How can taxing unrealized capital gains achieve a sustainable balance between wealth and income-producing asset growth without upsetting market stability?
Can you explain how you think taxing accrued gains might threaten market stability? And, does market stability mean steadily increasing asset prices with few and small drawdowns? Or...? Thanks.
I think, rather, it would shift wealthholders' portfolio preferences some, from equities toward bonds, because holding gains are a smaller proportion of bondholders' total return, versus yield. (I mean, when wealthholders sell equities they're generally gonna buy some other security with the money they receive... They won't keep it in their checking accounts or stuffed in their mattresses.) There would be various interacting effects on their incentives re: real estate. Would they choose to be more or less leveraged, borrow more or less? Hard to figger how that would net out. Would they shift some of their equity allocation into their own home equity, pay down their loan balances? Je ne sais pas.
I like to think of it this way: if you're rowing, sailing, or powering upstream (increasing your wealth) against a current (taxes), and the current increases, how do you change your strategy? Short answer in that simple thought experiment is, "there's nothing you can do differently to compensate. You still row/sail/power as fast as you can." Differential tax policies on different asset classes complicate that some. You might be smart to hug the shore, for instance. But...
Encourage increasing investment in productive income earning assets, reducing investment in long term debt driven real estate …achieve a sustainable balance between income and finance or increase the risk of systemic financial instability?
How can taxing unrealized capital gains achieve a sustainable balance between wealth and income-producing asset growth without upsetting market stability?
Can you explain how you think taxing accrued gains might threaten market stability? And, does market stability mean steadily increasing asset prices with few and small drawdowns? Or...? Thanks.
Increase selling pressure affecting market sentiment …i
I think, rather, it would shift wealthholders' portfolio preferences some, from equities toward bonds, because holding gains are a smaller proportion of bondholders' total return, versus yield. (I mean, when wealthholders sell equities they're generally gonna buy some other security with the money they receive... They won't keep it in their checking accounts or stuffed in their mattresses.) There would be various interacting effects on their incentives re: real estate. Would they choose to be more or less leveraged, borrow more or less? Hard to figger how that would net out. Would they shift some of their equity allocation into their own home equity, pay down their loan balances? Je ne sais pas.
I like to think of it this way: if you're rowing, sailing, or powering upstream (increasing your wealth) against a current (taxes), and the current increases, how do you change your strategy? Short answer in that simple thought experiment is, "there's nothing you can do differently to compensate. You still row/sail/power as fast as you can." Differential tax policies on different asset classes complicate that some. You might be smart to hug the shore, for instance. But...
Encourage increasing investment in productive income earning assets, reducing investment in long term debt driven real estate …achieve a sustainable balance between income and finance or increase the risk of systemic financial instability?