Harris Calls For Lower Capital Gains Tax Rate Than the 39.6% Biden Proposed

During a campaign stop in Portsmouth, NH, on Sept. 4, Vice President Kamala Harris said she is proposing a 28% capital gains tax rate on people earning $1 million or more, which differs from the 39.6% rate that President Joe Biden has endorsed, Bloomberg reported.

“While we ensure that the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, we will tax capital gains at a rate that rewards investment in America’s innovators, founders and small businesses,” the Democratic presidential nominee said during the event, where she also laid out her plan to get millions of small businesses started.

The current capital gains tax rate is 20%.

Harris in recent weeks has sought to roll out her economic agenda, seeking to convince voters to trust her on the economy and to assure them that she will work to curb the high prices that have hit U.S. households hard under the current administration.

Her proposals have included calls for expanded tax credits for parents and $25,000 down-payment assistance for first-time home buyers. Harris plans to pay for those tax cuts by increasing the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, imposing a minimum income tax on billionaires, and quadrupling a levy on stock buybacks, according to a campaign official who spoke to Bloomberg on condition of anonymity to detail policy discussions.

Harris has vowed to pay for all of her spending plans with higher taxes on businesses and wealthy households.

President Biden’s capital gains tax plan called for nearly doubling the top rate to 39.6%. When combined with a proposed net investment income tax increase to 5%, the wealthiest Americans’ total rate could have been 44.6%, Kiplinger reported.

Former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said he would likely support a 15% reduced capital gains tax rate. That proposal is also part of a broader conservative tax agenda—some described in Project 2025, from which Trump has tried to distance himself—that some say would shift U.S. tax policy toward a consumption model.

While speaking to the Economic Club of New York on Thursday, Trump said he would cut corporate taxes for companies that produce in the U.S.

The Associated Press reported:

Trump has previously floated the idea of chopping the 21% corporate tax rate to 15%, but on Thursday clarified that would be solely for companies that produce in the U.S. The corporate rate had been 35% when he became president in 2017, and he later signed a bill lowering it. Trump has also proposed not to tax tips or Social Security income.

Trump spoke to the same group eight years ago, and on Thursday he touted his economic accomplishments while in office, including jobs created on his watch, cuts on taxes and regulations, and his efforts to renegotiate trade deals.

With Tribune News Wire Services