Democratic Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is all but confirmed to support a tax on unrealized capital tax after her economic advisor Bharat Ramamurti defended the policy during a Wednesday interview.
“I think that this reaction to unrealized gains is a little funny given that I bet that the majority of people are already paying a tax on unrealized gains. It’s called a property tax,” said Ramamurti.
Why Harris Will Support An Unrealized Capital Gains Tax
In a conversation with CNBC, Ramamurti emphasized that the 25% tax on unrealized gains – proposed under Joe Biden’s budget plan and re-adopted by Harris – would only apply to Americans with over $100 million in assets. That’s less than 0.5% of the American population – around 60,000 people.
“Yeah, I think it’s pretty reasonable given the flawed system that we have right now for capital taxation,” the advisor said, who was a former National Economic Council deputy director under President Biden.
He added that the proposal has various stipulations and exemptions: company owners, for example, don’t have to pay their taxes right away, but can spread out their payments over an extended period of time. The tax would apply at death.
CNBC’s hosts didn’t take readily accept Ramamurti’s ”property tax” analogy. Rebecca quick highlighted that property taxes go directly to public services within the taxpayers’ local community. Furthermore, properties don’t change in value in the same was as other assets, with stocks being prone to much higher volatility.
“Probably Unconstitutional”
Pro-Bitcoin host Joe Kernen contested that the tax is “probably unconstitutional.”
“It was never in anyone’s intent to tax, and its never gonna happen, probably,” he said.
Bitcoiners were hardly satisfied with the tax proposal either.
“The flight of capital out and subsequent collapse of the US markets would be absolutely breathtaking,” said popular macro analyst James Lavish on Wednesday. “And the ultimate result would be far lower tax revenues than we have right now.”
Blockstream CEO Adam Back added that anybody still supporting the Democrats “needs to stage an intervention.” before its policy jumps straight into “market destructions” and “communism.”
Ramamurti is also known for being extremely anti-crypto, having helped orchestrate that government-wide crackdown on the industry widely known as “operation chokepoint 2.0.”
His place as Harris’s informal advisor has crypto industry onlookers pessimistic that her administration will be any more favorable toward the industry than Biden’s was.