Blingy |
08-26-2020 09:24 AM |
So one of my oldest friends is a CPA. He posted this regarding Biden and his tax plan. Thoughts?
Quote:
Generally, as a CPA I am very interested in the campaign process. I follow each candidate's tax ideas into plans and compare and contrast that they are saying with the current tax code. They say things like "raise the tax on the rich" or "cut corporate tax" I have to deduce what they mean, as "rich" usually means "makes twice as much as I do" until it is quantified, and by "corporate tax" -what do they mean -- is it C Corp income tax, S-Corp/Partnership flow through, or payroll taxes/FICA/Medicare?
Usually, I have rough tax plans during the primaries. The only plan that was in the democratic primaries was "I can beat Trump" and "Trump is really screwing up this Covid thing, isn't he?" I recently got Biden's tax plan and I am at a loss figuring out what the heck he is trying to do, other than randomly tax what he considers "rich".
Change 1 - raise top rate (income above 400k) from 37-39.6%. Essentially putting it back where it was before it was lowered in 2017. Ok, not much change there -- that effects <2% of Americans.
Change 2 - cap the rate of itemized deductions at 28%. Weird - not much benefit, itemized deductions were severely limited by 2017 act, and this just complicates it. Sure - it makes more work (translation I charge more) for me, but I don't see it doing anything.
Change 3 - (this is the strange one) Income above 400k to be subject to FICA and Medicare. Currently, FICA drops off at 137,700 (indexed, raises). Medicare has no limit, but increases the employer portion after 200k. This will create a shell between $137,700 and 400k where FICA would not exist, and it would kick back in after that. And you thought you could figure this out with a calculator... Silly rabbit, taxes are for expensive software packages.
Change 4 - The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) reduced corporate income taxes to 21% from 35%. He proposes hiking that back to 28%.
Change 5 - Institute an Alternative Minimum Tax on Corporations -- based on their taxable income, but triggered by their book income. I know you don't know what that means. Let's just assume that tax accountants will make more money as I'm going to have to figure out what the heck that means, and I'm going to charge someone for it.
Change 6 - Corporations need to pay more tax on foreign income. While it sounds like "let's tax those bastards for taking jobs overseas!", what it really means is, "Our long time US company has closed it's US headquarters and is now headquartered in Ireland.." To understand what that means, companies doing worldwide business don't have to be located in the united states, and they are only taxed on their activities in the US. United States corporations that grow, when they move to business outside of the US, their taxes get more complicated. The TCJA changed that to the better, making it more of a territorial tax from a worldwide tax system (income is taxes in the country where it originates). Taxing Foreign Income makes it more of a worldwide tax, and will push companies to not repatriate income to the US.
Change 7 - Raise the capital gains rate on (households above 1M) -- he doesn't give the rate, but current top rate is 23.8%. Meh. Lip service.
Change 8 - Revert the Estate Exemption back to preTCJA levels (5M), and most importantly -- do away with the Step Up in Basis. This is HUGE. The "step up in basis" basically means that your basis (cost) of the inherited item is the value of the item on the date of death. What is really means is that ALL OF THE ESTATE IS TAXED, UNLESS YOU JUST KEEP THE ASSETS. In other words, your grandpa buys a house for $17,000 in 1975. He gives it to his 4 kids when he dies. The current market value is $500,000 and they have to sell it to divide it. In the past, the house would have been valued at 500k, no gain - each kid gets 125k - easy peasy. Now, each kid gets 125k property, 120,750 in gain. It depends how it is computed, but likely short term capital gain - or regular income (24% Fed, 6.9% Idaho) or $83,438 each. "But I thought only Estates over 5M were taxed?
Our grandpa's estate wasn't over 5M, why do I have to pay tax on it????" Lol. Guess what - that's not easy to compute, and another portion of that goes to the CPA that has to figure that crap out.
My overall grade -- D. The income changes or itemized deduction changes don't make a difference or raise much revenue. Changing FICA levels all over the place just makes a complex area of tax much more complicated.
Raising corporate tax rates (what about S-Corp earnings - do they change? Schedule C? Partnerships? Rental Income?) and taxing foreign corporate earnings appear to want to drive corporations out of the US and might do much more harm than good. A corporate AMT might be good for tax flow, but generally only helps tax preparers generate money as AMT is generally credited when income goes back up. Not a real revenue generator - just a way to front-load collections. The step-up in basis estate modification is a game changer and would easily generate boatloads of revenue by taking ~20% of all estates without calling it estate tax - just calling it capital gains.
Let me know your thoughts (tax related - I don't want to hear your "he's incompetent" or your "anything is better than Trump" crap -- I'm just talking about taxes...)
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