@viveka@tmac8129@kimpaquette@SenWarren If I was given stock options working at Apple 25 years ago, should I need to pay taxes on those valuable assets every year when I never made over $60k a year pre tax the last 25 years? Just because I “could have” liquified it doesn’t mean I did. I can’t freely access that money.
@viveka@tmac8129@kimpaquette@SenWarren If I was a kid and bought a pack of cards and one of them is worth $1M, should I have to pay taxes on it even though I never sold it? What if I don’t have the money? Does that mean I have to sell it just to cover the cost of money I don’t have access to, decentivising investing?
This is very normalized in my culture. The first time I asked an American friend to errand hang with me, she was so shocked I felt like I did something wrong. That’s when I learned in American culture, expecting company for mundane reasons is considered not independent enough.