alt Hacker NewsOr better than that, loans backed by assets above some "jumbo" threshold ($10M?) triggers a capital gain on those assets in the collateral.
So if you get a $150M loan off of your amazon shares that on paper are worth $150M, but you paid $100M, you have a cap-gain of $40M, and at 20% tax, $8M fills the IRS's coffers.
This is something I've been in favor of for some time.
Obviously the tax basis in the assets would also be stepped up by this action.
The US should also get rid of the step up in basis at death. The recipient of an illiquid asset such as a family business should have a period of time (perhaps five or ten years from the triggering death depending on the type of asset) to "pay up" the tax basis "to market" at the time of death. Gains in liquid assets (such as publicly traded stock) should be taxed at the market value at the time of death by the estate or trust and passed on to beneficiaries with that adjusted tax basis.