If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's what came to mind this AM when I read that John McCain's plan to address the ailing economy includes a big cut in the capital gains tax rate, from 15% to 7.5% for the next two years.
How wrongheaded is this? Let me count the ways.
First, the McCain folks may have missed this, but asset values have been falling, big time. Remember, John?... That whole financial mess that folks have been talking about? When capital assets, like stocks or bonds, lose value, that's a capital loss, and it's already deductible from your taxes.
OK, but there's probably a few folks out there who've realized some capital gains, or will do so at some point in the next couple of years. What's the point of giving them a tax break? What itch does that scratch?
The vast majority of realized capital gains--that's the money you make, for example, when you sell a stock for more than you paid for it--go the richest families, so they're the ones who benefit from this. The good number crunchers at the Tax Policy Center examined who would benefit from the McCain proposal. The middle fifth of families end up with all of 0.2% of the benefits. That's not a typo. The tax break would lower their annual tax bill by $4.00. OK, that is a gallon of gas, but it's not what you'd call a game-changer.
The top 20% end up with 98.3% of the benefits of the cut, and the top 1%, with income above $600,000 get 75% of the gains, for an average benefit of $37,600. The average tax savings for the top 0.1%--income above $3 mil--is $244,000. In other words, this isn't a recipe for helping families hurt by the financial crisis and the recession. It's a recipe for more income inequality.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/again-with-the-trickle-do_b_134796.html
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