This unfairness spells disaster for investors on April 15. At the beginning of 2000, stock prices were still up. Fund managers, anticipating the market's decline, sold to protect the gains. Despite these early gains, by the end of 2000 the market's fall caused lower mutual-fund share prices. Millions of investors have losses of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars but are faced with taxes on tens or hundreds of thousands of phantom capital gains that were realized only on paper by fund managers.
Few incomes are large enough to support such a burden.
The taxes can only be paid by selling off assets. Just as Americans own less of their labor than feudal serfs, law is no longer their shield but a weapon in the hands of government. Employers no longer even have the freedom to hire, fire and promote. Employers must hire and promote by race, gender and disability. But they dare not fire.