[notheguyouthink]

> If I buy $10k of Intel, it grows to $15k and I sell it to buy $15k of Google, I owe tax on the $5k gain.

For someone who knows nothing about tax law, if I draw the $15k back from Google to USD, would I pay taxes on the full 15k?

This gains growth tax thing seems to make sense, if there is no taxes when converting it to USD. Eg, if I take 10k and make an additional 10k converting from BTC->ETH and pay taxes on that new 10k, that's reasonable to me if I only pay taxes once on those gains. If however, I withdraw the 20k ETH to USD, and pay taxes on the 20k, then effectively I've paid double taxes on the gained $10k.

Is there a way to handle that in tax law? Or are trades among stocks/etc supposed to be double taxed like that?

[ISL]

Capital gains taxes are paid only upon the gains, not the principal.

[notheguyouthink]

Well that makes me feel better, at least