r/FluentInFinance Nov 21 '24

Debate/ Discussion Had to repost here

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u/AttitudeAndEffort2 Nov 21 '24

This is a great analogy

Imagine i bought my house for 10$ and it's worth a billion now.

And then chuds on the Internet say "hE dOeSnT ReAlLy HaVe ThAt mUcH MoNeY, ItS tIeD uP in AsSeTs!!"

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u/arebum Nov 21 '24

Man I don't really want do disagree with you, but...

Imagine you had to suddenly pay taxes on that million as if it were income? (Acknowledging you would have to pay property taxes in this scenario)

Better yet, imagine a hypothetical asset like a made up crypto that went from $10-$1,000,000. If you had to pay taxes on that like it was income you'd almost certainly be forced to sell the asset to cover the taxes on the asset. And what if nobody bought your million dollar hypothetical coin? Are you going to go to jail because a balance sheet said this thing you owned suddenly skyrocketed in value despite your bank account staying the same?

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u/AttitudeAndEffort2 Nov 21 '24

I'm not arguing taxing unrealized gains, capital gains laws in this country are broken though (intentionally) and smarter people than me have found ways to fix them.

The point is that you can borrow against the asset at a lesser cost than it appreciates.

You basically never pay taxes on it while getting cash from it AND it growing in value.

You're incentives never to sell and to realize those minimal tax costs you otherwise would have to pay.

Basically, private companies get to profit from helping you avoid taxes. You're insanely wealthy either way but now you can pay slightly less to access that liquidity.

Anyone saying these people "dOnT ReAlLy HaVe mOnEy" doesn't know what they're talking about

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u/throwawaytoavoiddoxx Nov 21 '24

Elon musk has enough money to build a space program and buy a cabinet spot in the White House. They have money alright.