20% min tax on $100M assets

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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If you have assets worth $100 million or more, you soon may face a major asset and income tax increase, including on unrealized gains.

The new US budget proposal will include what is being labeled as a “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax” on anyone with more than $100 Million in assets.

[The administration] will propose a minimum 20% tax rate that would hit both the income and unrealized capital gains of U.S. households worth more than $100 million as part of [its] budget proposal to be released on Monday. If enacted, the tax would generate an estimated $360 billion in new revenue over the next decade, representing more than a third of the White House’s projected $1 trillion cut to deficit spending over that period…

Those who fell under the new law would be required to complete a process called mark to market, where they provide the Internal Revenue Service with detailed accounts of how much their assets gained or lost in value each year…

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-26/biden-to-….

I don’t necessarily object to the proposed tax, since my friends who fall within the targeted wealth segment are aware that they must give up more of their wealth in order to ensure societal stability.

However, I do object to calling it a “Billionaire’s” tax when those who are worth a mere $100 million are to be treated as if they were ten times more wealthy than they are.

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I don’t necessarily object to the proposed tax, since my friends who fall within the targeted wealth segment are aware that they must give up more of their wealth in order to ensure societal stability.

I guess we are much further down the food chain, as to my knowledge we don’t know anyone even close to this level of assets.

IP,
whose parents were the first in their family to graduate high school, Mom doing it only via GED after marriage

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That is not the only tax plan being proposed.

https://itep.org/state-by-state-estimates-of-sen-rick-scotts…
[This plan would ]... require all Americans to pay federal personal income taxes would increase taxes by more than $1,000 on average for the poorest 40 percent of Americans. The share of households facing tax increases would vary across states, from a low of about 24 percent in Washington State to a high of about 50 percent in Mississippi.

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My objection is that these are on unrealized capital gains. Once the tax is paid, the money is gone gone gone. What happens if the value of the asset drops? What if there are losses? Will the IRS reimburse?

This is only a proposal. It won’t get passed.

That’s why I ask that METARs not post on legislation in progress. Only post when it actually passes.

Thanks,
Wendy

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That’s why I ask that METARs not post on legislation in progress. Only post when it actually passes.

Disagree. It is much easier to stop a piece of legislation from passing if enough people contact their congressmen/women/whatever than it is to get a piece of legislation changed or repealed after it has been enacted.

JLC

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My objection is that these are on unrealized capital gains. Once the tax is paid, the money is gone gone gone.

No, the money is not gone.

What happens if the value of the asset drops?

Then you get the loss back as a reduction in taxes owed or as a refund.

What if there are losses? Will the IRS reimburse?

Yes.

Not guessing on this one. One of the current permitted tax keeping and valuation procedures (rarely used, but nonetheless recognized as valid by the IRS) is the proposed “market value” of assets. As long as the system is maintained consistently over the tax years–and taxes paid/losses reported–based on “market value” at a consistent time period every year, the IRS will accept the return as valid. The key point is best-reasonable valuation of the assets each year. Once that is is done and accepted, the rest is just filling in the paperwork with the numbers by doing the arithmetic.

This system is more difficult for large businesses but much simplef for small businesses that have inventory that varies in value wildly over time (think seasonal/holiday items). Especially true when much inventory turns over very quickly–so whatever is “left over” has no or very minimal value. Typically, a small business will use cash-basis accounting, so few problems with “market value” analysis because the cash system automatically sets all inventory on hand to zero (because the “cash out” to buy ALL the inventory is an expense but there is NOT [on tax records day] a total sale of all the inventory). When the carried-over inventory is sold, the revenue is all profit because it was sold for cash (with a cost of zero) because that cost was written off some prior year when it was purchased.

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My objection is that these are on unrealized capital gains.

It’s not without precendent however. My property taxes on my house (Texas) is exactly that.

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What happens if the value of the asset drops? What if there are losses? Will the IRS reimburse?
This is only a proposal. It won’t get passed. That’s why I ask that METARs not post on legislation in progress. Only post when it actually passes.

Wendy,

Based on what I heard on Bubblevision (CNBC) this morning, the proposal includes mark-to-market adjustments annually, with credits and deductions on a go-forward basis. By taxing based on asset valuations with mark-to-market adjustments, the proposal operates like a hybrid between a corporate financial asset tax and an ordinary property or ad valorem tax.

I almost always agree with you and I defer to your superior judgment and authority on most things. However, I disagree with the suggestion that legislation-in-process is not appropriate for discussion.

As the most active and widely-read forum on the Motley Fool, this board can provide a service to those in Washington, D.C. whose decisions affect all of us.

https://discussion.fool.com/BestOf.asp?topwhat=brd

By reading METAR comments, our esteemed representatives can benefit from a discussion on a higher level of intellect and a more respectful tenor of discourse than they commonly see in the chambers of power. Although the Congressional legislative process does not offer the same “notice and comment” period that administrative agencies provide, our collective Internet response to proposed legislation can influence the research and support staff who advise Congress on policy matters.

Twitter is not the only social media platform monitored by our government. As the most active discussion board on the Motley Fool, METAR is surely on the radar of savvy policymakers.

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That’s why I ask that METARs not post on legislation in progress. Only post when it actually passes.

Disagree. It is much easier to stop a piece of legislation from passing if enough people contact their congressmen/women/whatever than it is to get a piece of legislation changed or repealed after it has been enacted.

IMHO discussion of proposed legislation should be okay - as long as we stay away from discussion of the proposers, supporters, and opposers.

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“My objection is that these are on unrealized capital gains. Once the tax is paid, the money is gone gone gone. What happens if the value of the asset drops? What if there are losses? Will the IRS reimburse?”

I’m not concerned - these applies to people with $100,000,000 minimum.
I mean who cares?

If the value of the asset drops by 50%, they’ve still got $50,000,000 left and no longer pay the tax.

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“I’m not concerned - these applies to people with $100,000,000 minimum.
I mean who cares?”

Because if it works, then next year it might apply to people with 10 million…then 1 million - those “MILLIONAIRES and BILLIONAIRES”.

Like to pay 20% of your IRA value and stock assets each year to Uncle Sam?

I suspect the ‘rich’ will find ways to dodge the taxes. Moving stuff into offshore trusts. Partnerships that generate massive losses.

t.

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I’m not concerned - these applies to people with $100,000,000 minimum.
I mean who cares?

Me too would love to have that problem.

But seriously- the positive would be to contribute towards social peace by getting that GINI a bit under control. The consideration here is that Elon et al. would likely have to sell a lot of his company’s shares to pay the tax, gradually reducing his stake and influence (arguably that could turn out both negative or positive).

Other than that, taxing unrealized gains brings with it challenges in form of necessary periodic valuations, even on illiquid assets, and may be exposed to constitutional challenge, especially if levied only from a 100m threshold.

Lastly, once implemented for the billionaire crowd, politicians‘ appetite for steadily lowering the threshold may grow.

Then again, I strongly suspect a lot of well-funded lobbyists and lawyers are very busy already ensuring the proposal gets shredded before any ‚harm‘ is caused to the job creators.

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However, I do object to calling it a “Billionaire’s” tax when those who are worth a mere $100 million are to be treated as if they were ten times more wealthy than they are.

Ha Ha. You must be totally out of touch with the average billionaire-want-to-be!

Mr 101M is golfing with his richer friend, Mr 1.01B. And he says, “yeah that billionaire tax is a killer, my accountant says I can’t get around it.”

Mike

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< As the most active discussion board on the Motley Fool, METAR is surely on the radar of savvy policymakers. >

Do you really think so?

I’d be flattered but honestly I don’t think anyone cares what we say here.
Wendy

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I’m sure most most are replying almost tongue in cheek, but does anyone think this has
a 1 in a billion chance of being enacted into tax law ??
Have y’all forget who writes the tax laws ?? lol

Don’t spend too much time worrying about the billionaires, they’ve had their
lobbyist on high alert from the second they heard the first hint of this.
They’ll probably end up getting a tax cut out of it.

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Disagree. It is much easier to stop a piece of legislation from passing if enough people contact their congressmen/women/whatever than it is to get a piece of legislation changed or repealed after it has been enacted.

Agree. The time to decide if legislation is good or not it before, not after it has passed.

we don’t know anyone even close to this level of assets

We know two. One is a Democrat, active in the party, fundraising, etc. She acknowledges that the wealthy should have a higher tax rate. The other I don’t know anything about his politics.

But I have a few objections to this legislation. First has already been mentioned: taxing unrealized gains. It’s a needless complication: taking, then having to rebate if the value goes down, and how do you account for artwork, jewelry, or other things which have only approximated value year by year? Are you going to have them appraised every year? What a job! And what an opening for fraud. Why, you might declare the value of a building to be far less than it’s worth for tax purposes, not that anyone would actually do that, I suppose.

I also don’t like the “hard cutoff” idea: zero below, 20% above. (OK, not actually zero, but pretty close in some cases.) There is already a mechanism to do this, it’s called the progressive income tax. Having a hard cutoff is another inducement to shenanigans.

I think there’s also an inducement for the super-wealthy to renounce their citizenship and declare domicile in some Central American country (or other), so if there’s to be a tax it ought to be on “wealth earned” in this country, not necessarily “wealth owned”. Again I’m not sure how you police that, but I’d not be happy to see some of the great entrepreneurs chased away once they acquire substantial wealth.

Oh. And get rid of the “step up” basis on inheritance. At SOME point, taxes should be paid on great wealth, just like the rest of us. I see no reason for the Walton daughters to have multiple billions sitting around while the workers who built the company are on food stamps.

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< As the most active discussion board on the Motley Fool, METAR is surely on the radar of savvy policymakers. >

Do you really think so?

I’d be flattered but honestly I don’t think anyone cares what we say here.
Wendy

I would suspect they don’t even know who TMF is.

IP

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It’s not without precendent however. My property taxes on my house (Texas) is exactly that.

Bingo!

In something like 48 states just about all adults are paying this sort of tax for decades on autos and housing. It is far more onerous for 99.9% of our citizens than it will ever be for someone with assets over $100 million.

There is another principle here. In the Great Depression we discovered as a nation that our economy is dependent on breadlines, figuratively speaking, to cycle the money supply. In 1981 we decided, some of us anyway, to try and shake the breadlines. What we have found is now only billionaires and millionaires dominate the breadlines. This money is owed the rest of us as American citizens. It is long over due.

Yes this will be changed again to get rid of the tax in possibly less than ten years. I am for that as well. This is really in large part about the needs of the economic cycle. We need a vibrant middle class back. We need our manufacturing base back. We need major investment in America.

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"This is really in large part about the needs of the economic cycle. We need a vibrant middle class back. We need our manufacturing base back. We need major investment in America. "

Taxing folks with the capital which can be invested has always been the most successful way to
grow the economy.

Howie52
And should it not generate the government funding desired, the tax can always be increased and
the number of folks taxed can also be increased.
Government for the select, by the select and from where-ever there might be someone else’s money.

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Without getting into the debate about the specific legislation…

I think there’s also an inducement for the super-wealthy to renounce their citizenship and declare domicile in some Central American country (or other), so if there’s to be a tax it ought to be on “wealth earned” in this country, not necessarily “wealth owned”. Again I’m not sure how you police that, but I’d not be happy to see some of the great entrepreneurs chased away once they acquire substantial wealth.

There is already a big disincentive for this. There is an “exit” tax for anyone denouncing citizenship if they have a net worth > ~$4.2 million (for a couple). And that tax is like 41% on total net worth.

and how do you account for artwork, jewelry, or other things which have only approximated value year by year? Are you going to have them appraised every year? What a job! And what an opening for fraud.

And all of this is considered in the exit tax.

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