XPost: alt.politics.trump, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.home.repair   
   From: brosjohnson@hotmail.com   
      
   Isee a lot of people on Twitter desperately trying to defend the insane,   
   suicidal tax proposed by Vice President Kamala Harris on “unrealized   
   capital gains.”   
      
   It’s been a while since anyone has proposed a dumber idea, so in that   
   sense, at least, she is a historic candidate. And those who think it’s a   
   good idea are historically stupid.   
      
   As many others have pointed out already, such a tax would harm everyone   
   investing for retirement, depressing asset values as the uber-rich are   
   forced to make massive annual sales just to pay the tax. And what I’d   
   really like to know is whether, if I’m ever forced to pay taxes on stocks   
   I’m still holding just because their value went up on paper, do I get my   
   money back when their on-paper value goes back down again months or years   
   later?   
   The best defense of this tax, intellectually, is that it falls on only the   
   filthy rich, meaning that only a relatively modest number of people will   
   be completely screwed over by a system far more unfair and unjust than the   
   one we have now. But if you support government screwing over Americans, so   
   long as you get to choose which ones get screwed, that only calls your   
   decency into question.   
      
   The reality is that taxes that start off narrowly focused on just a small   
   group of people always end up expanding to get almost everyone. This has   
   happened over and over again throughout our history.   
      
   Consider that you are still paying the Spanish-American War Tax tax every   
   time you pay your monthly phone bill. The tax to fund that 1898 war was   
   easy to pass because only rich people had telephones then. The war ended   
   after less than a year, but the phone tax has survived in various forms   
   for more than 100 years. On occasion, it has been partially repealed,   
   reinstated and altered.   
      
   The tax on long distance access, one of its descendants, finally ended in   
   2006 after a court ruling forced the IRS to stop collecting it. There’s   
   still a push to repeal its last remnants, but don’t hold your breath.   
      
   The income tax, in 1913, hit only the rich. Its top rate was 7 percent,   
   falling on incomes of half a million or more, with lower rates for those   
   making at least $20,000 (about $635,000 today), which very few people did   
   at that time.   
      
   But a funny thing happened on the way to soaking the rich. Although the   
   income tax was never sold as a way to take 10 percent, 25 percent or even   
   more of what average earners make, that’s what it has become. Add that on   
   top of the combined 15.1 percent of your income that you are losing to   
   Social Security and Medicare taxes. Are you feeling the economic justice   
   yet?   
      
   The Alternative Minimum Tax was created in 1970 because of outrage over   
   just 154 households with incomes over $200,000 ($1.6 million in today’s   
   money) who had paid zero in taxes the year before. Forty-three years   
   later, Congress was forced to act because its formula had allowed the tax   
   to creep so far down the income scale that it was about to gobble up   
   almost every two-income middle class family in America. Only in 2017 did   
   the Trump tax bill restore its original purpose as a tax paid by only the   
   very highest earners, and even then, it passed over Democrats’ vociferous   
   objections.   
      
   The inheritance tax was supposed to hit only the rich. But the rich have   
   complicated life insurance products and trusts they use to pass wealth to   
   the next generation tax-free. So, who gets hit with this death tax? Not   
   Bill Gates or George Soros, but Old MacDonald — you know, the farmer. His   
   land and farm equipment may be worth $13 million on paper, but he needs   
   those use-assets to make the slim margin that comprises his annual income.   
      
   Because he cannot shelter it from the IRS the way the super-rich can, his   
   family will have to sell off the farm to Gates or to some large   
   corporation to pay a tax bill as high as 40 percent of the estate. Harris   
   even wants to expand this tax by changing the treatment of inherited   
   capital gains, hammering death-tax victims a second time.   
      
   If history is any guide, Harris’s tax on so-called “unrealized capital   
   gains” will ultimately bite all of us. Today’s Democratic Party talks   
   about “the rich” paying “their fair share.” They start by claiming they   
   want to target only a small, very specific group, like those 154 zero-tax   
   families, so that you’re convinced it won’t affect you. But once they get   
   the concept in place, it’s only a matter of time before they get their   
   hands into your pockets, too.   
      
   The only way to protect yourself, your family and what you’ve earned is to   
   vote against Democrats — to stop them from creating and increasing the   
   taxes in the first place.   
      
   Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for   
   the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).   
      
   https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/opinion-kamala-harris-s-   
   unrealized-gains-tax-so-dumb-it-s-truly-historic/ar-AA1pYKpd   
      
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