Trump-Mnuchin: Crumbs for Average Americans While Giving More to the Top Crust

If they pull off this stunt this is the projected result 

(Art of the Con still at work)

Heluva big developing story here re: The basics of inflation indexing, should the Trump-Mnuchin Treasury Department decide to pursue it further without congressional approval. 

How it would work: Currently, investors use the nominal price they paid for an asset when reporting capital gains or losses to the IRS after a sale.

Indexing would mean that the price paid could be adjusted for inflation, reducing the profit involved when the asset is sold, thereby reducing the taxes owed.

For example:

If you bought a share of stock for $100 in 1980 and sold it for $400 this year, you’d owe taxes on the $300 gain.

But, using this proposal “indexing” the purchase price would be about $320, meaning you’d only owe taxes on some $80 in gains.

How much money is involved? Allowing indexing for capital gains would cost the U.S. about $100 billion over 10 years, according to an analysis done earlier this year by John Ricco of the Penn Wharton. 

Who would benefit? The great majority of capital gains are reported by upper-income households, so the benefits would accrue largely to the wealthy.

The chart above from The Washington Post illustrates Ricco’s data, which shows that the top 1 percent of households would claim more than 86 percent of the reduced taxes. As with virtually all tax cuts, conservatives argue that indexing capital gains would encourage more asset sales and boost economic growth.

What’s the holdup? The Trump administration may not want to associate itself with what many are calling more tax cuts for the rich ahead of the midterm elections. And there are fundamental constitutional issues, since it’s not clear that the Treasury has the legal authority to make such a change.

President George H. W. Bush’s administration considered the issue in 1992 and concluded that the Treasury could not unilaterally impose indexing, but such a move has never been tested in court.

My 2 cents: Another sneaky back door deal for the top crust – so wait until midterms are over, hope you still have the House and Senate and bingo: slap America in the face with this stunt … and then watch the rich laugh all the way to the bank…

This should a big midterm issue right now regardless of whether Trump and Mnuchin are waiting or not for some legal opinion. This congress must step up now and raise hell.

This latest stunt from Trump once again shows his arrogance and complete and utter disregard for anything for the country, only for him, is rich pals, a and GOP’s ultra-rich base who would send fat PAC checks to him and the GOP just in time for the 2020 big race.

Thanks for stopping by.