> I would need to see a source on this; I can't imagine a scenario in which any middle-class person pays any tax on their home at all, unless they live in an extreme-outlier of a neighborhood or find gold in their backyard.

Could you elaborate on why they wouldn't pay tax on their home?

Because there's a tax shelter for that case - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Relief_Act_of_1997

Are you referring to this?

> The act permanently exempted from taxation the capital gains on the sale of a personal residence of up to $500,000 for married couples filing jointly and $250,000 for singles. This exemption applies to residences the taxpayer(s) lived in for at least two years over the last five. Taxpayers can only claim the exemption once every two years.

As I interpret the text, the middle-class homeowner will have to live in a home for two out of five years before they can claim an exemption. This matches the experience of my father, who sold his home after about four years and had to pay federal tax on the profit.

Is there something I'm missing or interpreting incorrectly?

You are misinterpreting that part; you can claim the exemption in a house you've lived in for two years. "Two years out of the last five" means you can live in the house for two years, then move out of it (presumably because you bought another house) and rent it for up to three years, and then sell it and still claim the exemption. Even after that, you can sell it and still not pay taxes on it if you use the proceeds to purchase a different investment property (this is the "1031 exchange" that's been mentioned several times).

I don't see how our interpretations differ. You showed that there are ways for middle-class homeowners to pay the tax. Sell the house after less than five years and don't use the proceeds to purchase another house. That scenario seems to happen often enough from what I see, and it appears that the IRS will be collecting money in those cases.

> Sell the house after less than five years

You need to live there two years, not five[0].

> You showed that there are ways for middle-class homeowners to pay the tax...

I said... "on their home". If you move out of it and rent it out, it's not your home anymore, it's an investment property, which is taxed differently, as it should be. Regular people (not real estate investors or landlords, people who just own one home at a time) almost never pay taxes on a home purchase[1].

0: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

1: https://www.letmegooglethat.com/?q=do+i+need+to+pay+taxes+on...

> You need to live there two years, not five[0].

Thank you. That wasn't clear to me. I interpreted it as you needed to have it for five years and live in it two out of those five. Makes me wonder why my father had to pay tax when he sold his house. But then this is just by memory, he doesn't have his 1040 anymore.

> Taxing the rich more is generally popular[0] and this would accomplish that; it would seem like that's support.

This is a circular argument. Taxing the rich is popular, but the argument is that it would hurt everyone else. Hurting everyone else is not popular.