TIL,
50 years ago, many lumber yards had drying sheds where lumber would air dry over a long period of time reducing warps and cracks. But the I.R.S. then started demanding Americans pay them a percentage of whatever inventory they had, every year. So the same wood drying slowly would be taxed by the IRS every year, resulting in lumber yards all over the US no longer air drying lumber.
really? where can i read about that?
cuz what you are describing is thte taxing of unrealized gains.
From some riffing with OpenAI’s o3, it sounds like this isn’t quite true: https://chatgpt.com/share/68315475-5500-8009-8184-abc1cf6e5be7
thanks for that. original claim definitely seemed off to me
it is honestly insane that any localoty would have inventory tax though. imagine running a business there.
“why are you stock piling a bunch of turds alongside all of this wonderful lumber?”
“oh that? because the turds have negative value so i keep them around to offset positive value of the lumber so that my inventory taxes are lower this year”
