Hillary Clinton says she wants the votes of Republicans who are troubled by Donald Trump, but you wouldn’t know it from her continued left turns on the economy.
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Interestingly enough, this plan is nearly identical to the one proposed by her former Democratic rival Bernie Sanders (perhaps Clinton is looking to reel in some of his supporters). Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who was Clinton’s main challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination before bowing out, trumpeted a call for a comparable rate. Clinton’s changes would bring in an estimated $260 billion over 10 years, money she said could be used to expand the child tax credit and fund changes to the small business tax code, which she has proposed simplifying and reducing.
Clinton will also propose limiting the tax benefits of so-called “like-kind exchanges”, which will affect investors in real estate, art and other properties.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is out with a proposal to raise the estate tax for the largest estates.
“And she will go further than that for estates valued in the tens and hundreds of millions, with higher rates as values rise, up to a 65% rate on estates valued at over $1 billion per couple”, Clinton’s campaign site states.
The estate tax is “wildly unpopular” with small business owners, said Matt Turkstra, who works on the issue for the National Federation of Independent Business, and “the biggest transfer of wealth is going to be from very, very wealthy people to lawyers”.
Pass-through businesses don’t pay taxes themselves, but pass their earnings through to their owners, who are taxed at their individual tax rates. Estates with assets between $3.5 million and $10 million would be taxed at 45 percent, according to that plan.
Still, the tax carries symbolic and political weight.
Instead, Clinton’s fee will use a sliding scale, based on size and risk, that averages about 13 basis points – nearly twice as large as Obama’s proposal, the report said. Today she receives a step-up in value to the current market price, and if she sells at that new market price, there are no tax consequences, Ms. Fillet said.
Under Mrs. Clinton’s plan and under a proposal from President Barack Obama that has gone nowhere in Congress, a bequest of an asset would be treated as realizing those pent-up gains. Using current dollars, a decade from now that top rate of 65 percent will apply to married couples with a mere $900 million in taxable assets.
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Previously, Clinton had offered more modest proposals for raising estate taxes.
