Specifically, as of 9.24.24, Harris would: Double the capital gains tax to match the personal income tax rates. This would subject some gains to tax rates in excess of 40%. End the step-up in basis tax basis for estates. This would end the tax-free transfer of most estates to beneficiaries and treat death as a taxable event for capital gains purposes. Tax unrealized capital gains (aka a wealth tax). This would tax expected but unrealized profits that may or may not actually materialize if the market falls. Question-would the government reimburse you for taxes paid when the market values fall? Allow the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to expire on December 31, 2025. That would trigger a massive tax increase on Main Street folks and mean good-bye to a 20% small business deduction. Immediate expensing of capital investments and lower tax rates would disappear. Those policies helped create economic prosperity in 2018-2019 before COVID. Reduce the estate tax exclusion to $3,500,000 and step up the estate tax rates from 40% to 55%, 60% and 65%. That’s a wake-up call. Implement a 10% surtax on estates over $1billion. Add new code section 2901 would essentially end the use of new grantor trusts. Reduce the $18,000 annual exclusion to $10,000 per person and limit the total lifetime amount of annual exclusion gifts to $20,000 per donor. Impose the generation-skipping transfer tax on transfers to anyone three generations below the transferor of the trust. Add new code section 2705(a) that would limit discounts by reason of family control and section 2705(b) would limit the discount on the transfer of non-business assets. These tax plans look like a giant step toward socialism. It adds up to more government control over our lives (Over Please)
*** Tax Alert *** Elections matter. A lot. The visions for our country expressed by our two presidential candidates, both flawed, are worlds apart. The policies they offer to achieve their respective vision are more worlds apart. One candidate is stealing a page from the Biden 2020 candidacy, not by staying in the basement to avoid questions rather by remaining above it all to avoid questions and accountability. One is even stealing some of the other candidate’s more popular policies on energy and the border even though votes and videos state an opposite position. Some ideas out there are just plain stupid. Many “free stuff” policy ideas are blatant attempts to buy votes. The thought that price controls on food or credit card interest rates can end inflation reflects ignorance. Higher food prices are the effect of multiple poor policy decisions, not the cause. Shortages and inflation follow price controls. Big picture: one candidate is on the record favoring open borders, free everything, continued efforts to “talk” our enemies into not trying to destroy us (and giving them billions to do so), elimination of private health insurance, tax policies that make your head spin (see below for details), a commitment to the costly Green Energy platform that will create backouts all over the U.S., turning the Supreme Court upside down by packing judges who will support political agendas rather than the law, tighter regulation on businesses, and allow criminals to run amok by defunding the police. In her first major policy speech, Vice President Harris announced a plan to lower housing costs that will be funded by using Senator Elizabeth Warren's American Housing and Economic Mobility Act of 2024. Those initiatives will be paid for by a $5 trillion tax increase . This represents a radial reconfiguration of the transfer tax system, and there may not be time for you to make the best decisions for your financial future between the election and the end of 2025 when many current features of the income and estate tax laws expire. It's critical that you know how these proposals will radically change the planning decisions that you have implemented.
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