Some of this is just the reporting. If I buy a thing for $92k and sell it for $100k, but the IRS only sees “You got $100k from a sale”, they’re going to assume they should tax the full $100k rather than the difference between the buy and sell price. If I’m in the 32% tax bracket, that means 32% of the $100k sale rather than the $8k profit.
But I agree, there are definitely better methods of state-administered tax accounting that wouldn’t eat up hours of my life every April.
Some of this is just the reporting. If I buy a thing for $92k and sell it for $100k, but the IRS only sees “You got $100k from a sale”, they’re going to assume they should tax the full $100k rather than the difference between the buy and sell price. If I’m in the 32% tax bracket, that means 32% of the $100k sale rather than the $8k profit.
But I agree, there are definitely better methods of state-administered tax accounting that wouldn’t eat up hours of my life every April.