Republicans like to keep things simple, and are dedicated to a few bedrock principles: small government that leaves people alone unless they’re women who want to have sex, a free-market economy that doesn’t pick winners or losers except when they’re donors, and a commitment to the sanctity of human life as long as you’re only talking about fetuses. Heck, a lot of them are so dedicated to efficiency that they have only two or three jokes (“Pocahontas,” “150 genders,” and … I forget the other. Oops). And when it comes to economic policy, their one fallback joke is tax cuts. But as Republicans have been proving for 40 years, there are near-infinite variations on using the tax code to help the donor class, so it remains a good racket.
In the latest variation on the theme, the White House is floating a scheme it claims will inject a big dose of prosperity into the post-rona economy: a “capital gains tax holiday,” in which the tax rate on one of the chief income sources for the wealthy wouldn’t simply be cut; it would be eliminated for an as-yet undefined period. And as Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell explains, such a scheme could be even more ruinous than the average run of Republican tax cuts for the rich. At least for funding stupid stuff like having a government — it would be great for the very richest Americans. But of course, that’s the point: A functional federal government is anathema to these goons.
Just a quick reminder of what “capital gains” are, for those of us whose eyes glaze over once financial stuff comes up:
A “capital gain” refers to how much the value of an asset (such as a stock) has increased over time. Taxes on capital gains are triggered only when the asset is sold. So if you bought a few shares of Apple stock when it IPO’d in 1980, your shares would be worth a fortune today — but you don’t owe Uncle Sam a penny until you cash out.
A holiday on such taxes would work thusly: “For some temporary, to-be-determined length of time, rich people could sell their assets, realize whatever gains they’ve accumulated over the decades, and never pay taxes on the income.”
Lℇ✞✞u☪ℇ ⳨r∃Y
Article URL : https://www.wonkette.com/welcome-to-our-four-millionth-story-about-yet-another-gop-plan-to-cut-taxes-for-the-rich