Vice President Kamala Harris proposed increasing the long-term capital gains tax rate to 28% for wealthy Americans during an economic speech in New Hampshire on Wednesday, breaking with the policy laid out by President Joe Biden in his 2025 budget by suggesting a lower rate.
The current long-term capital gains tax rate – 20%, plus an additional 3.8% tax on higher earners – is paid when an investment is sold, or gains are realized. The Biden budget proposes raising that rate to the top rate he wants to levy on ordinary income – 39.6% – for households with taxable income over $1 million. Harris, the people familiar with the matter say, believes 39.6% is too high.
While Harris still supports taxing the wealthiest individuals and corporations at higher rates – as Biden’s budget also calls for – she believes that a lower capital gains rate would incentivize investors to put more money into startups and small businesses. She has also proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%, up from the current 21% rate set by Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
Capital gains tax being lower than income tax inverts the economy and just leads to a glut of capital owners. External capital ownership shouldn’t exist in the first place, but if it does, it shouldn’t be the cheapest way to earn money.
I actually really agree with the removal of external debts backed by capital being a saleable item - market socialism where corporate ownership is forcefully devolved to the actual employees would enable much higher economic efficiency.
Yup, that’s why I’m a Mutualist. I think Spain has a pretty good setup that incentives ownership to be sold to it’s employees.
Can you point me to a related law in spain about this?
I’ve always figured that political democracy can’t co-exist with capitalist plutocracy (when the corporate hierarchy is structured the opposite, top-down) but if there was a mandatory divestment where every business had to return x% of profits to the staff per annum and x% of ownership (e.g. based on a mix of value/wage/tenure) then that would reorient corporations to financially benefit a community and workers, and mitigate wealth inequality. The mandatory part is important as — like a strong minimum wage — it means all are competing on a level playing field and not with some inherent advantage/disadvantage.
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