Democrats aim to tax the ‘latent’ earnings of the wealthy

The United States, a country that reveres individual success, is preparing to equip itself with a tax on big fortunes to fund the investment plans of Democratic President Joe Biden.

In the face of opposition from part of the Democrats to raising taxes on multinational corporations to pay for Biden’s infrastructure and social programs, the idea of ​​taxing latent capital gains, that is, profits stored in large portfolios of stocks, has re-emerged.

Currently, a businessman like Elon Musk, president of Tesla, or Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, doesn’t pay taxes on those idle profits arguing that they don’t exist until they are actually collected.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that the idea of ​​taxing those potential earnings is on the table. “We will probably tax the rich,” he told CNN.

The proposal targets people with assets of more than $1 billion or whose income is more than $100 million in three years; Which means fewer than 1,000 taxpayers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Other media say there are about 700 billionaires.

For Pelosi, the tax will contribute at least $200,000 million to the Treasury in 10 years.