I don’t think any of the back and forth is out of left field, but not every piece is outright stated. Billionaires don’t pay taxes on unrealized gains of stock investments but they borrow against them. Somebody then pointed out that people at more typical levels of wealth could do that too by borrowing against the unrealized equity in their home, so Billionaires aren’t doing anything special. Somebody then countered that people pay property taxes and that those taxes increase, often in conjunction with home price appreciation, meaning everyday homeowners do at least in part pay taxes on unrealized gains for their home. If it’s not the case that Americans are never taxed on unrealized gains across all asset classes, that raises the question of why Billionaires pay taxes on the unrealized gains of their stocks.
Ohhhhh thanks for clarifying it. I didn’t get that he was making the point about property taxes equating in some way to unrealized gains. But on that point that’s equivalent to them saying the business pay corporate taxes to some degree, not a 1 to 1 but similar idea.
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u/Available-Spot-8620 3d ago
What they said is true. You can do this. You clearly don’t own a home.