robinhood.com would beg to differ. Anyone can invest in the stock market and get capital gains.
There's no magic threshhold of $500k.
In the US in 2021 (aka, right now) the magic threshold for capital gains is $445,850-$501,600 depending on filing status. So you're technically correct that $500k isn't a magic threshold, but it's certainly in the middle of it.
But more importantly, you're going down a technical rabbithole. The point of this comment chain is "what happens to people experiencing a one-time windfall capital gains of $500,000". The response was "what about RH investors". My point was they weren't making 500k, so it was irrelevant that they made income taxed as a capital gain. And I stand by that.
No, its not.
The transition point between the top (20%) and middle (15%; the bottom is zero) marginal rate of long-term capital gains rates are either exactly the top or bottom of that range for 3 of 4 tax filing statuses (you left off married filing separately, which is much lower than even the low end), but that’s not a “magic threshold” by any reasonable definition.
Its a threshold, but not one below which capital gains stops mattering, which was the significance falsesly ascribed to the “magic number".
If you had cited the bottom of the 15% bracket instead of the top as the magic number below which cap gains don’t matter, well, “magic” would still be overdramatic but you would at leaast have something of a point. But that’s close to an order of magnitude lower.
Sorry, but capital gains taxes start at $15,000.
Long-term capital gains less than $40,400 (or higher, depending on filing status) have a 0% rate.
Or much of a savings account or 401k, for that matter.
The option to stop working for more than a few weeks or months takes you squarely out of the working class.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is that the parent comment to ours is attempting to advocate for taxing just the billionaires and not to tax the moderately wealthy so much. I think that’s a flawed argument, because the moderately wealthy don’t need help, and are perhaps even more wealthy than they realize.