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I'm surprised that there has been no (or little) comment about Biden's suggestion to eliminate the "stepped-up basis" on capital gains at the death of the investor. What gives?

The Democratic competition to bleed the rich has become fierce. If progressives aren’t satisfied with Elizabeth Warren’s proposed “wealth tax” of 3% a year, AOC’s 70% income tax, Bernie Sanders’s 77% estate tax, or Rep. John Larson’s uncapped payroll-tax increase of 2.4 percentage points, they now have a fifth option. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden wants to tax capital gains as regular income, meaning rates up to 37%. He would also tax unrealized gains, perhaps decades before the investor sells. Mr. Wyden hasn’t released a formal plan, so the details are sketchy. Under current law, long-term capital gains are taxed at...

Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Tuesday that he will put forth a proposal to ensure that wealthy individuals are paying their "fair share" of taxes, amid a debate among Democrats about how best to tax the rich. Wyden announced that he will put forward a white paper that calls for taxing the capital gains of wealthy individuals' investments annually, as opposed to when the investments are sold under current law. Such an approach is known as "mark-to-market." Wyden would also tax the capital gains at the same rates as other income, while capital gains are currently...

WASHINGTON—The top Democrat on the Senate’s tax-writing committee wants to tax long-term investments like other types of income, raising rates and requiring the wealthiest people to pay taxes on their unrealized gains each year. The plan from Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon is the latest proposal from Democrats in Congress and on the presidential-campaign trail to boost taxes on the wealthy in a bid to address what they view as the problems of economic inequality and provide a funding stream to pay for new programs. While the specific proposal has little chance to become law anytime soon, such ideas could...

A few months before he became President Trump's top economic advisor, Larry Kudlow wrote a column urging Trump to index capital gains taxes to inflation. Thankfully, the Trump administration appears to be listening. Not only would indexing fix a glaring problem in the tax code, it would add still more juice to the economy. In a column published by IBD last August, Kudlow called the lack of inflation adjustment for capital gains taxes "an unfair and misguided policy that punishes risk and success." He said Trump "should use his executive authority — as he so often has to drain the...

The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina this month that his department was studying whether it could use its regulatory powers to allow Americans to account for inflation in determining capital gains tax liabilities. The Treasury Department could change the definition of “cost” for calculating capital gains, allowing...

One of the best things that President George W. Bush accomplished in his eight years in office was a reduction in the capital gains tax. The capital gains tax had become a drag on investment, which discouraged people from putting their idle money to good use. Bush’s reduction in capital gains wasn’t just a cut, but effectively a genuine improvement in how we tax. The changes became incentives, which mobilized dormant or idle capital. More money was made available in the economy in the form of long-term investments. In short, it brought productive and willing capital for growth. Even with...

Any tax increase that specifically targets private equity, venture capital, real estate and other long-term business investments is counterproductive to reaching that goal Margaret Thatcher reminded us that one of the problems with socialism is you “eventually run out of other people’s money,” but that doesn’t stop liberals like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) from finding more sources. His latest crusade is an effort to increase taxes on investment income – namely carried interest capital gains. For several years Schumer opposed increasing capital gains on carried interest, but now, after declaring he will work with President Trump when he...

What an economically deranged debate we have going on in the race for the Democratic nomination for president. In one corner is an unapologetic socialist, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wants to raise individual income tax rates on the rich to 70% or more — apparently because it worked so well in the 1970s. In the other corner we have Hillary Clinton, who's decided she isn't going to be one-upped in the class warfare debate, announcing last week a plan to raise the capital gains tax rate to 42% on assets held for less than two years and for those...

The worst sectors of the worst recovery since World War II are business investment in new plants and equipment and new business start-ups. These are the biggest job-creators, and their slump is a key reason for the sub-par labor recovery, with low participation rates and high numbers of involuntary part-time workers. So if investment is the problem, what does Hillary Clinton go out and do? She proposes jacking up the tax on investment. It’s almost inconceivably stupid. In her latest economic speech, Clinton proposes doubling the capital-gains tax rate on the profit made from asset sales (stocks, bonds, real estate)...

Raising the capital gains rate will put a stranglehold on risk taking and available capital President Obama just told the country during his State of the Union address that he is going to increase the capital gains rate again in order to raise revenue for new spending programs. Given that Obama already knows that raising the capital gains rate actually REDUCES revenue, we are left with a President who believes that we can pay for increased spending by reducing revenue. He acknowledged this in 2008 during a televised debate against Hillary Clinton, but went on to state that rates should...

The Overwhelming Case against Capital Gains Taxation According to the bean counters at Ernst and Young, the United States has one of the highest capital gains tax rates in the world.But if you donÂ’t trust the numbers from a big accounting firm, then you can peruse a study from the pro-tax Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that reaches the same conclusion.But does this really matter? Is the United States harmed by having a high tax rate?The Wall Street Journal certainly makes a compelling case that high tax rates on capital gains are self-destructive.And this remarkable chart shows that workers...

I recently posted some money I got from a gas well near me ...

Our ever-expanding government and its enablers will tax everything that moves - and everything else. Their newest idea - taxing stock sales - ultimately hurts not the rich, but those who seek jobs. Democratic Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont, a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on financial services, wants Uncle Sam to start taxing stock transactions. Interviewed by disgraced ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer - also known as "Client No. 9" - about imposing "a tiny little tax when stocks are traded on Wall Street" to "raise a huge sum of money and it...

(Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service has released new rules for investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends earned by high-income individuals that passed Congress as part of the 2010 healthcare reform law. The 3.8 percent surtax on investment income, meant to help pay for healthcare, goes into effect in 2013. It is the first surtax to be applied to capital gains and dividend income. The tax affects only individuals with more than $200,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and married couples filing jointly with more than $250,000 of MAGI. The tax applies to a broad range of...

President Obama proposed tax hike contains a lot to dislike, but what hasn't gotten much attention is the tax hike on savings and investments. While the marginal income tax rate will rise from 35% to 39.6% for top income-earners and small business owners, the proposed tax hike on capital gains and dividends could cause the most long-term economic damage. That's not to downplay the rise in marginal rates. It could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next few years. More universally acknowledged by economists, however, is the economic harm that savings and investment taxes do. In the Tax...

Wealth advisors say that with capital-gains taxes potentially going to 25 percent from 15 percent, and other possible increases in the dividend tax, estate tax and other taxes, many clients are selling now to save millions in taxes. If the Bush-era tax cuts expire, taxes on capital gains would revert back to its previous rate of 20 percent from its current 15 percent. Another 5 percent may be added from health-care levies and changes in itemized deductions, bringing the rate to 25 percent for many high earners. Taxes on dividends could go from 15 percent to over 43 percent. And...

France is sliding into a grave economic crisis and risks a full-blown “hurricane” as investors flee rocketing tax rates, the country’s business federation has warned. Francois Hollande is tightening fiscal policy by 2pc of GDP next year to meet EU deficit targets “The situation is very serious. Some business leaders are in a state of quasi-panic,” said Laurence Parisot, head of employers’ group MEDEF. “The pace of bankruptcies has accelerated over the summer. We are seeing a general loss of confidence by investors. Large foreign investors are shunning France altogether. It’s becoming really dramatic.” MEDEF, France’s equivalent of the CBI,...

France is sliding into a grave economic crisis and risks a full-blown “hurricane” as investors flee rocketing tax rates, the country’s business federation has warned. “The situation is very serious. Some business leaders are in a state of quasi-panic,” said Laurence Parisot, head of employers’ group MEDEF. “The pace of bankruptcies has accelerated over the summer. We are seeing a general loss of confidence by investors. Large foreign investors are shunning France altogether. It’s becoming really dramatic.” MEDEF, France’s equivalent of the CBI, said the threat has risen from “a storm warning to a hurricane warning”, adding that the Socialist...

One of the many false talking points of the Obama administration is that a rich man like Warren Buffett should not be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. But anyone whose earnings come from capital gains usually pays a lower tax rate. How are capital gains different from ordinary income? Ordinary income is usually guaranteed. If you work a certain amount of time, you are legally entitled to the pay that you were offered when you took the job. Capital gains involve risk. They are not guaranteed. You can invest your money and lose it all. Moreover, the...