Mnuchin Floats More Tax Cuts For The Rich, This Time Avoiding Congressional Approval
Living typo Steve Mnuchin and his villainess wife, Craven Moorehead
July 31, 2018

Scene: Living Typo Steve Mnuchin, who is also the Treasury Secretary, looked out the window of his lavish office to see deficits running clear to the horizon and then into the Great Beyond. The wailing of the damned Millenials fills his ears with sweet, sweet music. Suddenly a cloud comes over his smiling face.

“How,” he wondered to himself, “can I make this worse?”

Anyway, something like that I imagine went through his head as Mnuchin announced that through changing regulations and rules the Fourth Reich were going to cut taxes for Billionaires AGAIN without having to get those grubby little people in the Congress involved at all:

Trump Administration Mulls a Unilateral Tax Cut for the Rich

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives.

Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit meeting in Argentina this month that his department was studying whether it could use its regulatory powers to allow Americans to account for inflation in determining capital gains tax liabilities. The Treasury Department could change the definition of “cost” for calculating capital gains, allowing taxpayers to adjust the initial value of an asset, such as a home or a share of stock, for inflation when it sells.

So how exactly would that work?

Currently, capital gains taxes are determined by subtracting the original price of an asset from the price at which it was sold and taxing the difference, usually at 20 percent. If a high earner spent $100,000 on stock in 1980, then sold it for $1 million today, she would owe taxes on $900,000. But if her original purchase price was adjusted for inflation, it would be about $300,000, reducing her taxable “gain” to $700,000. That would save the investor $40,000.

So, you know, we got that working for us, too.

Axios morning email thingie:

Why it matters, from WashPost’s Damian Paletta: “[T]he use of executive power on such a significant change to the tax law would be highly unusual and could be vulnerable to a legal challenge.”

“Senior administration officials have discussed whether to proceed but have not concluded they have legal authority to do so.”

“The move was rejected during the George H.W. Bush administration because it was seen as outside the scope of Treasury’s authority and only attainable via an act of Congress.”

Anyone have any doubts that this was proposed to benefit Il Douche and his kids?

So it could be illegal, but when has that ever stopped them? If the Fourth Reich were a movie, this is the point where they realize the Police (Mueller) are on the way, so it is time for the thieves (Trump Crime Family) to smash and grab the jewels at the store (Treasury), screw the plans.

crossposted from Mock Paper Scissors, "Smash and Grab Time"

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