Over the weekend President Joe Biden took to Twitter to reiterate his call for taxing the richest people and Elon Musk, the world’s second richest man, threw in numbers and said he paid the most taxes among everyone on Earth in 2021.
What Happened: In follow-up discussions, Dogecoin DOGE/USD co-founder Billy Markus commented on a tweet by "Unusual Whales" that said the budget proposals of the Biden administration included a new minimum tax on the unrealized capital gains of wealthy individuals.
See Also: Day Trading Taxes
Markus, who goes by the pseudonym Shibetoshi Nakamoto on Twitter, said if unrealized gains were taxed, everyone would sell everything and this will lead to the economy collapsing.
Tesla CEO Musk agreed with the crypto entrepreneur and replied that this was “true.”
True
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 18, 2023
Schiff Responds: Noted economist and crypto skeptic Peter Schiff said taxing unrealized gains is also unconstitutional. Unrealized gains do not meet the constitutional definition of income.
“Such a tax would be a direct tax on property and would therefore need to be apportioned by state according to its population,” he said, adding, “That won’t happen.”
Replying to Schiff’s tweet, one Twitter user said the constitution never defined income and the tax is levied on corporations, which are franchises of the state or the federal government, and not on billionaires per se.
The gold bull concurred with him and said the Supreme Court defined income as corporate profit, confirming with the constitution. The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t define income but it claims that gross income includes gains derived from various sources, he said.
“But unrealized gains can’t possibly qualify,” he added.
Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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