Inflation My Foot.

       Now why would you suppose President Trump and his minions feel it's important to make the very, very rich even richer? There's a plan afoot to tax capital gains only after inflation. Now that sounds perfectly harmless, doesn't it. But in fact all it really does is make the rich even richer. How can I say that with a straight face? Easy, because it's the truth.
       The way it's currently taxed and has been since the late 1920s is you buy for one price and sell at a higher price, the difference is taxable. But the plan is to allow for inflation. So if you buy some stock for $8,000 and sell it later for $16,000 then you deduct for inflation at let's say $4,000 then only $4,000 is taxable.
       It wouldn't make anyone wealthy on that one deal, but for the very wealthy, such a deal would be small chump change. See, in order for this to amount to anything like a windfall, you'd have to be trading in the millions. And that's exactly what the super-wealthy do. So what you say? So it means that much less is being paid in taxes overall. Which means the government has to cut out programs. That's something the government hates to do. They prefer to expand programs. The only way to accomplish that would be to raise our taxes.
       I hate to say it, but this is exactly the kind of deal a super-wealthy real estate developer dreams of. Someone like Donald Trump. But certainly not people like you and me. The last time he cut taxes the wealthy made out like bandits while the rest of us saw very little. If he pulls this off, he should get an award. The screwdriver award. But he'll get a whopper of a deal for himself.