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Showing posts from September, 2024

Stock Option Debt Income

The 2024 Presidential election has brought out a topic of interest that seems to have been perverted. There is this "Taxing Unrealized Capital Gains" [1] movement that is being falsely attributed to Vice President Harris. Clearly, this is a change in the revenue code that was designed by someone in office long before VP Harris was in office. My money is on Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. What is this change in the revenue code though? For that you have to understand what Silicon Valley zillionaires are doing with their stock options. Many of these people in this special economic area have huge discounts on stock prices for companies that are not public yet, or are public and can not be sold [2]. To be fair to these holders of equity, banks allow them to finance debt using leverage against those options. If you hold an option that is worth $5M then a bank might lend you a share of that value, thus realizing a debt against the option [3]. This is a fair debt instrument and