Originally published on Forbes.com.
As I write this the Democratic debate is still going on, but they seem to have covered the tax part. There was not a lot there. Hillary Clinton said that the middle class needs to be paying less and that she would close loopholes and eliminate some deductions. Go to her website for details. I don’t really see a lot there. Get rid of carried interest and her complicated capital gain scheme. Martin O’Malley wants to tax capital gains the same as ordinary income.
Bernie Sanders talked about closing loopholes that allow corporations to stash profits offshore and taxing Wall Street speculation to pay for free college. The moderator kept pressing him on raising rates on the wealthy. That is the shoe that I have been dying to have drop from Senator Sanders, but he was still not forthcoming. He did got a good laugh though when he said that he would not go as high as 90%, the top rate during the Eisenhower Administration, because he is not as much of a socialist as Dwight Eisenhower. O’Malley chimed in that it was 70% in the early part of the Reagan administration.
Sorry for the short post, but it has been a long day. I’m in Harrisburg for the sesquicentennial of the Grand Review of the United States Colored Troops, which sadly is not something I can cover on a tax blog, but you can read about it here.
Here is the clip: