Neil Irwin, The New York Times:
So, when most people buy an asset, buy an investment, and it goes up in value, you only owe capital gains tax on the profits when you sell that investment, when you sell those stocks or sell a business.
And there’s good reasons for that, right? The logic is that that’s when how much it sold for, how many profits you have. You have that cash to spend. I think what the billionaire tax is aimed at is the ability of people to accumulate truly massive sums of wealth that never gets taxed that reaches just astonishing levels.
So, Jeff Bezos, for example, his net worth might rise by $100 billion as Amazon stock goes up, but if he doesn’t sell it, he doesn’t owe any tax on those large earnings. I think there’s about 700 billionaires who would be affected by this tax, essentially paying those gains — paying tax on those gains along the way.
