Last night, The Wall Street Journal reported that Hillary Clinton plans to “redo” the capital gains tax. Yes, redo does mean raise tax rates. Clinton plans to raise the capital gains tax rate above 28%, much higher than the 15% middle-income investors pay:
At the center is Mrs. Clinton’s proposal to change capital-gains tax rates. The Democratic presidential candidate’s plan would create a scale with at least three new rates that change depending on how long an investment is held, the official said.
Investments held for less than a year would continue to be taxed at regular income-tax rates, which can top out at 39.6% or more for the highest earners. For those held just a little longer—likely two or three years—the current capital-gains tax rate of 23.8% for top earners would rise. The rate, which hasn’t been finalized, would be higher than the 28% President Barack Obama proposed earlier this year for the highest earners. The Clinton campaign hasn’t ruled out taxing such investments at the regular income-tax rate.
The most glaringly hypocritical part of this proposal: what Hillary Clinton said in 2008:
ABC NEWS’ CHARLIE GIBSON: “The question was about capital gains tax. Would you say, ‘No, I’m not going to raise capital gains taxes?’” CLINTON: “I wouldn’t raise it above the 20 percent if I raised it at all. I would not raise it above what it was during the Clinton administration.”