The only reason it works with real estate is because they can put a lien on the house and block the sale of it. They don't have any useful mechanism to stop the sale of a share of stock, but since the government is involved in the transfer (due to the registering of the new house deed) of a house, they can stop that one.
> They don't have any useful mechanism to stop the sale of a share of stock
The SEC exists. As do many other mechanisms by which the government regulates direct and brokered securities trades and sales. You can make the case that some of those controls are poorly/ineffectively implemented, but you can’t claim that it’s not something the government routinely regulates, intervenes in, and sometimes prohibits outright.
Society has deemed it "ok" for a real estate transaction to take days or weeks to process and mountains of paperwork, probably because it is done so rarely in an average person's life. But stock trades are expected to be done quickly in minutes or even milliseconds with high frequency trading. It just isn't feasible to inject government paperwork in the middle of a transaction. Wall Street would revolt if they even tried.
Nah. Look up the SEC’s reporting requirements, specifically form 4. The paperwork requirement already exists.
https://www.sec.gov/files/forms-3-4-5.pdf
Here are Musk’s. https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1494730.htm
its perfectly feasible.
high frequency traders dont have a right to a business model.
if they want faster trades, they can take full liability for what they own
Why can't govt block the sale of stocks? It's not like you would be selling non digitalized assets, govts often freeze and reverse stock sales/trades when they find it to be illegal already.
It's harder for private companies sure, but who will stand in the way of govts if they said we will sanction your if you buy X or Y company?
This entire argument doesn't really hold IMHO
Exactly... that's why sales tax and VAT don't exist anywhere -- because there's no way to stop the purchase of goods or services.
This type of low-hanging sarcastic rebuttal doesn't belong here
The main reason real estate taxes work so well is that tax evasion is very difficult.
Because the building is standing right where it is, in the open, lit by the sun every day. If you don't pay your tax, the government can just take it.
This compensates for the several philosophical and moral problems with it, and I've seen several economists declare it the best form of taxation there is.