I agree with you that it is unfair that people with variable income pay more taxes than people with steady income even if average income is the same. I’m a poster child for people disadvantaged in this way.
That said, I do recognize that mitigating this is really hard without introducing even more complexity to the tax code, which has its own cost.
Wages have no risk when you receive them. It is cash on the barrel. The only risk is counter-party such as your employer going bankrupt before you receive your paycheck. Not zero but statistically very low. Any inflation that happens after receiving wages is on the individual to the extent no one requires them to eat that inflation. (This is an issue during hyperinflation but the is very far from that.)
It was to point out, that giving asset sales an insurance break, or risk break, would only makes sense if we gave working people gapped-income and risk breaks.
Which is to say, that neither makes sense.
The way I would put it is, money inflates if you simply hold it, but it has time value almost always greater than inflation. If you don't at least do that, you are choosing to waste value.
So giving a tax break for inflation would be giving people a break on losses, that capitalism already accounts for. Such as naturally higher interest rates when inflation is higher.
(Yes return on asset balancing mechanisms are not perfect in time, but as noted, neither is employment.)
That said, I do recognize that mitigating this is really hard without introducing even more complexity to the tax code, which has its own cost.
Wages have no risk when you receive them. It is cash on the barrel. The only risk is counter-party such as your employer going bankrupt before you receive your paycheck. Not zero but statistically very low. Any inflation that happens after receiving wages is on the individual to the extent no one requires them to eat that inflation. (This is an issue during hyperinflation but the is very far from that.)