Dear Friends,
It seems to me, passing an unrealized capital gains tax would do to the economy, what a person guzzling a gallon of drain cleaner would do to their body. The damage is unthinkable. Yet we have a political faction that claims such a tax would somehow benefit mankind. The people who epitomize hypocrisy as a virtue, believe themselves the best arbiter of what everything is worth… not mark to market, but their learned opinion. As they did in the Trump trial charging him with over pricing his assets put up for collateral. Presumably they would value the assets the same if he would be taxed the assumed capital gain? Probably not though. Trump wouldn’t be the only victim of this abuse… you and I would be at the front of the line, while the elite wouldn’t be subject to it. Pigs get to sleep in beds.
The tax would be utterly subjective. Because without an actual sale of an asset, by a willing seller to a willing buyer, no expert can reliably come up with an actual cash value for anything. All assessments are guesses and not actual value. Only the free market can assign an objective cash value to anything. Any other assessment is subjective. Therefore any tax on unsold property, capital or assets, will by definition be subjective… not objective. Thus open to political favor. What an unrealized capital gains tax would be then, is a way for the politically powerful to steal the wealth of the weak, for their own use. Because, under any subjective system of taxation the politically favored will avoid the tax and only the disfavored or ignored will be subject, to a subjective tax.
Such a tax could only be arbitrarily applied. What property is subject to the tax? What capital is subjectively valued by the government for taxation purposes? Moreover, Who’s assets are taxed? You can bet, there will be so many loopholes for the favored to get through, the law will be more of a noose than a barrier. A noose that snags small fish but allows the big ones to pass through. Because the wealthy will use accountants, lawyers and fraud to get around it. The government has already got rid of the once a lifetime capital gain exemption. In their greed the elite want to take our property and profits, before we have even made them… forcing us to sell them to pay the unrealized capital gains tax. Which creates a negative incentive to own property… which may be the plan all along.
Taking what hasn’t been earned, to pay for interest on borrowed spending, is lighting a funeral pyre from the top. Taking money that hasn’t been made requires the taxed to come up with the money… like a flunky for the Salamanca family. If we don’t have the money, in their magnanimous charity, the bureaucrats will take a pound of flesh instead. Which can only result in waves of bankruptcies. As property floods the market to pay the tax, the value of property will drop. The tax still must be paid, even on property that’s dropped in value, because during the period of assessment it had a subjective gain. Resulting in people paying more in tax then their property is worth. Which will cause more waves of bankruptcies, triggering even more economic collapse.
The only reason to do such a suicidal thing, as pass an unearned capital gains tax… is to bankrupt the people, wipe out businesses and burn down the economy. To manipulate us into socialism maybe? Once the initial wave of bankruptcies runs through the economy, (to pay the tax) and the value of property has been eroded by the negative incentives of the tax, government could use the money they collected before collapsing the property market… and buy all the property for a song. No one will own anything. Except the elite. Who will own everything under the guise of collective ownership. So I guess the idea of an unearned capital gains tax, does make sense… to a demon who seeks to be the despotic ruler of the world. Rational people on the other hand… don’t drink drain cleaner.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
