Free Republic

That fetid gust of hot air you may have detected wafting from Republican and conservative social media postings over the last day or two was a fabricated claim that Kamala Harris is plotting to tax everyone’s unrealized capital gains if she becomes president. That would be a departure from current law, which taxes capital gains only when the underlying assets are sold, or “realized.” That it’s a mythical allegation hasn’t stopped right-wingers and GOP functionaries from hand-wringing over the economic implications of any such change, and over the purportedly horrible impact on average Americans. Here, for instance, is the far-right...

In President Joe Biden’s proposal in the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget of the United States Government, and more specifically in the General Explanations of the Administration’s FY 2025 Revenue Proposals, the Biden administration has proposed a slate of bold shifts in tax policy that could redefine high income tax planning and investment strategies. Among the most striking initiatives in the FY2025 Budget Proposal is a set of proposals taxing unrealized gains—a concept ---SNIP-- . A shift in tax policy towards tapping revenue streams in unrealized gains is almost certainly on the horizon-

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a part of President Trump's 2017 'Tax Cuts and Jobs Act' that levied a tax on capital appreciation is constitutional. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented. The court ruled 7-2 that the mandatory repatriation tax, or MRT, is constitutional under the taxation regimes defined in Article I and the 16th Amendment. In short, the MRT imposed a one-time requirement for US citizens and companies to repatriate money held overseas.In 2005, Charles and Kathleen Moore invested $40,000 in an Indian business named KisanKraft, which marketed power tools...

Wealth taxes are like a specter in search of a host, and an already overtaxed New England state may be the first to succumb. Vermont lawmakers want to tax residents’ unrealized gains, hoping to finally break the barrier that’s kept them from draining asset values year after year. The state’s top tax legislator has spent recent weeks pushing bills that would dial up taxes on high earners. The biggest reach is a proposal to tax the paper gains from assets above $10 million. The plan would slap Vermont’s 8.75% top income-tax rate on half of those gains. That means a...

We are once again being reminded why the once prosperous state of California is falling into a budgetary black hole and bleeding residents at an increasing rate. (Though to be fair, some of those losses are being made up for by an army of illegal migrants who use up even more resources.) The Democrats who run the state can’t seem to help themselves, and they keep going back to the well with failed ideas to increase state revenue. The latest chapter in this ongoing story comes to us from Stephen Green at PJ Media. It appears that members of the...

The fate of an obscure provision of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax package, which will be reviewed by the Supreme Court next week, has many experts panicked over the potential to destabilize the nation’s tax system. In addition, some say the outcome could preemptively block Congress from creating a wealth tax. But the case has also exposed questions about the accuracy of the personal story a Washington State couple presented to the court in making their constitutional challenge to the tax, a one-time levy on offshore earnings. Charles and Kathleen Moore appear to have closer ties to the company central...

Less than 10 minutes into the new season of the hit Netflix reality show "Selling Sunset," two luxury real estate brokers are already complaining about a new tax on Los Angeles' wealthiest homebuyers. "This is going to be a nightmare for us," says veteran real estate agent Mary Fitzgerald. "We're just screwed." The city's so-called "mansion tax" was about to go into effect when the show was filming its latest season — and the high-end real estate industry was in a tizzy. The owner of one $26 million, 13,000-square-foot home the agents were trying to sell would have to pay...

Wealth tax proposals have been all the rage among progressive politicians of late, despite the many pitfalls of attempting to tax unrealized gains. But a case the Supreme Court just took up could render taxation of unrealized gains constitutionally untenable.Moore v. United States looks at a provision in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). One of the ways that legislators offset the foregone revenue from tax cuts was through a one-time “deemed” repatriation of earnings from U.S. citizens’ shares of foreign corporations.Put simply, the deemed repatriation provision acted as if Americans with shares in foreign corporations (above a...

In 2022 Norway’s third richest man, Kjell Inge Røkke, announced in an open letter to shareholders he was moving to Lugano, Switzerland. “My capital will continue working in Norway,” wrote the fishing magnate turned industrialist who launched his empire four decades ago with a 69-foot trawler he bought while saving money working on ships off the coast of Alaska. Røkke, who Forbes estimates has a fortune of $5.1 billion, will cost the Norwegian government an estimated 175,000,000 kroner annually (roughly $16 million) with his departure. That might not sound like a lot of money, but Røkke is not the only...

Now California wants a wealth tax. Florida, Tennessee, Texas, and many other states will gladly welcome "the rich" and everyone else who will be fleeing that state as a result.This paragraph from Zerohedge says it all about Democrat policies in that state on budgetary items: ACA 3 begins with six WHEREAS clauses including that California has long-term needs that are not being met by existing revenue sources; wealth inequality among state residents has increased dramatically; a tax on extreme wealth will restore fairness to California’s tax system and raise significant revenue to meet new and existing urgent needs; and, the...

California lawmakers are pushing legislation that would impose a new tax on the state’s wealthiest residents — even if they’ve already moved to another part of the country. Assemblyman Alex Lee, a progressive Democrat, last week introduced a bill in the California State Legislature that would impose an extra annual 1.5% tax on those with a “worldwide net worth” above $1 billion, starting as early as January 2024. As early as 2026, the threshold for being taxed would drop: those with a worldwide net worth exceeding $50 million would be hit with a 1% annual tax on wealth, while billionaires...

Left-leaning proponents of taxing the assets held by America’s billionaires have a new target: In lieu of a federal wealth tax, state lawmakers want to tax billionaires where they live, in states like California, Washington and New York. A group of legislators in statehouses across the country has coordinated to introduce bills simultaneously in seven states later this week, with the same goal of raising taxes on the rich. “The point here is to make sure we do at the state level what is not being done at the federal level,” said Gustavo Rivera (D), a New York state senator...

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 —...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez donned an elegant gown with the slogan "Tax the Rich" painted on the back at the Met Gala in New York, where guests selected by Vogue's Anna Wintour ponied up around $35,000 a pop for tickets. The scene was reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's "radical chic" -- though rather than being guests of the well-heeled in Park Avenue duplexes, today's revolutionaries own luxury condos and drive around in government-subsidized electric cars that most Americans could never afford. My first question, though, is: Who doesn't want to "tax the rich"? Judging from my social-media feed, there seems to be...

"There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money," is an insight the famed biographer James Boswell attributed to Samuel Johnson. Clients of the late Bernie Madoff, however, might take issue. Over four decades, Madoff, acclaimed as the greatest fraudster of them all, ran a Ponzi scheme that swindled 40,000 people, including his closest friends, out of $65 billion. But if "getting money" is among the most innocent of callings, America has more than its fair share of the goodly people who excel at it. According to Forbes's 35th annual ranking of...

And it's going to use that weapon not on foreign enemies, but rather on us. Since the creation of the United States income tax, government and taxpayers have wrangled over definitions of what constitutes "income," how it is to be calculated, and when it is to be "recognized" — that is, subjected to tax. A recent New York initiative (predictably backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) would tax appreciated assets held by wealthy taxpayers before they were sold. This hideous tax policy hints at the temptation for government to shift its tax base to rapidly-appreciating assets when magnifying inflation through reckless debt...

With Democrats now in control of the House, Senate, and White House, many of the most significant policy battles of the next two years will be determined by intraparty fights within the Democratic Party's various factions. Although not a moderate in any meaningful sense, President Joe Biden has always positioned himself strategically at the center of his party. Nevertheless, his defeat of the party's left-wing in the last presidential primary won't be the end of a populist insurgence. Sadly, one fight will be between those, such as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who want to raise taxes significantly, and those who,...

CNBC has been holding the feet of Democratic members of Congress to the fire over the disastrous implications of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) insidious wealth tax. CNBC co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin pressed “Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2021” co-sponsor Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) on the disastrous economic impact of an arbitrary two percent tax on every dollar of people's wealth exceeding $50 million. Sorkin pointed out on the March 4 edition of Squawk Box why the “two percent” figure would be problematic: “Two percent on an annual basis sounds tiny, but over the period of 20 years — or rather 10...

Leftist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) avoided answering tough questions from CNBC that underscored the nonsense behind her wealth tax proposal. CNBC Squawk Box co-anchor Joe Kernen played devil’s advocate in an attempt to expose the lack of logic behind Warren’s tax proposal. Kernen said to Warren during the March 2 edition of Squawk Box: “If you’re going to do two percent [tax] on 50 million [dollars], and then when you get up to a billion [dollars] and you’re going to three percent [tax], if we’ve made, if we’ve crossed the rubicon … why not make it truly progressive and do...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren rolled out her plan Monday to slap a 2 per cent annual wealth tax on people whose net worth is over 50 million and up to $1 billion – setting the stage for debates over how to pay for Joe Biden's infrastructure and environmental proposals. Warren's plan is similar to what she advocated in her 2020 presidential campaign, where she lost to Biden, who did not come out for a wealth tax. The Massachusetts Democrat is joined by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and House Reps. Pramila Jaypal and Brendan Boyle.