this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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Some clarification. Those billionnaires don't have that much money. It's the "valuation" of their assets, so it's even more fictional than actual money. Which means they can practically set to anything with enough hype, and not pay any tax, but can convert some (only some) of that fictional money to real money by getting a bank loan against it, again, tax free.
What I'm saying is, we need to get those funny number back to ground truth. Melon wants SpaceX valued at 1.25 Tn or something. Let him pay taxes over those valuations and see how valuable they really are. After all, anyone with a 800bn company should be able to afford some taxes on them, right? So fucking tax them.
If they can tax your house based on its current valuation, they can sure tax their stocks based on their current fucking valuations.
Excuse my French, they are not my native language.
Nor are English.
Tell that to the property taxes I pay on my house every year. They manage to define a value even though I’m not selling and it’s still an “unrealized gain”.
That's the thing about wealth taxes. People argue that they're unworkable. The truth is that we already have wealth taxes. We just have the most useless style of wealth tax.
Instead of the ultra-wealthy paying the highest percentage in taxes, every home owner pays a similar rate. But, that means that the people who have most of their wealth tied up in their homes pay the highest effective rate. Even if it might be hard to come up with a perfect wealth tax, it would be extremely easy to come up with one that's more progressive than property taxes.
That's right, homeowners pay on unrealized gains, but not Sociopathic Oligarchs. We should flip that.
“You can’t tax valuation”
Fine, the government gets 40% of your share options.
Yes you can. Capitalism just doesn't want you.
If they are using the "unvested" assets for something, like getting a loan with them as collateral, then we should treat it as if they realized the gain.
If you use stock as collateral to get s $1mm loan, that should be treated as income.
If they then sell the stock and get taxed again.... I don't think I really care.
We tax valuation all the time! Property has a valuation and we levy taxes on how much it's worth.
One time? Every year?
Just like Income tax. When they vest.
I think that doesn't work well due to price fluctuations of the stocks and avoiding double taxing, but I don't understand stock options and current tax laws enough to be confident about that.
Who cares? Even double-taxing the billionaires is still the moderate compromise position, compared to the guillotine.
The guillotine is a dumbass fantasy that prevents people from having to think about real options while cosplaying on the internet.
Who cares? If the goal is the universal application of the law, that goal is not obtained when you use the law to apply to people you don't like.
That’s the point. If you get paid $10 at 30% tax the government takes 3 of the dollars. If you get paid $10 and 10 options, the government takes 3 dollars and 3 shares (when they vest). Simple as that.
Deciding what to do with the shares as the government is a hairy problem though.
Ok, I see what you mean, but now you have government holding stocks with 0 idea if they should cash out or hold. Both cases could result in the government loosing out on tax money.
If government immediately sells, and you hold until the stocks are 10x the value, the governmwnt lost out on 90% of the money.
If government holds and you sell, the government stocks can become worthless (e.g. company goes bankrupt) and again lose out on tax money. Plus government needs money in the budget, not stocks.
This is why you usually tax the income when you sell the shares. The loophole is taking a loan against those shares, but if you ask me, the answer is to tax the loan money and make repayments tax deductible. The loan is basically getting the money from selling shares early, so it should be taxed when you get it.
Maybe the shares could go to a sovereign wealth fund with staff employed to try and maximize the value of the fund over the long term?
Maybe congress gets voting shares...essentially making "the American people" a part-owner of the company. All companies.
That makes sense if you have a balanced government budget or a surplus. But if you are running a deficit, you want cash.
Seems like this would be a good place to treat those stocks (and options) as real property and tax them accordingly. With a properly progressive rate on them, we could set the lower end such that normal retirement funds won't be impacted, with the high end discouraging hording assets.
I pay increased taxes because my property goes up in value, even if I don't sell. Same should apply to shares (to be fair there should also be tax credits when shares fall).
Personal loans against business assets should be taxed. The repayments can then be tax deductible so they are not double taxed. Without taxing these loans, it just creates a tax loophole where you avoid income tax.
As for company prices being inflated, to some extent, who cares? As long as they don't get a bailuot when the bubble pops, it's the investors issue.
We get tax deductions on interest paid on mortgages. They should not be getting tax deductions on their full repayment.
The tax deductions are meant to offset the tax on the loan. You don't get your loans taxed as income so you don't get full deduction on repayment. They wouldn't pay less than you overall in my proposal.
I agree taxing fughazi is difficult. How about taxing the banks when they offer a loan for billionaires against their assets? Then they can pass that down as interest
This is important. More than glib stuff like the meme. When the billionaires talk about “paying their share,” it’s important that journalists and public repeatedly call out that BS. That’s how the average person is going to realize that it’s BS. Simple stuff like not being taxes on the value of their wealth (like average people are taxed on the value of, e.g., their home), and using the “unrealized gains” of those investments to back massive low-interest loans to buy/sell companies, politicians, etc. and fund their lives effectively tax free. It’s absolutely maddening.
This is all ignoring the single simple face that no 1 person should ever have the power over society that these parasites have.