| ▲ | ProllyInfamous a day ago |
| I know OpenAI has delayed their IPO by a year (i.e. not publicly traded, yet; so: no dividends), but wouldn't it be better for the Government/bottom 95% if instead of taking ownership, they taxed all tech-related stocks 5% every time they're traded – this is a perpetual stream of income, and would likely reduce speculative short-term trading... source: middle-aged electrician, owns a little stock (and would happily pay trading taxes, either in/out/both); know nothing unrelated to copper; eats crayons |
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| ▲ | glimshe a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| That's a terrifying idea that would destroy the tech stock market as we know it. We already have incentives in capital gain taxes to encourage longer term ownership. Feel free to send a 5% donation to the government in your taxes every time you trade your tech stocks. |
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| ▲ | ProllyInfamous a day ago | parent [-] | | This is an order of magnitude less than Bernie's 50% per-tech-trade tax (obviously impossible & bad), which he suggested as a means to fund the inevitable UBI [turns out former presidentical candiate Michael Yang wasn't wrong, just early, with his 2020 prediction]. Having never sold any stock on a short-term basis (i.e. I am a long-term value investor), I also disagree on the abysmally low tax rates I pay for long-term selling. To paraphrase the great Warren Buffet: the ultrarich should be taxed more and its unfair that the taxcodes don't require it. ---- Having spent the majority of my working life as a bluecollar electrician, I can assure that my wagie tax burden (as percentage of income) is much higher than most fellow employed-by-tech readers, here. | | |
| ▲ | glimshe a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The issues you raise aren't fixed by your proposal. A 5% transaction tax will hurt both the rich and small investors. If you want to tax the rich, raise the cap on the capital gain tax rates for higher income (we already have the NIIT but you could raise it). If you think that capital gain taxes are unfairly low - they aren't, but let's say they are - just raise them. But a transaction tax is regressive and nonsensical. Being better than Sanders' proposals is no consolation in my book. | | |
| ▲ | ProllyInfamous a day ago | parent [-] | | Thank you for sharing your perspective. I'll continue to digest it as my workingclass place_in_this_world continues to shrink. Honestly, both capital gains and waged income taxes are too low. During the most-prosperous times of this Semiquincentennial Country [USA 1946-1984], the toptier taxrate was >50% (through democratic and republican, non-AIPAC, presidencies). At least on paper... ---- I agree that Sanders is too polar to accomplish anything, but his voice serves as a starting point for systemic problems. For those of you that don't still live in "the hood" [like I choose to remain]: if only you knew how bad it is. Americans are literally starving; jobbed moms literally offering to do my dishes/lawn/anythingwinkwink. I voluntarily remain celibate. |
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| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's not about the aggregate tax burden. You're a long-term value investor because you live in a country where stock trading is an easy and low-friction thing the average person can do. A 5% transaction tax isn't really compatible with that; we would end up regressing to the global norm, where stocks are an esoteric hobby for rich people and the normal way to save for retirement is a savings account or cash piles under your mattress. | | |
| ▲ | ProllyInfamous a day ago | parent [-] | | >where stocks are an esoteric hobby for rich people Isn't it something when here in the USA: •Top 10% own 90% of stock marketcap •Top 1% own 50% " " ---- You were saying? ---- I am healthily "median," which is somehow not middle class, anymore! My neighborhood is second-worse quintile =| 70%+ Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck (stat from 2022!) – it's higher on my suburban street (I'm one of only two, "not", out of dozens [i.e. with savings]). USA! USA! USA! USA! U$A! USA! USA! U$A! U$A! U$A! U$A! | | |
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| ▲ | myrmidon a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| An interesting proposition. Not sure if the outcome would be good, though; one result could be that "tech-related stocks" just stop being traded directly by bigger players, and people instead trade assets that hold such stocks (which reduces trade volume, and might result in the "trade tax" only being paid by small traders like you). I find the concept of taxing stock trades in general interesting, but I believe it could have a bunch of undesirable side-effects. Another really appealing tax suggestion IMO is the Zucman approach: You tax wealth at 2%, but deduct all the income tax from this. The motivation is that for the very wealthy, "nominal" taxable income is basically zero; and approach like this would take a fair cut from stock billionaires, while keeping things mostly unchanged for normal people. Off-topic (asking as a foreigner): Does "eats crayons" imply a stint in the US Marines here, or can the phrase be used for non-military personnel, too? |
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| ▲ | ProllyInfamous a day ago | parent [-] | | >I find the concept of taxing stock trades in general interesting, but I believe it could have a bunch of undesirable side-effects. My most-desired effect would be to reduce stocks that are traded (roundtrip: bought and sold) within MICROseconds. Even adding a 0.5% tax on all short-term holdings (i.e. less than a year held, within US) would effectively prevent non-human trading from occuring. I've worked in multiple datacenters in my career, and fibercable length can literally be a detectable factor/handicap [so exchanges e.g. make all cables the same length!]. Fun fact: 2025 was the first year that most publicly-traded stocks were transacted (officially) within darkpools (i.e. not sold on public exchanges, reducing the true effect of "price discovery"). ---- I live in a workingclass neighborhood, and am bluecollar myself; most of my friends/family/clients are Top 5%ers... their failure at perspective is that crimes happen for reasons... and a major reason on my street is literally that single mothers are starving in order to feed their children. If a man is around, he's probably not the father, and is probably living as another child to both Momma and BigGov (certainly not working; with rare exception, the only men that work on my street live alone). In a non-military sense, "eating crayons" is similar in compliment: it's a satyrical poke at self that one might be highly "regarded" == not wise in a traditional sense [" 'g'==>'t' "]. But seriously folks: don't eat crayons ("silver" tastes best and makes sparklypoo). |
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
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