Author Topic: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell  (Read 1593 times)

Ben

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Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« on: January 15, 2021, 11:15:27 AM »
I'm just listening to Stuart Varney and they're talking about the dem taking over the senate finance committee (vs the budget committee, now led by Bernie Sanders).

This guy wants to change the rules on stock profits so that instead of taxing your profit when you sell, taxing your unrealized gains every year if you just let your stocks ride. Absolutely outrageous. I mostly let my equities ride and build up so that I make more in my annual dividends and capital gains distributions, which I mostly live on.

While this was an exceptional year for me, I made six figures in unrealized gains. I would lose like a third of that if they initiated this. I would never consider taking out a six figure profit in any year except in emergency, as I need nowhere near that to live. I have to wonder if they then also let you report your unrealized losses? I'm betting not. I haven't seen any text on this, I just heard the discussion. They did say that with a close senate, they might not get the needed dem votes for it.
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MechAg94

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2021, 11:41:11 AM »
Wouldn't that just encourage people to sell off stocks every year?  Discourage long term stock holdings and encourage short term trading making everything more volatile. 
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dogmush

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2021, 11:49:10 AM »
I feel like the super rich folks would spend a lot of money to defeat this.

For that matter, how much of Pelosi's wealth is in stocks.

RocketMan

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2021, 11:52:54 AM »
I feel like the super rich folks would spend a lot of money to defeat this.

For that matter, how much of Pelosi's wealth is in stocks.

As congresscritters often do, they would probably exempt themselves from any changes in tax law that negatively impacts them.
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WLJ

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2021, 12:22:00 PM »
So they want to tax money you haven't even made yet and may not even make?
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cordex

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2021, 12:39:24 PM »
I wonder if this would eventually be made to apply to other property.

Real estate?
Crytocurrency?
Precious Metals?
Collectibles?

Nick1911

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2021, 12:45:21 PM »
I wonder if this would eventually be made to apply to other property.

Real estate?
Crytocurrency?
Precious Metals?
Collectibles?

They kind of already do this with real estate, motor vehicles, boats, and aircraft.  Taxed yearly for owning them, taxes depend on present market value.

Further, I think they'd love to tax imputed income if they could figure out a way to do it.

Ben

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2021, 01:36:48 PM »
So they want to tax money you haven't even made yet and may not even make?

Yeah, that's the other thing. You could be up $100K on 31DEC2021, and down $200K on 02JAN2022 on "money" you never touched. They would still tax you for the 2021 "profit".
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cordex

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2021, 01:42:12 PM »
They kind of already do this with real estate, motor vehicles, boats, and aircraft.  Taxed yearly for owning them, taxes depend on present market value.
That's a good point.

MechAg94

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2021, 02:02:35 PM »
Yeah, that's the other thing. You could be up $100K on 31DEC2021, and down $200K on 02JAN2022 on "money" you never touched. They would still tax you for the 2021 "profit".
That is why I was thinking a lot of people might just sell out of everything so they actually have profit rather than end up paying taxes on phantom profit.

Another thought:  Would you get tax relief if your stock value dropped?
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lee n. field

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2021, 02:16:36 PM »
I wonder if this would eventually be made to apply to other property.

Real estate?
Crytocurrency?
Precious Metals?
Collectibles?

"What cryptocurrency?"
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brimic

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2021, 04:35:34 PM »
That seems like a whole lot of good intentions that have a lot of unintended consequences downstream.

I read an interesting article online the other night about the super wealthy. If they started actually spending their money, which pretty much only exists in a parallel economy, they would crash our economy by driving up the costs of basically everything. Yes, tax the wealthy on their wealth and watch your savings get hyperinflated away.
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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2021, 07:20:23 PM »
That seems like a whole lot of good intentions that have a lot of unintended consequences downstream.

I read an interesting article online the other night about the super wealthy. If they started actually spending their money, which pretty much only exists in a parallel economy, they would crash our economy by driving up the costs of basically everything. Yes, tax the wealthy on their wealth and watch your savings get hyperinflated away.


There are NO good intentions when fleecing the tax sheep.


My stance is simple: no new taxes at all, and let's get rid of some we already have.

Andiron

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2021, 07:52:00 PM »
There are NO good intentions when fleecing the tax sheep.


My stance is simple: no new taxes at all, and let's get rid of some we already have.

This.

The tax code in this country is insane.
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RoadKingLarry

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2021, 09:41:18 PM »
This kind of crap bugs the heck out of me right now.
I'm several weeks away from pulling the retirement ripcord and rolling my 401K and pension into an IRA and now I have to worry about this crap.
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zahc

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #15 on: January 15, 2021, 09:58:48 PM »
Yeah, that's the other thing. You could be up $100K on 31DEC2021, and down $200K on 02JAN2022 on "money" you never touched. They would still tax you for the 2021 "profit".

But you could easily allow carry-forward and allow losses to be deducted against gains as well. Sort of like how you have to account for both gambling gains and losses in the same year. I don't want it to happen either but there's several decent ways they could implement it. The silver lining would be that people wouldn't build up giant tax bombs, so taxable retirement savings would be closer to Roth than IRA. And correct me if I'm wrong, but at a constant tax rate there's actually no difference in total taxes paid or tax rate between paying every year or paying at the end of retirement... potentially even lower due to marginal tax brackets.
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bedlamite

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #16 on: January 15, 2021, 11:54:30 PM »
There are NO good intentions when fleecing the tax sheep.


My stance is simple: no new taxes at all, and let's get rid of some we already have.


That is both truth and wishful thinking.
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Ben

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #17 on: January 16, 2021, 08:23:32 AM »
But you could easily allow carry-forward and allow losses to be deducted against gains as well. Sort of like how you have to account for both gambling gains and losses in the same year. I don't want it to happen either but there's several decent ways they could implement it. The silver lining would be that people wouldn't build up giant tax bombs, so taxable retirement savings would be closer to Roth than IRA. And correct me if I'm wrong, but at a constant tax rate there's actually no difference in total taxes paid or tax rate between paying every year or paying at the end of retirement... potentially even lower due to marginal tax brackets.

I suppose it depends on how you use that taxable money you save. Unless there's an emergency, I will never have a "tax bomb". The money in my taxable accounts is only there to provide me dividends and capital gains payments. As long as I keep reported income under $48K AGI, there is no tax on that money. I'm only taxed if I go over that limit.

Since the dems also want to eliminate what I do, I suppose I could take out more money annually for hookers and blow, and then simply find another tax law to reduce or eliminate taxes. Luckily dems don't seem to want to touch farm related tax breaks because it would look like they're hurting Ma and Pa Kettle, so for now I have an abundance of deductions.
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Fly320s

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #18 on: January 16, 2021, 09:32:07 AM »
And correct me if I'm wrong, but at a constant tax rate there's actually no difference in total taxes paid or tax rate between paying every year or paying at the end of retirement... potentially even lower due to marginal tax brackets.

Depends on your income.  I pay much more in taxes now than I will when I retire.  That is one of the selling points of the 401k; defer the tax until you are in a lower tax bracket, at least in theory.  If this proposed tax becomes law, I'll be taxed on those gains while I am retired and probably be pushed close to my current effective tax rate.

The biggest problem with these kinds of taxes is that they penalize people who are trying to take care of themselves.  The poor, non-investors don't care because this tax won't affect them and they don't pay taxes anyway.  The rich and high-end investors won't care too much because they will have lawyers and accountants to help minimize the tax burden.  Those of us in the middle will get screwed.
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kgbsquirrel

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #19 on: January 16, 2021, 03:09:38 PM »
Depends on your income.  I pay much more in taxes now than I will when I retire.  That is one of the selling points of the 401k; defer the tax until you are in a lower tax bracket, at least in theory.  If this proposed tax becomes law, I'll be taxed on those gains while I am retired and probably be pushed close to my current effective tax rate.

The biggest problem with these kinds of taxes is that they penalize people who are trying to take care of themselves.  The poor, non-investors don't care because this tax won't affect them and they don't pay taxes anyway.  The rich and high-end investors won't care too much because they will have lawyers and accountants to help minimize the tax burden.  Those of us in the middle will get screwed.

That's the point.

RocketMan

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #20 on: January 17, 2021, 12:55:49 PM »
I wonder if this is being proposed as one of the eventual steps to outright confiscation of retirement accounts?  I really believe that is the end game for the dems, though it may be some years down the road.  They have to get us used to the idea that retirement accounts, whatever their nature, are held only by privileged members of society.  Normal, oppressed working folks do not enjoy the same privilege.
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Ben

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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #21 on: January 17, 2021, 01:01:02 PM »
I wonder if this is being proposed as one of the eventual steps to outright confiscation of retirement accounts?  I really believe that is the end game for the dems, though it may be some years down the road.  They have to get us used to the idea that retirement accounts, whatever their nature, are held only by privileged members of society.  Normal, oppressed working folks do not enjoy the same privilege.

I'm pretty sure people like Bernie Sanders and AOC want everyone on some form of Social Security. Maybe not SS per se, but some "retirement/basic income" in which the state "takes care of you" and lets you know what is enough money to do that. For equity.

As long as people have some control over their own money, that can't be done.
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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #22 on: January 17, 2021, 10:48:49 PM »
“bUt tHe dEmoCraTs prOteCt tHe mIddLe cLaSS”

Apparently “being for the middle class” means screwing the ever loving *expletive deleted*ck out of them on taxes, breaking small businesses, eliminating well paying blue collar jobs, screwing with retirement accounts, costing them ever more to live through inflation, and so on.



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Re: Taxing Your Stock Profits Before You Sell
« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2021, 08:32:35 AM »
“bUt tHe dEmoCraTs prOteCt tHe mIddLe cLaSS”

Apparently “being for the middle class” means screwing the ever loving *expletive deleted*ck out of them on taxes, breaking small businesses, eliminating well paying blue collar jobs, screwing with retirement accounts, costing them ever more to live through inflation, and so on.

Mass hypnosis and word magick.

It's an ancient art and many of what we call "the left" are masters of the craft.

That's been one of my largest concerns about Trump. He is a master of the art also.





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