"Unrealised gains"

"Musk, Tesla’s largest individual shareholder, is roughly $83 billion richer since Election Day, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index."

Every time someone mentions a “wealth tax”, defenders of the wealthy rise up, and in unison, cry “But you can’t tax unrealised gains”

By that, they mean that you can’t tax an asset, only the income once it is pocketed.

To tax it when it’s just sitting there, as a poor lonely “unrealised gain”, is unfair.