Treasury Capital Gain Indexing: Who Can Sue?
Remember when the income tax was first implemented the country was on the gold standard. ( How we went on and off that is a story too complicated for this post). At any rate, if during the gold standard days you bought something for twenty dollars, you might hand somebody a twenty-dollar gold piece. If you sold it for $40 a few years later, you would get two $20 gold pieces. You could go make change for the second one and use some of that to pay taxes and you are clearly ahead.
Off the gold standard, it is a different story. Suppose you bought a vacant lot for $10,000 in 1980 and sell it for $20,000 next week. Is that extra $10,000 an “undeniable accession to wealth”? Well maybe not. According to this handy calculator, $10,000 “1980 dollars”, which is what you paid are equal to $32,912.52 “2018 dollars. There is a common expression “today’s dollars”. You paid over $30,000 in today’s dollars for the lot and are only getting $20,000 in today’s dollars. So indexed gains are a reasonable interpretation of the word “income”, which was not defined because everybody knew what it meant and they were on the gold standard when it went into law.
Lafayette In Charlton On September 1 2018 – Press Release
Contact: Peter J. Reilly Phone: 774-364-2595 Email: peterreillycpa@gmail.com For Immediate Release Website: We Are The...
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Over and over again courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.