Kamala’s Tax Plan: Why Worry About Real Income When You Can Tax the Imaginary Kind?

by Jeff Childers

Financial issues can be complicated, especially when experts get involved. You should let them take care of your money. Meet Kamala Harris’s ‘economic advisor’ Bharat Ramamurti (definitely made-up). Bharat had a bad moment on CNBC yesterday:

NEW: CNBC host Joe Kernen rolls his eyes and laughs after Harris’ economic advisor Bharat Rama tries arguing in favor of Harris’ unrealized capital gains tax.

Rama sat in silence as the hosts poked fun after he tried saying that property tax was an unrealized gains tax.

“It’s… pic.twitter.com/lK4jGL6phz

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 28, 2024

Mr. Ramamurti is a far-left attorney who recently joined the Kamala campaign. Before that, he was Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren’s assistant (Indians hiring each other), and then Biden’s deputy economic director. He focused on forgiving student loans and canceling the fossil fuel industry.

Yesterday Bharat popped up on CNBC to defend unrealized capital gains.

The heart of what folks delicately call Kamala’s ‘economic plan’ (beyond her goofy, unworkable idea for grocery price controls) is the dumbest idea ever proposed by a major presidential candidate, ripped straight from Marxist textbooks, called “unrealized capital gains taxes.”

Here’s how it works: Say you own 100 shares of Tesla stock, which you bought at $100. Then, in December last year, following a rumor that Elon would create a jet-fueled Cyber-SuperTruck, the stock briefly raced up to $250 a share. A few days later on January 2nd, after everybody sobered up and realized it was all just a rumor, the stock fell back to $75, where it stayed ever since.

From your point of view, you’ve lost money. Thanks a lot, Elon. But from Kamala’s point of view, you did very well. Since the stock was momentarily worth $250 right at the end of 2023, you’d owe taxes on annual imputed income of $15,000 bucks (+$150 per share at 100 shares). It wouldn’t matter that the value fell back down again in 2024. That’s a different tax year.

Believe it or not, that’s Kamala’s best example. Stocks are easily valued, since stock prices are listed right on the stock market. But Kamala’s plan gets even dumber than it already looks when you consider how impractical it would be to tax ‘unrealized capital gains’ on other types of assets, like real estate.

How, for tax purposes, are owners supposed to value real estate, when there’s no agreed-on price? Would the government accept the owner’s opinion of the value? Or would they force property owners to get an appraisal every single year, to file with their tax returns? Or would IRS agents, like property tax appraisers, set the value of everything you own?

There are many other problems, least of all that Kamala’s tax proposal is probably outright unconstitutional, because imputed income isn’t actually income. Instead, Kamala’s controversial pet tax looks more like a taking, which is prohibited under the Fifth Amendment without just compensation.

Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that Bharat experienced the verbal equivalent of being pig-piled by the CNBC anchors the instant he started trying to defend Kamala’s indefensible tax plan.

But think about this: the visceral disgust the two CNBC anchors obviously felt was the same reaction anyone who understands money and investing would have about the concept of unrealized capital gains. Lots of financially-literate people ‘get it,’ including a critical part of the Democrat base: high-income individuals, corporate types, and oligarchs.

Here’s how the headlines are showing up in the financial trade press, like FinBold, two days ago:

 
In other words, Kamala’s economic plan seems almost tailor-made to alienate critical parts of the Democrat donor class.

Two final comments on the way out. First, it’s not even Kamala’s plan, it’s a Biden plan she stole. Stealing other people’s policies is starting to look like a kleptomaniacal Kamala pattern. Second, the plan assures everybody that unrealized gains taxes will only apply to people worth $100 million. So you have nothing to worry about, unless you think the government always says that, and what will actually happen is that rich people will move to Switzerland and the IRS will be ‘forced’ to lower the boom on us regular folks.

Kamala’s unrealized gains tax plan is practically a Trump campaign ad.

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