you are missing the "death" part of this.
the unrealized gains at the time of death go to current market value. they should go back to the value of the original purchase
Step-Up in Basis: Inherited stocks receive a "step-up" in cost basis, meaning the tax value resets to the market price on the date of death
Elon and jeff arent spending the 200 billion dollars they have. and when they die, the capital gains will never apply to their heirs b/c of the step up in basis
But we all are allowed the same step up basis. Are you good with giving up the step up basis and all other tax avoidance avenues that the uber rich has?
The step up basis also goes up to your estate tax. If you bought NVDA for $100K and now worth 100M, when you die it gets taxed over the estate tax limit which is a hefty %.
I really think this discussion is circular and I just want the left/SDA to admit that they would be good with having the same rules set on the Billionaires. If you are ok with losing all of the tax structure benefits that they have, then atleast be honest/consistent.
I am well off, not UBER billionaire rich, but I also use many of the tax benefits that they use to a much much smaller scale. I prefer to pay less taxes and donate more to charity where I can direct its purpose rather than giving it to the IRS to spend on bombs, coke for kids, and steaks for the poor.
I give 50K+ a year to charity and that is my choice. If the IRS want to tax me 100K more a year on my "wealth" or take away some of my deductions, then that 50K+ will be much less and wasted. This is the crux where the wealthy gives more than every other income group and want the choice on who/where to give.
Do you think that Michael dell would be giving away billions to healthcare, Universities, Trump accounts if he had a 20Bil wealth appreciation tax bill around the corner?
Here is a quick chatgpt explanation. How they avoid such a large tax bill is part estate structure BUT he will still have a LARGE Tax bill. So let's not ne naive to say that he will never pay any taxes when he dies similar to the rules you have to follow if you have over the estate limit. So Musk would be paying his "fair" share and most likely MUCH MUCH more than Dr. SSdoc who will pay zero estate tax if he is not over 30M.
Should we just get rid of the estate tax all together so SSdoc will pay his fair share b/c it doesn't look like SSdoc will pay much taxes when he passes away.
Yes. Under current U.S. law, the
federal estate tax applies only to the value of the estate above the exemption amount, not to the entire estate. The top federal estate tax rate is
40%. For 2026, the federal exemption is
$15 million per person (or about
$30 million for a married couple with proper planning and portability).
For example, suppose someone dies with:
- Estate value: $200 billion
- Exemption: $15 million
The taxable estate would be approximately:
- $200 billion − $15 million = $199.985 billion
At a simplified 40% rate, that could imply an estate tax approaching
$80 billion, before considering deductions, charitable gifts, debts, marital deductions, and estate-planning techniques
What would he probably pay?
Estate tax experts have suggested that for someone with a fortune like Musk's:
- $0 is highly unlikely unless virtually all of the wealth had already been transferred or pledged to charity years in advance.
- $10–30 billion is conceivable if extraordinary planning had already shifted a large portion of future appreciation out of the estate.
- $40–80+ billion is plausible if a substantial portion of the wealth remained personally owned at death.
So if Elon Musk died
tomorrow with a $200 billion estate, my expectation would be that the estate tax would likely be measured in the
tens of billions of dollars, not zero.
