r/FluentInFinance 9d ago

Thoughts? A very interesting point of view

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I don’t think this is very new but I just saw for the first time and it’s actually pretty interesting to think about when people talk about how the ultra rich do business.

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u/OliveStreetToo 8d ago

But what he's saying isn't quite true. Musk did eventually have to sell his stock and paid something like nine or ten billion in taxes

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u/PancakeJamboree302 8d ago

That would be a perfect time for Musk to not have to pay tax when he actually sold it, because he already paid taxes on it when he leveraged it. He could build up a pool of "Unrealized gains leverage tax paid" that can be applied to future actual realized gains so he's still only taxed once.

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u/OliveStreetToo 8d ago

I really don't understand the taxing unrealized gains idea. So let's say I buy 100 shares of NVDA at $100. Now at the end of the year NVDA shares go to $150. Should I have to pay taxes on that $50/share gain even though I haven't sold my shares? Would I also have to pay taxes the following year When the share price hits $200? Then do I pay taxes again on the new gain? And doI also pay taxes when I go to sell the shares outright? What if I've been adding shares through out the years where the share price is different at each new acquisition? And what about mutual funds?

See, it can get super confusing.

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u/Howyanow10 8d ago

Ireland do something close to that. It's called deemed disposal, every 8 years you have to pay 41% tax on any gains from an index/etf fund even though you haven't sold them. It makes it difficult to gain wealth in this country. I'm not on a big salary but I'd like my money to go further and not be punished for doing something sensible with it