Why not? People are taxed for unrealized gains on a house. Why should stocks be any different?

[–] quindraco@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

Taxing people on unrealized gains on a house is abusive and leads directly to maximum landlords and minimum home ownership. Why are we defending that?

[–] shasta@lemm.ee 1 points 10 months ago

Like it or not, most of the US has moved away from pension-based retirement in favor of 401k based retirement. Taxing unrealized capital gains makes it that much harder for the plebs of society. The rich will complain about the extra taxes but ultimately won't really affect them much.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

One argument could be that anything that incentivizes people to sell their stocks isn't a good thing

The more people buying and selling at any given time, the more volatile the price could become, it's so easy to buy and sell stocks that we already have to have high frequency trading disincentives by having a really high capital gains tax on stocks that were held for a short period of time

Property is a lot less volatile, and there's already a rather large natural incentive to hold on to it for long periods of time (moving is a pain), and taxing unrealized gains on it (essentially, paying estimated taxes on a theoretical future sale) is unlikely to really motivate anyone to sell their house

[–] go_go_gadget@lemmy.world -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is just pearl clutching for billionaires and an economy that doesn't work for the majority of U.S. citizens.

[–] trafficnab@lemmy.ca 0 points 10 months ago

Apparently about half of Americans have money in the stock market (I would assume almost exclusively due to their 401k/IRAs)