Getting the right tax advice and tips is vital in the complex tax world we live in. The Kiplinger Tax Letter helps you stay right on the money with the latest news and forecasts, with insight from our highly experienced team (Get a free issue of The Kiplinger Tax Letter or subscribe). You can only get the full array of advice by subscribing to the Tax Letter, but we will regularly feature snippets from it online, and here is one of those samples…
Election Day is a month away. And taxes are on the ballot. Many provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act legislation are slated to expire after 2025. These include lower income tax rates, higher standard deductions and child tax credits, the $10,000 limit on deducting state and local taxes, and the higher lifetime estate and gift tax exemption.
Donald Trump's tax plans include making the tax breaks in the 2017 law permanent, and he would take it even further with more tax cuts for individuals and businesses.
Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free E-Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.
Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is sticking with President Joe Biden's oft-repeated pledge that people making less than $400,000 a year won't pay more in federal taxes. We take this to mean that she would give her support to extending the tax breaks in the 2017 law to people earning less than $400,000 — which are most taxpayers.
Let's look at other tax ideas that Harris supports. Some of these are new, while others are retreads, taken from proposals set forth by the Biden administration.
Harris's tax plans for high-income individuals
High-income individuals would see tax hikes, paying more in federal taxes if Harris gets elected.
She’d bring back the top 39.6% income tax rate for people making $400,000 or more and hike the 3.8% net investment income (NII) surtax to 5% for these taxpayers.
She would increase the long-term capital gains tax rate for the wealthy. Long-term capital gains would be taxed at 28% (33% with the 5% NII surtax added in) to the extent taxable income exceeds $1 million. Currently, as a general rule, the highest long-term capital gains rate is 20% (23.8% with the current 3.8% NII surtax).
Similar to Biden, she may want to tax unrealized gains upon death. This proposal treats death as a realization event for income tax purposes, essentially a deemed taxable sale at fair market value, with capital gains and losses reported on the decedent’s final income tax return. The heirs would continue to get a fair-market-value basis in assets they receive. Gifts would also be treated as a realization event for income tax purposes.
Unlike current law, the donees would take a fair market value in gifted property. There would be a $5 million lifetime gain exclusion plus a host of exceptions and complex rules.
Her most controversial "unrealized gains tax" proposal is one that would affect the fewest taxpayers. She backs a 25% minimum income tax on the ultrarich, people with at least $100 million in wealth. The tax would apply to taxable income plus unrealized capital gains, meaning the gain on appreciated assets not yet sold or disposed of. If this provision is ever adopted, expect opponents to sue quickly. Some Supreme Court justices don’t look favorably on taxing unrealized gains.
Harris's tax plans for other individuals
Families, first-time homebuyers, tipped workers in the service and hospitality industry, and other individuals would get breaks under Kamala Harris's tax plan.
She is promising to bring back the 2021 expansions to the child tax credit. Those expansions included hiking the amount from $2,000 per child to $3,600, with monthly payments and full refundability. And she’d make the child credit even bigger, by giving taxpayers a one-time child credit of $6,000, to be claimed on the parent’s tax return for the first year of the child’s life.
Among her other proposals:
- Give eligible first-time home buyers a tax credit of up to $10,000.
- Extend the expansions to Obamacare subsidies, allowing more people without affordable workplace health coverage to get credits for buying health insurance through the marketplace. The expansions are slated to end after 2025.
- Let childless workers claim a higher earned income tax credit (EITC)
- She's taken up Trump's mantra of making tipped income tax-free, but she would target the break only to workers in the hospitality and service industries.
There is radio silence on what Harris would do with the state and local tax deduction that itemizers claim on Schedule A of the 1040. Some Capitol Hill lawmakers from high-tax states are pressuring leadership to get rid of the current $10,000 cap on SALT write-offs or to increase it.
However, doing this would disproportionately benefit higher-income taxpayers and cost the federal government a lot of money that Harris would want to use for her other proposed tax cuts.
Harris's estate tax plans
So far, Harris has stayed silent on the campaign trail when it comes to estate taxes. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act nearly doubled the lifetime estate and gift tax exemption. The exemption for people who die this year is $13.61 million. After 2025, this figure will drop, reverting to the 2017 amount, adjusted for inflation. That's about $7 million. The 40% top estate tax rate wasn't changed in the 2017 law.
We have seen stories that Harris endorses the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, a bill introduced in the Senate by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and in the House by Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO). The bill sets forth a slew of affordable housing proposals. It also calls for changes to estate and gift taxes to offset the provisions.
For example, the bill would lower the exemption to $3.5 million and replace the current 40% estate tax rate with a series of progressive rates, ranging from 55% to 75%.
Despite what some of the online stories say, our research finds no concrete evidence that Harris has endorsed the estate tax reforms in Sen. Warren's bill.
Harris's business tax plans
Harris has proposed tax increases for some businesses:
- She wants to raise the current 21% corporate tax rate to 28%.
- She would increase the 15% alternative minimum tax on very big corporations to 21%.
- She would quadruple to 4% the existing 1% excise tax on stock buybacks by publicly held corporations.
- And she proposes to do away with various business deductions that she and other Democrats say are tax loopholes for the rich.
But she also supports some tax cuts for businesses:
- She has proposed a new tax credit for home builders who sell starter homes to first-time homebuyers.
- She would increase the existing tax incentive for builders of affordable rental units.
- She would let start-up businesses deduct up to $50,000 of their pre-opening costs in the year they commence business. (Presently, the cap for this write-off is $5,000.)
- She calls for a simplified standard deduction for small firms in lieu of deducting specific expenditures, but there are no specifics yet on the amount.
- She wants to create a new tax credit to spur investment and job creation in key strategic industries.
- And she would work hard to keep Republican lawmakers from slashing the green-energy tax subsidies for individuals and businesses that were enacted in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
This first appeared in The Kiplinger Tax Letter. It helps you navigate the complex world of tax by keeping you up-to-date on new and pending changes in tax laws, providing tips to lower your business and personal taxes, and forecasting what the White House and Congress might do with taxes. Get a free issue of The Kiplinger Tax Letter or subscribe
Related Stories
-
Best Cold Weather Places to RetirePlaces to live Some like it hot; others not so much. Here are the 12 best places to retire if you can't stand the heat.
-
Getting Divorced? Beware of Hidden Tax Traps as You Divide AssetsDividing assets fairly in a divorce means looking beyond their current values and asking whether they'll create tax liabilities — or tax breaks — in the future.
-
Getting Divorced? Beware of Hidden Tax Traps as You Divide Assets
Dividing assets fairly in a divorce means looking beyond their current values and asking whether they'll create tax liabilities — or tax breaks — in the future.
-
How to Avoid These 10 Retirement Planning MistakesMany retirement planning mistakes are easily avoidable. Here are 10 to have on your radar so you don't end up running out of money in your golden years.
-
Converting Retirement Savings to a Roth IRA? Don't Do ThisYou might want to convert all of your savings to a Roth in one go, but you could end up paying hundreds of thousands more in taxes than you have to.
-
Asset Protection for Affluent Retirees in 2025Putting together a team of advisers to assist with insurance, taxes and other financial issues can help with security, growth and peace of mind.
-
The Tax Stakes for 2025: Planning for All PossibilitiesIt's unclear whether extending the TCJA provisions for individuals is likely, so what can you do to reduce your overall tax bill either way?
-
A Strategic Way to Address the Tax-Deferred DisconnectWhat you don't know could cost you a fortune. Here's how to make the most of a tax-deferred retirement account and possibly save your heirs a bunch on taxes.
-
Trump Pitches New ‘External Revenue Service’ AgencyTax Policy The new organization would collect tariff revenue from foreign nations.
-
Irrevocable Trusts: So Many Options to Lower Taxes and Protect AssetsIrrevocable trusts offer nearly endless possibilities for high-net-worth individuals to reduce their estate taxes and protect their assets.
