Kamala Harris Holds Back On Discussing $5 Trillion Tax Hike Proposal

US Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves as she arrives to speak on the fourth and last day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, on August 22, 2024.

Vice President Kamala Harris has refrained from making public comments regarding her support of a $5 trillion tax hike plan.

The Harris team indicated last week that she is in favor of the tax increases that were also previously included in Biden’s budget blueprint for 2025. The “ambitious” tax rises would represent a significant shift in U.S. tax policy if passed. However, Harris has still not addressed the tax agenda in detail.

Harris’s recent budget proposal included the 2025 tax increases, which her team verified to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

However, besides that, neither Harris nor her campaign representatives have made any further statements regarding the tax portion of the proposal.

This has led to an unusual scenario where a presidential candidate has acknowledged being connected to a set of policies that would have a huge impact on the nation, but has not addressed the issue to the extent that voters are satisfied with.

Nonetheless, after reaching out, the Washington Examiner outlet never received confirmation from any of Harris’s campaign officials that she agrees with Biden’s plan to tax top earners’ unrealized capital gains and a slew of other tax measures.

There is also no mention of the tax plan or any other policy proposal on Harris’s campaign website.

Taxing the unrealized capital gains of individuals with fortunes above $100 million—a small but considerable category when it comes to total investment—would be one of Biden or Harris’s most ambitious tax increases. First proposed in 2023, the plan would tax the total income of individuals with assets over $100 million at a minimum rate of 25%.

Gains would be subject to taxation even if they are not realized, which would be a significant departure from the current tax system if the policy were to become law. When their assets are eventually sold off, billionaires and the affluent are subject to taxation on the appreciation in their investments, sometimes known as capital gains, under the current tax system.

However, a tax on the unrealized capital gains of the wealthy would be extremely difficult to impose, even if Harris prevails and Democrats are able to sweep the House and Senate. This is partly because not all Democrats support the idea.

Conservative strategist and Firehouse Strategies partner Alex Conant says that he believes a wealth tax would have been passed into law years ago if it were a popular or beneficial policy. He stated that there are sound financial arguments against pursuing a significant shift in tax laws.

He also noted that the campaign is underestimating the number of individuals who would reject such a shift and that it would “spark a tsunami of opposition,” including from many Democrats who only pretend to be fighting “for the little guy” as an attractive campaign message.

“It would create so many losers that it would make a lot of Democrats uncomfortable,” Conant said.

Harris also supported a significant tax proposal included in the budget that would raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, striking down the Trump tax cuts.

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