Monday, July 30, 2018

Redefining Capital Gains?

From Sean:
"Oh, hi, it's just the Trump Administration mulling over executive action to give wealthy folks another $100B tax cut.  NYT: Trump Administration Mulls a Unilateral Tax Cut for the Wealthy"

11 comments:

  1. jerrye92002July 31, 2018 at 8:19 AM

    Is there something fundamentally wrong with making the tax system more sensibly fair?

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  2. SeanJuly 31, 2018 at 9:45 AM

    Whether or not it's fair or not, this change needs to be made legislatively.

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  3. AnonymousJuly 31, 2018 at 11:48 AM

    Capital gains taxes income generated by a couple calls to a broker at a lower rate than income earned through work. The rationale for this isn't often explained.

    --Hiram

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  4. SeanJuly 31, 2018 at 12:02 PM

    If folks shouldn't be "punished for inflation", then wages should be indexed as well. Right?

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  5. jerrye92002July 31, 2018 at 2:16 PM

    The presumption is that wages DO keep up with inflation. An investment does not. And inflation is not one of the risks supposedly offset by the lower tax rate. seems fair to me. And I question if it MUST be done legislatively, by law?

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  6. SeanAugust 1, 2018 at 9:55 AM

    I would suggest that your past history indicates that if the Obama administration had made changes to the tax code of this magnitude administratively, you would not have been so relaxed about it. Glad to see your "principles" are fungible.

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  7. jerrye92002August 1, 2018 at 3:45 PM

    You may be right, because I would not have known then what I do not know now, which is whether such a change CAN be made by EO or administrative rule. Certainly not every IRS reg goes through Congress. Is this provision different? I don't know.

    And I'm pretty sure Obama would not have done ANYTHING to cut taxes, especially on the "rich," so it's sort of a hypothetical, n'cest pas?

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  8. SeanAugust 2, 2018 at 9:26 AM

    Whether is it proper to take executive action or not is not based on whether one likes the policy or not.

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  9. jerrye92002August 2, 2018 at 9:33 AM

    Correct, but hypothetical questions do not provide real answers. Is there any evidence at all that this is a hard and fast written-into-law thing, or can it be an IRS regulation, as 90% of tax law is? That seems to me the salient question.

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  10. JohnAugust 2, 2018 at 10:11 AM

    Sean,
    It is humorous that the GOP complained about Federal Departments over reaching their authority and now they are recommending it...

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  11. jerrye92002August 2, 2018 at 11:33 AM

    Point is that the IRS DOES have the authority to "interpret" the tax laws, and that is part of why it is largely incomprehensible. Show me that this particular interpretation is an "overreach"?

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