{"id":24982,"date":"2018-08-02T12:48:28","date_gmt":"2018-08-02T16:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=24982"},"modified":"2018-08-03T09:30:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T13:30:20","slug":"even-leftist-economist-and-clinton-administration-adviser-admits-need-to-index-capital-gains-taxes-for-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/24982\/even-leftist-economist-and-clinton-administration-adviser-admits-need-to-index-capital-gains-taxes-for-inflation\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Leftist Economist and Clinton Administration Adviser Admits Need to Index Capital Gains Taxes for Inflation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump Administration is contemplating a move to improve the way the federal government taxes capital gains by indexing rates for inflation<\/a>, which amounts to a de facto<\/em> tax cut.<\/p>\n

It’s a no-brainer in terms of fairness and efficiency, as illustrated by the fact that even leftist economist and former Clinton Administration adviser Alan Blinder acknowledges the need for it today in The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

Why index gains?\u00a0 Suppose you own a stock for many years, during which time overall prices have doubled because of inflation.\u00a0 Over the holding period, the value of your stock has also doubled.\u00a0 When you sell, the proceeds have precisely the same purchasing power as the original purchase.\u00a0 \u00a0There’s no gain, no loss.\u00a0 But under current tax law, you owe taxes on the phantom ‘gain.’\u00a0 \u00a0Worse, if your stock went up by less than the cumulative inflation, you’ll still get taxed despite your loss.\u00a0 This is unfair and dysfunctional.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We’ll admit that it’s amusing to see a man who played the role of cheerleader for Barack Obama, who openly circumvented the Constitution and legislative process using his “pen and phone” to enact policy, demand that Trump refrain from making the change and instead allow Congress to act.\u00a0 Nevertheless, we’ll gladly celebrate his support for the underlying need for change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trump Administration is contemplating a move to improve the way the federal government taxes capital gains by indexing rates for inflation, which amounts to a de facto tax cut. It’s a no-brainer in terms of fairness and efficiency, as illustrated by the fact that even leftist economist and former Clinton Administration adviser Alan Blinder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5032,1621,500,71],"class_list":["post-24982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-alan-blinder","tag-capital-gains","tag-inflation","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24985,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24982\/revisions\/24985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}