White House: Capital gains tax rise will hit only richest 0.3% – FT

Defending US President Joe Biden’s plans to hike capital gains taxes for high-earning Americans, a senior White House official told the Financial Times (FT) on Monday, just 0.3% of people filing taxes in the US would be hit by higher levies on their investments under the plan.

Key quotes

“There’s increasing evidence that over recent years in fact many, many of the returns at the very top are what they call above-market rates of return, rents and so on.”

“Taxing the people who are doing extremely well in the economy is one way of asking somewhat more from that.”

“This is consistent with what the president had said on the campaign trail, which was that we needed to fundamentally reform parts of the code that affect the very, very richest or very highest-income Americans, in ways to make sure that it is fair and not rewarding wealth overwork.”

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