The Supreme Court rarely hears tax cases, and tax cases rarely threaten to affect the public at large. Moore v. United States, to be argued tomorrow, is that rare exception. The case raises an issue at once beguilingly simple and oddly difficult: What does income mean?
This is a question with ramifications for virtually every area of American taxation; depending on how the Court answers it, Moore could produce a chaotic ruling that casts constitutional doubt on huge swaths of the tax system. But it’s also a question that the Court doesn’t need to answer, and one that it shouldn’t.
The issue teed up in Moore may be so intellectually stimulating that nobody seems to have noticed that the case has been fundamentally misframed.
Income is when you have money coming in. Next!
Clarification: including “capital gains”, inheritances and whatever other (primarily) rich people revenue sources are taxed less because they have more expensive lobbying and lawyers.
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Don’t. Just don’t. I’ve heard all the legal fictions (in both senses of the word) and other specious arguments and you won’t convince me that something that you increase your wealth by obtaining isn’t income.
Might doesn’t make right and neither does agreeing with the most expensive lawyers and most corrupt judges.
You’re agreeing with the rich people in this case when you say that. They got none of those things in this case. They’re being taxed on money they could theoretically get.
They’re being taxed on money they could theoretically get.
I’m guessing you’re talking about “unrealised gains” but that’s still not accurate.
You pay property taxes for your physical properties that you haven’t sold, like your house. Why should intangible assets be valuable in the same way but not taxed in the same way?
Anybody got a TL:DR?
TL;DR the rich don’t want the government taxing their assets, they want to keep taxes to money only so they can keep their “income” low and hide the rest.
Regressive tax ftw!
Which they already can do anyway. This just paves the way to do it legally and in the open.
More literally, in Trump’s such people tax break, there was added a tax on money invested overseas. The Moore’s invested money overseas, but hadn’t gotten a return on it yet, so they’re saying that money isn’t “income” which is what is taxable according to the 16th amendment.
So 100% rich people trying to protect their tax havens
Good summary, but that’s a stupid argument (by the people making it). We already have all kinds of taxes that exist as fees for moving goods (tariffs) and even for moving money (e.g. a tax penalty if I withdraw early from my 401k).
It seems perfectly valid to have a tax/fee on moving money overseas to invest it. One might argue that’s not “fair” for some reason (e.g. if the money is taxed in the other direction too), but it’s certainly something the government has the power to do.
Our current Supreme Court isn’t exactly respecting precedent in their judgements
