Transcript:
Easan Arulanantham:
“There’s been a lot of changes to the “build back better” plan with new taxes and dropping of other taxes. So can you kind of give a basic summary. Also, there’s a lot of things that were removed from it, and how do you think that affects the market?”
Tom Vaughan:
Yeah. Okay. So this is something I’ve been trying to keep up with as much as possible in terms of the size of that package, what they’re going to cut out of that package, and then the taxation issues. I do think it’s important to understand that you got to be really careful about making adjustments to your situation based on a bill that hasn’t passed yet. And this is a great example, because throughout the committees and what have you, the one consistency has been trying to raise taxes on corporations, somewhere in the 25 to 28% range; currently at 21. Raising taxes on high income capital gains from 20% to 25%. Basically, a couple with $450,000 or more would have to pay 25% instead of 20%. And then the last one is just the overall top tax bracket, which is currently 37% on the Fed basis would go to 39.6%, which is where it was before.
Well, apparently Kyrsten Sinema has decided that that’s not going to happen, she’s not going to vote for any of those tax increases. And so they’re now scrambling around looking for other ways to do taxation. So some of the things that they’re talking about now are taxing unrealized capital gains on on billionaires, which is interesting. Taxing stock buybacks, so if a company like Apple buys back $100 million, they would pay some kind of tax on that buyback, and etc. So they’re trying to find alternate ways to, you know, fund this bill. And so I think that’s kind of fascinating, we’ll see how that plays out. In the end, it’s more important that they get it through. And most important to me is that they include a debt ceiling increase into that and get this done before early December, so we don’t end up with another cliffhanger as far as that goes. They’re talking more like a 1.9 trillion $2 trillion bill, instead of three and a half trillion, which was the original proposal, they’re going to be cutting back on some of the Clean Energy pieces. For example, the utility companies were originally in that one first plan, we’re going to get money towards converting to green energy, or penalties for not doing so that seems to be you know, falling apart at this point in time. You also have, they’re going to do free community college for two years after high school, that seems to be off the table. And they’re essentially keeping a lot of pieces, but just cutting them down, like by a third to a half. And so you know, we’ll have to see how this all plays out.
Again, it’s all speculation until they really get through with that bill and we’ll have some more information. It is important to kind of understand what is happening, especially once it’s done, because part of a successful retirement is to be able to manage taxation correctly, and manage your assets correctly. And so how do those bills, impact your returns in the stock market? What should you do to kind of make sure you’re getting what you can out of that? And, more importantly, how do those bills affect your personal tax return? Which, you know, could be an issue as far as that goes. So tax planning becomes an important component there. So once we do know more, we can talk about it more. But those are the changes that they’re talking about right now. I actually think the reduction or elimination of corporate taxation, no matter what people think about it, is a stimulative situation to the market. So if the market feels like corporate taxes are going to stay at 21, and not go to 25, or 28, that is going to be something that the market would move upward on, just because that means more earnings. And earnings are ultimately the piece that drives the market forward. So, you know, it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Easan Arulanantham:
Yeah, so …until they’re actually starting to vote on this bill, it’s really kind of just jump over the guns make any kind of changes or actions based on it?
Tom Vaughan:
Yeah, I’ve heard I’ve run into a lot of kind of misinformation. Oh, … “I need to sell my stuff now, because capital gains is going to go to 25%.” And so there’s a couple fallacies there. Number one is that’s now off the table. So that might not happen. The number two, that only happens for people with over $400,000 individual basis, or $450,000 on a joint filing basis. And again, I don’t have any retired plans, for example, that have that much income, that they’re putting on their tax return at this point in time, unless something special is happening, like they’re selling their house, or what have you. …So you have to be a little careful of reacting to the ‘potential of a bill.’ It’s good to think about. It’s good to have some plans. It’s good to be ready, so that if you do need to make some decisions, you can do so. But making adjustments prior to the bill, that could be a little bit hazardous in my opinion.