Yet another terrible Republican tax proposal

[Zorro]

President Trump, who famously likes to supersize his accomplishments, must not be satisfied with pushing the federal budget deficit above $1 trillion for the rest of his term. As staggering as that amount of red ink may be, he’s considering a tax cut that would widen the shortfall even further. What’s more, it would deliver little or nothing in return for the cost to the Treasury.

At issue is a Republican proposal to reduce the bite of capital gains taxes by making gains appear smaller for tax purposes. Today, the calculation is straightforward: the gain from the sale of an investment (shares of stock, for example, or a piece of real estate) is equal to how much more the item sold for than it cost to buy. Under the alternative being pushed by some Senate Republicans and anti-tax groups, the calculation wouldn’t be based on the original cost but on a higher number that takes into account all the inflation that has occurred since the item was purchased, lowering the gain.

In a sense, this is just another effort by the all-taxes-are-evil crowd to pay less for the services the federal government provides and shift the costs onto future generations. What makes this proposal unusual is that proponents aren’t calling for Congress to make the change; they want the president to do it unilaterally, through an executive order directing the Treasury Department to redefine the cost of a capital good as the price paid plus inflation.

Coming on the heels of a major GOP tax cut that’s spurring trillion-dollar deficits, the proposal is beyond fiscally irresponsible. It also represents the worst of trickle-down economics, given that the tax break would benefit the wealthy almost exclusively. According to the Tax Policy Center, households in the top 20% of U.S. earners, whose average incomes were $347,000, collected 90% of the taxable gains in 2018; more than half of the gains went to households in the top 0.1%, whose average incomes were $10.8 million.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-08-09/capital-gains-adjusting-for-inflation-republicans-trump

[SCantiGOP]

1. He's considered doing it by Executive Order

Whatever happened to all tax and revenue laws originating in the House (the same House that is also supposed to have a monopoly on deciding to go to war)?

No matter who sits in the White House, we need for the Congress, especially the people’s House, to reclaim their authority from the Execurive Branch.