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: 2) by TheRaven on Monday December 05 2016, @12:33PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @02:25PM
What got Trump elected was that he was willing to be on all sides of every issue so voters could pick and choose the version of Trump they wanted to vote for.
He didn't actually expect to get elected so promising everyone what they wanted in the ultimate caricature of a politician had no downside.
But now he's being held to account for his words, and that means practically everything he does will make him a hypocrite.