Drew Harwell over at the Washington Post has an interesting story about a tax loophole that could allow Trump appointees to avoid paying millions in taxes.
President-elect Donald Trump's ultra-wealthy Cabinet nominees will be able to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes in the coming weeks when they sell some of their holdings to avoid conflicts of interest in their new positions.
The tax advantage will allow Trump officials, forced by ethics laws to sell certain assets, to defer the weighty tax bills they would otherwise owe on the profits from selling stock and other holdings.
The benefit is one of the more subtle ways that the millionaires and billionaires of Trump's White House, which already will be the wealthiest administration in modern American history, could benefit financially from their transition into the nation's halls of power.
The legal tax maneuver, offered for years to executive-branch appointees and employees, was designed to help ease the sting of being forced to suddenly sell investments.
But the federal program, encoded in Section 2634 of federal ethics laws and known as a "certificate of divestiture," has never been tested quite like this. Trump's Cabinet picks have amassed assets worth billions of dollars from lifetimes in banking and investing, much of which they will be able to sell tax-free.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @12:27PM
If you wanted to discuss too much money being in the hands of too few, we could start with a discussion of the Federal Reserve, and especially the relationship to war financing and parallels to how liberals reaction to Trump closely mirrors another candidate:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/12/matt-stoller-why-ron-paul-challenges-liberals.html [nakedcapitalism.com]
If you want to discuss too much power being in too few hands, explain to me again the outrage over the electoral college, the snubbing of states rights, or reducing the scope of the federal government?
I don't think the issue is the concentration of power, as these other aspects don't seem to get much discussion, but more a question of who welds that power.
And now it is the other side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @01:32PM
Sure we could. And who do you think controls the Federal Reserve? The poor people?