[surgical_fire]

I am talking about the individual holding the shares.

Are you just being obtuse to deflect from the actual argument?

[eru]

Tax incidence is a non-trivial topic. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence

Basically, the people a tax is nominally levied upon don't necessarily bear the economic burden, and vice versa.

A silly example: do you think it makes a difference if your employer transfers your whole gross income into your account and you pay income taxes, or whether your employer pays the income tax first, and then transfers you the net amount?