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Tuesday morning the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments pursuant to a case in which Charles and Kathleen Moore argue that an obscure provision of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is unconstitutional. This is not an “inside baseball” case that only compulsive Court watchers will care about. If the justices rule against the Moores, it will supercharge the government’s confiscatory powers by enabling its inclination to tax unrealized income. This will affect everyone reading this column, not just investors with large stock portfolios. It would, in theory, permit the IRS to tax an increase in the value...

@unusual_whales Biden’s new budget includes a new minimum tax on wealthy individuals’ unrealized capital gains, a quadrupled tax on stock buybacks and higher Medicare taxes on people making over $400,000. Shibetoshi Nakamoto Replying to @unusual_whales taxing unrealized gains -> everyone sells everything -> economy collapses @ElonMusk True @PeterSchiff It's also unconstitutional, as unrealized gains do not meet the constitutional definition of income. Such a tax would be a direct tax on property and would therefore need to be apportioned by state according to its population. That won't happen.

Our current secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, is busy trying to find a way to tax wealth without calling it taxing wealth. She has eyes on taxing unrealized capital gains. What this means simply is taxing people for money they have not earned or received. That's it in a nutshell. That definition should leave even those who have never had a course in accounting or finance shaken. Not only is Janet Yellen considering this, but the Democrat party is on board as well. Democrats claim that it is needed in order to pay for their agenda. You know —...

Maybe I don’t understand how the supposed plan is supposed to work. There is no tax credit for unrealized capital losses, right? So you won’t want to hold volatile asset classes any more, right? Imagine the value going up, you pay some tax, and then the value falls and you move into loss territory. You still paid the tax! You get nothing back. By exactly how much do the prices of these assets have to fall, ex ante, so that holding them is a good idea in the first place? Or maybe the wealthy investors subject to this tax are...

Because Democrats are trying to incorporate the president’s American Families Plan into their $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, Americans should be happy that it’s having such a devil of a time getting through Congress. Biden’s “plan” is to raise taxes, and not just by upping tax rates, but also by changing how and when taxes are collected. The proposed changes to the capital gains tax is supposed to target only the super wealthy, but that’s also how the income tax was sold, and we know how that went. On April 28 the White House released a fact sheet that outlines the...

Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden wants to tax billionaires' unrealized wealth gains annually. Biden said he supports the proposal as a potential method to fund Democrats' social-spending bill. "I come from the corporate state of America," Biden said. "I just think it's about just paying your fair share, for Lord's sake." House Democrats have proposed a whole host of options to pay for their $3.5 trillion social-spending bill which includes measures like universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, and paid leave for workers. One of those options, proposed by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, is a change to the way the...

A recent study by Iowa State University showed that the administration’s American Families Plan if passed into law, would have a significant negative effect on Iowa’s family farms. In order to pay for new spending in the American Families Plan, the Biden administration has proposed, amongst other tax hikes, taxing accrued capital gains at death. AMAC Action and a number of small business organizations have been pushing back strongly on the proposal. This new Iowa State University study confirms that this issue should be front and center for small businesses and family farms. Kristine Tidgren, director of Iowa State’s Center...

VERSAILLES, Ky.—Five brick apartment buildings in this horse-country town make up Paul Settle’s retirement nest egg. He purchased the complex 27 years ago and has spent almost every day since tidying the grounds, repairing garbage disposals and collecting rent checks. Mr. Settle, 64 years old, pays himself about $75,000 a year. The idea was always to one day sell and retire off the proceeds. But now his plans are on hold. The Biden administration’s tax proposal would increase the capital-gains taxes Mr. Settle would pay on the sale of the apartments, which he expects to fetch over $2 million. Mr....

... President Joe Biden has proposed tax changes in order to pay for the American Families Plan, which provides government benefits and tax breaks for middle- and lower-income people. Small-business owners are most concerned about increased taxes on capital gains — profits on the sale of assets — and on inherited wealth. Mr. Biden’s plan calls for nearly doubling the top tax rate on capital gains and eliminating a significant tax benefit on appreciated assets known as the “step-up in basis.” The combined tax rate increase could add up to 61% on inherited wealth. For example, if someone dies after...

President Joe Biden’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year assumes that a hike in the capital-gains tax rate took effect in late April, meaning that it already would be too late for high-income investors to realize gains at lower tax rates, according to a Wall Street Journal report out Thursday citing people familiar with the proposal. Biden plans to increase the top tax rate on capital gains to 43.4% from 23.8% for households with income over $1 million, though Congress must OK any hikes and retroactive effective dates, the report added. Some analysts predicted any rise in capital-gains taxes...

President Biden is expected to announce a proposal to nearly double the capital gains tax rate in order to help fund a forthcoming spending package, according to multiple reports.The proposal would set the capital gains tax rate for individuals earning over $1 million at 39.6 percent, two people familiar with the plan told Bloomberg. When combined with an existing federal surtax on investment income, investors could pay federal taxes at a rate of as high as 43.4 percent.In states with high taxes, rates for wealthy individuals could be even higher. New Yorkers making over $1 million would see combined federal...

Stocks erased earlier gains to trade sharply lower after Bloomberg report Thursday afternoon that President Joe Biden would propose increasing the corporate tax rate on wealthy individuals. The Dow dropped 250 points, or 0.7%, following the report, after trading just slightly lower earlier. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq erased gains to trade at session lows. Biden's plan would involve increasing the capital gains tax rate on the wealthy to 39.6%, according to the report from Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter. This would apply to those earning at least $1 million. The current base capital gains tax rate is...

Stocks fell sharply Thursday afternoon after a Bloomberg report that President Joe Biden is hoping to hike the capital gains rate to as much as 43.4%, sounding an alarm for investors concerned over the potential toll on trading profits. As of 2:10 p.m. Eastern, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 368 points, or 1.1%, to 33,770, erasing a 0.9% rally Wednesday and pushing the index deeper into negative territory for the week. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq also fell about 1.1% apiece, putting each of the major indexes on track for a third day of losses this...

Several Senate Democrats are pushing to boost federal revenue by taxing certain capital gains that are passed down after death. Traditionally, unrealized capital gains have not been taxed, allowing wealthy individuals to transfer stocks, bonds and real estate investments to their children and grandchildren without the recipients being taxed. Under current law, heirs don’t have to pay tax on the capital gains that were accrued by an asset or investment before they received it. They only have to pay capital gains taxes on an inherited asset after they sell it, and they only have to do so for the amount...

Newly-inaugurated President Biden is likely to take office and push for a flurry of new legislation. Yet while all eyes will be on Biden’s proposals for COVID-19 relief, healthcare policy, and undoing the 2017 tax reform law, two other dangerous ideas are flying under the radar. The first of these is a proposal to implement a so-called “mark-to-market” regime for taxing unrealized capital gains. Currently, taxpayers pay tax only on “realized” capital gains — in other words, when the asset is sold and you bank a profit. Though its on-paper value might fluctuate during ownership, only when an asset like...

in a rollover ira, i purchase some spy in june 2020 and occasionally a bit more, a bit later. i have had rollover ira for a long time, not done anything with it other than watch it gradually grow over time, until now. i am retirement age (over 60yo). it used to be the fidelity version of spy for many years. i want to sell $210k of spy now (dec 2020). spy went up 17.67% in about 5 months. i have a long term cg rate of 15%, short term cg rate of 37%. will i only get zinged at...

As the U.S. struggles to emerge from the Covid-19-induced recession, Joe Biden is running for president on a pledge to return the country to economic policies responsible for the slowest economic recovery since World War II. Biden’s plans include “reversing some of Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and imposing common-sense tax reforms that finally make sure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share.” This means a big increase in effective tax rates on capital and on individuals with incomes above $400,000, as well as partially reversing the corporate tax cut that was a centerpiece of the 2017 Tax Cuts and...

Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax—an annual levy on the total value of one’s assets, not income—has drawn a lot of attention. The senator’s claim that her proposal would cost “ultramillionaires” only an annual 2% and billionaires an annual 6% wildly understates the truth. Wealthy people don’t maintain bank accounts with millions or billions of dollars of liquid cash; they invest their assets. Those hit with the wealth tax would have to sell assets each year to pay it, subjecting them to income tax as well. The actual cost would often be several times greater than 2% or 6%. Ms. Warren...

<p>The Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month released its July jobs numbers confirming that we remain in the midst of the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. The expansion is clearly paying off for Americans of all walks of life.</p> <p>Just look at the mounting evidence.</p>

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said he’d like to raise the capital gains tax rate to 39.6 percent, a near doubling of the current 20 percent. Biden made the remarks on Wednesday, August 21 during an interview with Iowa Public Television: “I believe we should, in fact, the capital gains tax should be at what the highest minimum tax should be, we should raise the tax back to 39.6 percent instead of 20 percent,” Biden said yesterday.Raising the capital gains tax would harm Americans’ ability to build a nest egg and hurt the value of their homes, farms, and businesses.Biden’s comments and his...