Chapter 96 - 95: A heavy punch in his guts!
The moment of realization felt like a heavy punch in his guts! He thought he had $10,199,878 sitting pretty in his account, only to be hit with the harsh truth that Uncle Sam was waiting, with outstretched hands, like a greedy ghost, ready to take his cut.
With shaking fingers, he hurriedly opened the IRS website, hope hanging by a thread. Maybe there was some obscure exemption he didn’t know about. Maybe he could find a loophole tucked between tax code lines.
And that’s when he saw it.
Short-term capital gains tax: 37%.
His breath caught in his throat. His chest tightened like a vice. Cold sweat broke out on his back as the numbers began to swirl. His pulse thundered in his ears like war drums as he reached for the calculator.
Thirty-seven percent of $9.2 million.
His fingers hesitated. Then he punched in the numbers. The number slammed into his mind with the force of a freight train:
$3,404,000. Gone.
He blinked, once, twice, as if trying to make the number vanish. But it didn’t budge. It just sat there, bold and unforgiving. The numbers weren’t just digits anymore—they had claws, and they were sinking deep into his insides, tearing through the fantasies he had built.
He exhaled sharply, staring at the glowing screen in front of him, unblinking.
This couldn’t be real. It shouldn’t be real.