President Biden recently made a stir with his latest budget proposal, which included several provisions that alarmed investors. The first and arguably most important for anyone involved with the stock market is the proposed new and increased capital gains tax.
Under the plan, the rate would reach its highest since the tax was established in 1913 at a maximum of 44.6%.
The proposal immediately proved controversial, given how it compares to the original maximum of 7% and the 1921 Revenue Act maximum of 12.5%. It is also substantially higher than the rate set during former President Trump’s term when it was reformed not to exceed 20%.
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With this in mind, and particularly considering that Trump will in all likelihood be Biden’s opponent in the upcoming elections, Finbold decided to take a look at what the capital gains tax for stocks and cryptocurrencies might look like should the administration change.
Likely President Trump’s capital gains tax
At the time of publication, there appears to be little room for speculation on what a Trump second-term capital gains policy could look like, given that the proposal has already been published.
Unsurprisingly, given the standard Republican approach, the Trump campaign plans to lower the maximum capital gains tax rate to 15%. This would follow his previous term, which saw the rate set at a maximum of 20%.
Still, it is noteworthy that such a decrease might face resistance.
The fairly unintuitive fact – at least given the standard rhetoric – that U.S. public debt tended to increase more under Republican administrations could, when paired with the frightening pace at which the burden is already increasing, could make such a decrease impractical to implement.
On the other hand, the rising debt might not prove a hurdle for all parts of the tax plan depending on how willing a potential Trump administration would be to further cut social, infrastructure, and other public spending and refrain from boosting the defense budget – or, failing that, to ramp up the pace of debt-taking.
Still, while it isn’t certain just how the capital, dividend, and other taxes might look like under a second Trump presidency, it is likely the other controversial aspect of Biden’s proposal – the unrealized gains tax – would not see the light of day, especially since the campaign leveled hefty criticism against the current administration over the budget.
