Texas' 'Electroline' tax

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Render unto Caesar.... didn't include unrealized capital gains.

Can you flesh that out please ? J
Joint-stock corporations existed at the time of the Roman Empire (Gladiators were 'owned' by investors for instance ).
I don't know if standardized accounting practices as we know them today existed at that time, but Rome did have pretty good bean counters, and a form of statistical analysis. You can't run empires without it. As Egyptian 'gods' couldn't exist without astronomers and mechanical computers.

[freebeard]

You have your unrealized capital gains and unrealized capital loses. If you tax the one and don't reimburse the other, it creates a downward spiral.

[redpoint5]

Unrealized capital gains taxation is indistinguishable from imaginary gains taxation. There isn't a single economist that would advocate for that, and only dullards and rubes would think that's a fantastic idea. Those geniuses think we should tax lottery ticket holders for the full amount of winning the lottery prior to revealing the outcome. It's a disqualifying position to take for anyone seeking a leadership position, because it's clear that person doesn't know what money is, or how it's created, or basic human motivation.

Originally Posted by JSH

I disagree that property taxes are weird. They are the 3rd leg of a balanced tax system. Sales, Income, and Wealth. (Property taxes are just a form of a wealth tax). Property taxes are also the most steady of the 3 the produce a steady revenue stream. Both sales and income taxes can vary wildly year to year based on economic conditions.

A tax is justified if it's more steady? Gentrification is the process of a thing not only having been paid for, but paid at an increasing and unending rate.

There is a case to be made for the public taking a portion of the value created in society; but none to be made for merely retaining the value of said created wealth.

Originally Posted by JSH

Old Testament tithes were a percentage of one's total wealth.

It's an outrage that the federal government; the lest locally important and least individually impactful organization, should take the most in taxes; and way more than recommended by The Creator.

I'd be careful with the New Testament example as there members of the church where living in common. That dreaded communism.

I'd be more careful applying communism at organizational levels that always end horrifically.

I practice strict communism in my household, because that is a functional organizational level to apply it. Get more than a hundred or so, and the dysfunction of such a system becomes apparent, and scales in dysfunction in proportion to membership.

[freebeard]

It's a disqualifying position to take for anyone seeking a leadership position

Pop quiz tomorrow.

Originally Posted by JSH

Old Testament tithes were a percentage of one's total wealth.

IIRC there exists a contemporary New Testement church with a 10% ask.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

You have your unrealized capital gains and unrealized capital loses. If you tax the one and don't reimburse the other, it creates a downward spiral.

For my 2023 Income tax, on Form 1040, under the section on 'INCOME', line -7: there is a 'Capital gain or (loss ) provision a CPA would report to the IRS, based on a 'Schedule D' document, perhaps provided by a certified financial advisor (fiduciary), like Royal Bank of Canada ( RBC ), Denver, Colorado.
Somehow, they could 'freeze' your investment portfolio for the fiscal year, know the 'value' of a specific asset, and, based on the current Federal Tax Code, know what numbers were appropriate to list, so as to know how to properly signal 'where you were' within the investment universe.
You'd pay them 1.25% of your portfolio for their expertise, without which you'd be 'screwed' if you tried to navigate each fiscal year on your own.
Under each year's tax code, and under the uniform standards of accounting, the experts would know exactly what to do, and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you, should you be audited.

[freebeard]

I'd never used anything but 1040A, so I looked at the first page of DuckDuckGo. Nowhere did I see the word 'unrealized'.