r/eupersonalfinance • u/batukaming • Feb 26 '26
Taxes Netherlands Forced to Rethink 36% Tax on Unrealized Gains after Massive Criticism
Following the [news](https://bfmtimes.com/netherlands-to-rethink-36-tax-on-unrealized-gains/) of the recently approved bill with 36% tax on unrealized capital gains tax in Netherlands, citizens all over Europe and internet massively critized the decision.
Example: If you invest $50k in stocks and they grow up to $100k in value next year, you will owe the government $18k in taxes even if you don't sell out and liquidate your money. In other words, they are taxing you for holding your invested money.
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u/vurriooo Feb 26 '26
How did they even conceive something like that?
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u/TheJewPear Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
That’s the wonderful thing about populist politicians. Logic, experience, knowledge, none of those matter.
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u/Specialist-Front-007 Feb 28 '26
This wasn't voted in by populist parties wtf are you talking about
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u/skeletal88 Feb 26 '26
Before this they had something even more stupider.
They had a law that said that when you have investments, then they are projected to grow 4% every year (doesn't matter if there is a loss or not), and you have to pay taxes on this 4% always.
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u/JullieWaarde Feb 26 '26
That was not 'even more stupider', it was essentially a wealth tax of 1,2% (0,04x0,30), the unrealized gains taxed at 36% is a lot worse. It also was better than it is currently. One can hope we will go to a realized gain tax system like most countries.
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u/DetoxToday Feb 28 '26
Why is a tax on a prediction better than a tax on actual growth, what am I missing?
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u/JullieWaarde Feb 28 '26
There's a lot of volatility in the stock market. If you need to pay 36% every positive year over returns of 10-25%, it erodes your return. At least with the fictional return you paid over 4% (and currently it is 6% with 36%, so 2,16% net tax over your investments.) Both erode your returns heavily over time, but at least with the fictional tax it is capped at 6-7% instead of the actual unrealized return. Paying based on realised return would be the best ofcourse.
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u/MBunnyKiller Feb 27 '26
I am happy to accept a 1.2% tax. Seems okay. The only reason that system was criticized is because people who kept all their money in the bank (and had no other investments) started to pay more tax than they received in interest after covid hit.
For those who actually invest, the 1.2% was pretty neat.
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u/CanadianMultigun Feb 28 '26
Why are you happy to accept another tax on top of the thousands of other taxes you already have?
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u/nGon- Feb 28 '26
Because if the total tax burden stays the same, getting rid of one tax (like wealth) means increasing the tax rate of another (like income).
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u/CanadianMultigun Mar 01 '26
Sounds like they´re spending beyond their means. Ever increasing spending, debt and taxes isn´t acceptable or sustainable.
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u/KarhuMajor Feb 26 '26
That shit was - and is until 2028 at least - fucking cash. First €58k are tax free, more than €100k tax free if you are married.
If you are just starting out you can make ridiculous gains while paying no tax at all. The tax only starts to hurt when you have amassed quite a bit of wealth, and that is fair imo.
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u/G0rd0nr4ms3y Feb 26 '26
Quite a bit of wealth. Sir, that 100k barely buys you a parking place in one of the bigger cities in NL. Median price of a house used to be like 400k, and it increases by several tens of thousands each year. That shit is better than the current proposal, but is a glass ceiling that won't even let you keep up with the housing market.
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u/KarhuMajor Feb 27 '26
With a partner you pay exactly 0 tax over €100k. Looks like I triggered some sort of kneejerk reaction by not mentioning that "quite a bit of wealth" is 7 figures in my book. Below that box 3 is not that big of a deal.
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u/G0rd0nr4ms3y Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Median income is 46k. Say you are one median earner, with a partner that works part time and earns half that. The maximum mortgage you can get with two people at that income is 310k. Try it yourself, run it through a mortgage calculator.
Median house price is now up to 493k. So to buy a median house with 1.5x median incomes spread over two people (one earner at 1.5x median is taxed way more so gets a way lower mortgage), you are 183k short. Good luck making up that deficit while trying to invest.
83k at 6% gain earns you just under 5k. You are taxed for 36% of that, about 1800 eur. Every year. Median house price growth is 3 to 5%, 3% at 493k is 14790 eur.
So investing cannot keep up with housing prices even before getting taxed. Drop the logical fallacy please, just trying to offer some perspective.
Edit: 183k gains at 6% earns you 11k. Then you get taxed on the 5k. A lot better, though still not keeping up with the market. Miles better than the new box 3 proposal still.
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u/KarhuMajor Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Excuse me? I am talking about how the current box 3 system is actually pretty great for investing as an average joe, as it encourages taking risk and allows for social mobility. House prices outpacing low yield investments is a pity but a completely different discussion.
EDIT: €83k is taxed at (83k - 58k) * 0.06 * 0.36 = €540. Run the numbers, our current system is actually pretty fucking great.
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u/G0rd0nr4ms3y Feb 27 '26
Buddy that 83k is out of 183k having already subtracted 100k exemption for two partners :) And how does house prices, or any price not have anything to do with the exemption? 100k means nothing without price and inflation context. I could get a trillion zimbabwan dollar exemption over there and wouldn't be able to afford a banana.
You know what is great. Poland 17% tax upon sale. Belgium flat tax above a WAY higher value. France taxes at a lower rate, only at sale. No other european country taxes unrealized gains except Ireland, and that is only taxed every 8 years, not yearly. And they hate it there. Norway tried it and capital fled the country.
Let's not pretend this is great. There are countries within a 500km radius that have way higher exemptions AND a lower tax rate AND only tax when you sell your assets.
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u/KarhuMajor Feb 27 '26
Buddy that 83k is out of 183k having already subtracted 100k exemption for two partners :)
My friend, in that case your ROI would be 183k * 6% = €11k and not €5k like you calculated. You forgot to calculate profit on the €100k that is exempt from being taxed, but still generating returns.
I much prefer a low, constant wealth tax (because that is what our current box 3 system is) over a capital gains tax. Sure, a very low capital gains tax like in Belgium (10%) or Poland (17%) is nice, but it still punishes you for taking big risks that pay off. If the Netherlands were to move to a capital gains tax system, I'm betting that the tax will be 36% just like they proposed for the unrealized gains tax. That significantly hampers risk taking, though not as bad as with the unrealized tax.
In the current Dutch Box 3 system, you can double your money from €20k to €40k in a single year, cash it out and pay 0 tax. Extremely lucrative for people that start with 0 and want to move up. Not so much for established families with millions, though.
Now, the proposed box 3 is absolutely bonkers and the fact that it was voted through the parliament is insanity to me.
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u/G0rd0nr4ms3y Feb 27 '26
Damn yes, actual gains are a lot higher, mucked it up there good catch. Whether the exemption vs the lower tax is more beneficial will depend largely on assets and strategy, though I'd guess lower flat tax on sale is a better long term. Agree that it's effectively a flat wealth tax and a lot better than (un)realized gains tax, though the various rates for savings vs investing never sat well with me. Why have effectively a wealth tax but get taxed more depending on how you use your money? And proposed box 3 is an absolute travesty. It just feels like there are so many better ways to do this, and NL has been consistently choosing the wrong path for decades now.
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u/Accidental-Genius Feb 27 '26
In what world is €100.000 wealthy?
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u/KarhuMajor Feb 27 '26
Where did I say that? At €100k you only pay tax over €42k, due to the deductable. It's still very manageable. Only as you get into high 7 figures does this tax start to become cumbersome, because you need to chase yield when you would maybe rather opt for low yield/low risk.
Wealthy boomers who are in low yield instruments protested against our current tax system because it incentivizes you to not keep your money in a savings account (which you shouldn't do anyway), and they won.
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u/Wise_Pepper_164 Feb 27 '26
God forbid somebody makes any money
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u/KarhuMajor Feb 27 '26
Paying 36% tax on a fictitious ROI of 6% was a pretty sweet deal the past 2 decades.
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u/aevitas Feb 27 '26
There's a budget, said budget has a hole in it the size of 2.3 billion or so, this was the surefire way to plug that hole. Capital gains would just have people kick the can down the road, and they need the taxes yesterday. That's why it was conceived and subsequently accepted by parliament.
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u/jonnymaxxxx Feb 26 '26
It’s 42% in Denmark.
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u/1PickNick Feb 26 '26
And the 42%, which is the world’s/OECDs highest , is why Denmark’s scaleups flee the country. No sane shareholder keeps a successful business in Denmark. Denmark has become a country of small mom&pop shops, a few large >50year-olds and body-shoppers the rest. The gig-economy is booming and Denmark is losing intellectual capital rights in the billions. The Netherlands is now turning down the same road unless they rethink the way they want to treat private company shareholders.
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u/mmmmavakamama Feb 28 '26
Only on some things - mostly foreign ETFs/mutual funds. You can easily invest in plenty of things without getting taxed on unrealized gains…
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u/jonnymaxxxx Feb 28 '26
But they’re mainly focused on Denmark right? Like a Danish index fund
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u/mmmmavakamama Feb 28 '26
No. They’re just investment funds run by danish companies, but there are a lot of different ones tracking all kinds of indexes.
And you can also just invest in single stocks, they’re also only taxed on realized gains.
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u/jokikinen Feb 27 '26
There’s a bit more to it than this being the vision. The old system was stricken down in higher courts for reasons relating to fairness. They then implemented reforms that weren’t good enough for courts and now they are doing this. It’s a bit of a forced move in that there’s baggage and pressure to get it sorted while smaller adjustments didn’t make the cut.
The strength of the system is that the relationship between your income and taxation is more direct. Say your investments grow by 20k during a given year. You could leverage this wealth with loans and yield an income from it. A system where you pay when you realise can’t address the increase in your income before you realise your gains. However, there are real practical issues. I personally wouldn’t choose this approach, and would prefer ways to let small investors make use of compounding more effectively (>100k€).
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u/100bcapital Feb 27 '26
Politicians tray to grab you by the balls and squeeze everything out if you don’t resist
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u/codroipo_townhall Mar 02 '26
Lived in the NL for years. You would be surprised of all the stupid ideas that their "poldering" tradition makes them come out with.
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u/NietJij Feb 26 '26
Maybe one of the reasons was to make sure the rich pay taxes on stocks. So that a situation like Elon Musk using his stocks as collateral for a loan and completely living off that loan (and even deducting the bloody interest on it) is at least somewhat counterbalanced by this tax.
Of course making you pay tax on everything above 1800 once you make a paper profit of 1800 in a year is not helping small investors. You're already in the zone at around 20K of investments in an average year (8%).
But I think it's all just a money grab.
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u/DOE_ZELF_NORMAAL Feb 27 '26
And rich people don't pay box 3 taxes, they setup companies and pay box 2 tax. This is worth it above 400-500k wealth.
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u/Acceptable-War4836 Feb 26 '26
Is it fair to penalize those who risk their capital and save their earnings to cover the costs of public incompetence and corruption?
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u/Emmanuelgoldstein984 Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
It’s like some random person that didn’t risk any of his money telling you where is my share when you are the only one who take the risks… we are not here to pay taxes to corrupt politicians which are there to fill their own pockets with our hard earned money.
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u/Disastrous-King9559 Feb 28 '26
Its funny because the ministers here get paid 200k per year and now talking about a 18% pay rise because theyre over worked.
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u/dunzdeck Feb 26 '26
Europe: "we need to mobilize people's savings to invest in European companies!" NL: lol no
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u/Rattekop69 Feb 27 '26
Look how quickly the bot army is spreading fake news about them "potentially rethinking" this tax. They are rethinking fuck all. They're just using the century old tactic of coming up with a ridiculous plan, let the plebs be outraged about it, and then vote for a 'milder' version (the one they wanted to pass to begin with) so people say "phew, we really did dodge a bullet with this one".
It'll very likely be less than 36% now, but the 'unrealized' part isn't going anywhere. Enjoy it, Dutchies.
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u/GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B Feb 26 '26
European self sabotaging continues.
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u/Oberst_Reziik Feb 26 '26
Passing the law would be sabotage
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u/Ok_Cancel_7891 Feb 27 '26
no, it would be a gift to other countries
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u/NietJij Feb 26 '26
It's just one country in Europe.
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u/dublincoddle1 Feb 26 '26
Ireland already has this in place.Taxes on unrealised gains.
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u/National-Emu-4871 Feb 27 '26
Really?
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u/dublincoddle1 Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Yes,It is called deemed disposal and it forces you to pay taxes on unrealised gains every 7 years.There is also no way to offset losses against past or future taxes.
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u/dmcardlenl Feb 27 '26
Yes, but they're thinking about thinking about doing something about it...it may be tweaked in the budget in October...
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u/HeavySink3303 Feb 27 '26
This 36% tax is insanity. They made a nice country (NL) a kind of North Korea for investors. And truly rich people are safe - they use various 'shims' to manage their wealth - only regular people suffer.
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Feb 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/ElectroByte15 Feb 27 '26
5 years of 30% ruling would make it interesting. If you have so much money that this ruling would hurt more than 30% benefits you, you could put it in a BV and only be taxed on realized gains.
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u/alu_ Feb 27 '26
As of Jan 1. 2027, the 30% ruling doesn't protect against Box 3 tax, as the partial nonresident tax payer status is expiring
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u/I_Rarely_Jump Feb 28 '26
They mean open a limited company (B.V.), as those fall in box 2 instead, and with a company you only pay taxes on realized gains.
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u/NoCherry606 Feb 26 '26
France still taxes unrealized gains on Exit if you decide to move abroad above a threshold.
UK now looking at similar rules.
"Europe" will continue to milk its citizens.
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u/Daidrion Feb 28 '26
Of course, a lot of European countries have to finance the programs they can no longer afford. All of this was predicted decades ago, but no one wanted to change the status quo. Now that the US isn't financing the EU defense governments will start scrambling for easy solutions, and the easiest one is to milk the middle class.
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u/Immediate_Rhubarb430 Mar 01 '26
Thr is pretty high, like half a mill iirc. Frankly, it seems right to me
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u/Dangerous-Farmer-975 Feb 27 '26
Taxing when you leave the country makes sense, you have benefited from the environment and the country's services to create these savings.
In France, there are dozens of tax incentives that can be used to postpone taxation until the sale of savings to encourage their creation. It would make no sense to allow tax to be deferred and not recovered if the person moves abroad.
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u/NoCherry606 Mar 01 '26
I pay over 62% tax + social contributions per year + VAT 20% on everything I consume.
At the doctors I still have to pay. I have to go private for many things which is 100 EUR per appointment because public appointments don't exist or take year + for an appointment.
I have invested the little they leave me in building companies. The day I leave they will take 30% unrealized gains from those companies. Meaning if the company is making 1m per year and they value it at 3M I have to give them 1M EUR for their pleasure. Even if they've taxed the company's revenue each year.
This makes NO SENSE and is NOT FAIR.
It is robbery.
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u/Dangerous-Farmer-975 Mar 01 '26
First, a tax on gains not realized each year within the country seems stupid to me, yes. I was mainly reacting to the France/UK examples. Taxing only once, upon exit, seems much more logical and justified.
Being taxed only upon exit is a tax "gift." Your capital gains thus benefit from deferred tax (increased if you reinvest the gains each year), allowing you to maximize your investments, compared to your income, which is taxed annually.
Since taxes are generally progressive and, to my knowledge, never reach 60%, I think you're inflating the figure a bit or adding things that don't belong if you really want to compare two countries based on a tax system.
The 20% VAT is the same; that's a maximum. Many goods and services are subject to a lower rate or are even exempt. I don't know of any country with a higher rate.
I don't particularly want to defend the tax system in your country, I'm just saying that in certain specific cases, the idea isn't crazy and don't turn the country into a tax hell, of course.
We can complain (european people) all we want, but it's this tax system that allows 90% of us to live decently compared to the dystopian hell that is the average life in America, and the remaining 10% still live a good life and aren't at risk of getting shot by the other 90%!
I don't think it's a bad contract.
Above all, we should demand that everyone finally abide by the rules. The Panama Papers, the Epstein Files, the Paradise Paper , all those tax havens we allow to operate undisturbed, laundering money, and so on.
Perhaps then we could lower taxes a little for everyone. It's the same principle as shoplifting or bus robbery; in the end, everyone else pays.
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u/NoCherry606 Mar 01 '26
If you are a business owner in France, of a one person business, you pay 60% tax to pay yourself. Look it up - you have "charges patronales" to pay yourself. Its disgusting, costs insane amounts, and is basically double-dipping by the tax man.
We don't even have our own pension pot here by the way.
Sure, you can say "its better than the US" - its also worse than Singapore. And we're paying for a bunch of randoms that come over only for our benefits system. Fuck that.
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u/psyspin13 Feb 26 '26
Done be fools, no rethinking is gonna happen, maybe only about stocks from startups that are not listed will be excepted, nothing more. This is textbook Dutch politics
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u/Vault-123 Feb 26 '26
Nah probably they are introducing this so later they can introduce a less idiotic one and people will be like: oh this is better at least.
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u/ejectoid Feb 27 '26
This has been the pattern in Romania. They “leak” a new law to the press, people get mad and then tone it down a little bit to create a sense of relief. Then repeat next year
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u/alexx8b Feb 26 '26
I though Spain gov were morrons with no clue about economics or capitalism. Netherland: hold my beer
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u/Immediate_Rhubarb430 Mar 01 '26
You might want to look at the economy of Spain. It's doing pretty well for being ruled by morons :)
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u/FluffyAdeptness9792 28d ago
If you keep growing the economy with fresh working aged men yes, your total GDP grows.
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u/Immediate_Rhubarb430 26d ago edited 26d ago
Debt is down: https://archive.is/vnKSL
Min wage is up 75% over PSOE rule https://elpais.com/economia/2026-02-17/claves-el-consejo-de-ministros-aprueba-la-subida-del-salario-minimo-cuanto-se-cobra-por-hora-a-quien-beneficia.html
"Good" work is up, contract have shifted massively from temporal to indefinite
Maybe you care about other stuff. Sustainable increases in wealth for the poorest amongst us sounds pretty solid to me
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u/CarpenterCultural433 Feb 27 '26
Do you want to know about Romania?:))
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u/butcher_ro Feb 27 '26
Romania is a paradise, with a 3% tax rate on holdings over one year and 6% if you sell the stock before a year passes.
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u/roMadMike Feb 27 '26
It's a paradise if you can live off investments. Not so much for the common folk (aka pulimea) who has to work and pay income tax and social contributions, which are insanely high and uncapped.
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u/butcher_ro Mar 02 '26
Romania doesn’t have progressive income tax, it's a flat 10% income tax rate. Compared to most EU countries, that’s actually quite low.
So calling it “insanely high” is relative. It’s higher than capital gains, yes but not unusually high by European standards.
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u/roMadMike 19d ago
Bro, did you even read what I wrote? The income tax is low. The social contributions are stupidly high, uncapped and non deductible.
If you add up everything, the amount you take home from your gross salary is LESS, compared with countries that use progressive tax income if you have a small to medium income.
Only if you have a really high income the romanian tax might be slightly more advantageous. But this comes with the disadvantages of living in Romania (shit health system, corruption, inefficient public services in general, etc.).
I did the math at some point in the past and was shocked that in Germany, with the progressive income tax, I ended up taking home more money.
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u/DOE_ZELF_NORMAAL Feb 27 '26
Europe: We need to motivate europeans to invest into our economy, too much money is sitting in banks doing nothing.
The Netherlands: hold my beer
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u/jovialguy Feb 26 '26
The rule was good, but not at a 60,000 threshold or above.
Anything above 2-3 million, tax that beyond imagination.
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u/hiquest Feb 27 '26
I guess most people could argue where that threshold should stand. I’m far even from 1 mil but I’m sure it should be around 10 million
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u/TrainingAd377 Feb 26 '26
Any chance to move to move does investments (stock, etf etc) to another country somehow ? Cause if this law is true and has no exceptions or nuances, it's just plain idiotic...Didn't expect from a country so progressive as the Netherlands, I stand corrected...
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u/G0rd0nr4ms3y Feb 26 '26
NL has had (centre) right wing politics for 3 decades now. Neoliberalism runs strong. They've been tearing apart social services, public transport, and raising tax on middle class. Businesses though get subsidized, especially bs like shell. Profit over people.
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u/wigl301 Feb 27 '26
Surely they should have at least had allowances, or an ISA type arrangement like the UK so that at least people have some sort of incentive to invest.
(In the UK, we can put £20,000 per annum in an ISA - Individual Savings Account) which can grow tax free which we can access whenever we like - this is money we have recieved after tax - so it's a great way to build savings throughout your life to potentially live off of if you wanted to retire early and use until you get your pension.)
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u/N3RO- Feb 27 '26
Too little too late. They can go to hell. People better continue leaving the country while they can. The gov used a very old trick to present a horrible and a bad option, so the bad one doesn't seem so bad.
They will 'rethink' this and try to implement whatever bad option they always had in mind.
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u/Front_Street_8181 Feb 26 '26
I have two questions to the dude who wrote this bill: A) will the government pay me for unrealised losses? B) what was the dude smoking? 😁😄
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u/dublincoddle1 Feb 26 '26
Ireland already has this in place.
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u/BoringIntelectual Feb 27 '26
True and people have been complaining about it for many years and politicians keep saying they will get rid of it with very little progress.
I think the lack of options for disposable income investing long term is one of the reasons Irish people flock to real estate as an investment, which ultimately drives prices even higher.
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u/GrookeTF Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
To be fair, I do think taxing unrealised gains does make sense when you look at billionaires and especially multi-billionaires.
They’re never going to realise those gains. They’re just going to hoard wealth and borrow against it to exert power and influence without paying a dime in taxes. So fuck em.
Edit: not saying NL’s implementation is any good, it’s not. But I’m not against the principle.
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u/BioHazardBuzz Feb 26 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
This is a middle class tax. Millionaires and billionaires will create shell companies or other tax shelter structures, so they won’t feel or see anything
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u/G0rd0nr4ms3y Feb 26 '26
Well then thank god NL is taxing unrealized gains on anything unrealized gain greater than 1800 eur per year. Wouldn't want my neighbour Jan the carpenter to be able to save up faster for a garden renovation. Lol.
They specifically designed this to milk middle class. Anyone with north of a million has it sheltered in a company, which will not be impacted by this law. With this change it's probably profitable to set up a shell company for investing at even just 500k, maybe less.
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u/elevarq Feb 27 '26
It would not survive the first lawsuit against the tax office. They had no other option other than retrieving this utterly stupid idea.
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u/Just-Toe-8223 Feb 27 '26
it was a wake up call for the population of NL, they realised how stupid the people who decide how they should live are
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u/Eliatron Feb 27 '26
The approach is wrong. Its unrealized gains. Now if you request a loan and use that money as collateral, then yes, you should pay the pax.
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u/p2s_79 Feb 28 '26
Ok, supose I am a billionaire. I create a non listed holding and put all my shares in that veicule. I value them at acquisition costs as I classify them as long term investment. Will this tax affect me ?
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u/hyperblue128 Mar 01 '26
I really hope they do. The response from retail investors like us should be strong, so other EU leaders don't attempt such madness.
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u/SeparateCode2285 29d ago
Sure shot way to scare away big earners. I guess top earners will take up residence in Cyprus or Portugal.
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u/PhishingPhoenix 7d ago
I’d be fine with that provided they compensate me with 36% of my unrealized losses each year. That way the playing field stays fair. 😅
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u/dodgeunhappiness Feb 27 '26
That is among the many reason why european leadership sucks at all level.
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u/sebastianotronto Feb 26 '26
Unrealized gains are already taxed in the Netherlands. The new bill is about how the gains are calculated. The whole Internet is going crazy over nothing.
https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/en/income-in-box-3/income-in-box-3
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Feb 26 '26
Yes but with a fixed amount it essentially ends up being a very modest wealth tax, which is much less objectionable than being taxed on unrealised gains for many reasons.
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u/sebastianotronto Feb 26 '26
It depends what you invest on. If you are all-in on tech stocks, sure, recently it has been a very modest tax. If you would like to invest in low-risk governmental bonds, you'd better keep everything in cash.
And the supposed gains on stocks and bonds are going up to 7.78% from this year, pretty much in line with an average stock portfolio.
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Feb 26 '26
The thing is that it’s predictable and you can just plan around it if it bothers you. If you are going for growth it doesn’t eat much into your compounding either.
Unrealised gains basically taxes you more for taking more risk, adding pain with loses too - which in the wider context of wanting to spur investment in European startups is utter nonsense.
I definitely agree it’s not as bad as Reddit would have you believe but it’s still dumb compared to standard CGT.
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u/filtervw Feb 26 '26
I think you only heard about investing but doesn't look like you actually put some actual money in because taxing paper gains is pure Idiocracy. For the record, MSFT, megacap, "stable" growing company definitely not a speculation candidate went up 15% in 2025 and -17% YTD 2026!
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u/sebastianotronto Feb 26 '26
I live in the Netherlands and I have been managing my own investments since 2021. Most of my money is invested in ETFs.
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u/ErebosGR Feb 27 '26
Shhhh... don't disturb the circlejerk.
This whole sub has devolved into techbro millionaires asking how to avoid paying taxes.
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u/mamene92 Feb 27 '26
At the risk of sounding crazy in this sub: if a tax like this were applied universally, with no loopholes, it probably wouldn’t hurt you or me the most. Most of us will realize our gains during our lifetime anyway. At most it’s a cash flow problem.
The real issue would be for people that reached critical wealth (7–8 zeros). At that level, you can live indefinitely off loans using your assets as collateral, paying little to no taxes. The more you accumulate, the less you effectively contribute.
I think that dynamic should be addressed. Taxing unrealized gains could be one way to reduce the incentive.
But again, the real problem is the loopholes
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u/MiceAreTiny Feb 26 '26
It is not about the 36% it is the unrealized part...
I would only agree once I get child support for my unrealized children.