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The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily
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this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Yeah, we should fix that, but it's still pretty bad because it incentivizes investments in stocks (an inherently speculative asset that destabilizes the world) over bonds (a contractually defined asset that more effectively resists speculation and destabilization). Sure, they're both financial assets, so there's a certain amount of nonsense built in, but I'd much prefer a society filled with people who invest in bonds and incentivized to demand financial regulation.
Also, we should treat stocks like dividends and tax them at the same rate. You get money every month from dividends and you choose whether you want to re-invest it or not. You're effectively auto-re-investing with stocks, so it's not meaningfully different. You should have to pay on the yearly difference in value, and if that means you have to sell some to pay the tax then you should just get over it.
There's a much better way.
Don't tax the dollar value of the shares. Tax the shares themselves. Don't demand the liquidation of the shares to pay the dollar value of the tax. Instead, just tax the shares themselves: confiscate the same percentage of the shares held, then have the IRS liquidate the confiscated shares slowly over time.
We can exempt $10 million from the portfolio of any natural person, then tax proportionately from every issue in that portfolio. No exemptions for artificial, corporate entities.
Basically, stocks, bonds, real estate, and other financial assets (the "ownership of the means of production") should only be valuable to the working classes.
Hmm, you'd have to dramatically decrease the tax rate for it to be worth investing at all. My investments make ~5%/yr if taxed on the shares rather than the change in value 5%-3% for tax-3% for inflation = -1% per year. That'd literally destroy all financial assets, the entire finance sector, every university and research institute endowment, and the concept of retirement. So, let's assume you did reduce the rate: 5%*3%= 0.15% or $150 tax per $100k invested or 1.5mil/bil. Honestly, this rate I'm fine with as it's functionally equivalent to taxing the increase.
The issue is you're still incentivizing people to put money into higher returning investments rather than investing in more stable and assets, like bonds. I think your intent was to make investing in stocks "fair" but something that unstable should come with costly risks. It's not something sensible people should be investing into. We don't want the government bailing out the stock market at the cost of everything else every five years. People need to be deterred and those markets need to face consequences.
Unless you're lowering the tax rate as I suggested, you'd have to add a lot of exceptions to not destroy most of the world's established institutions, and those exceptions would be used as loop holes. I think it's unwise to add exceptions at all. People should just get over paying taxes. It's literally the foundation of money having value (the demand for money).
This is a wealth tax, not an income tax. We don't currently have a wealth tax to decrease; we would be establishing a new one. I would propose 1% per year.
Are you a natural person? Is your portfolio less than $10,000,000 in value?
If you answered "yes" to both questions, nothing changes for you. This only applies to corporate entities and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
The only reason that higher returning investments are a problem is because they are used as a vehicle to drive wealth to the (ultra-)wealthy. When the wealthy are charged a high premium for these investments, that reason stops being a reason.
The established institutions in question are the ones creating the systemic problems. I see no compelling reason to maintain the institutions responsible. I see no compelling need for "a lot of exceptions". Destroy them. To minimize disruption, we could phase it in over time. Perhaps starting with a $1 billion portfolio exemption and decreasing it to $10 million over the course of a decade.
This would have the ultra-wealthy converting their financial assets to tangible assets; they would be buying up personal property (produced by workers) hand over fist, while the working class would be buying up those liquidated shares from the IRS at a similar rate. Ownership interest in these companies would be rapidly conveyed away from the Problem Class to the Working Class.
What happens when my socks value decreases 30% one month? Do I get a tax refund?
It depends on the details of the implementation. There are many possible solutions.
If we change it so the rule is like "if you use stock as collateral to get a loan, that is income and taxed as such" then no. You might just default on your loan, but that's kind of on you and the bank for using a volatile asset as collateral.
Got some bad socks there brother
What happens when someone fails to pay back their bond? Do I get a tax refund?