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Mark Cuban said taxing unrealized capital gains would “kill the stock market.”
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President Joe Biden has proposed taxing unrealized gains for individuals with net worth over $100 million.
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Kamala Harris is unlikely to back Biden’s plan, Cuban said.
Any proposal to tax unrealized capital gains would “kill the stock market,” billionaire investor Mark Cuban said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday.
As part of his sweeping tax proposals, President Joe Biden has suggested taxing the unrealized capital gains of individuals with a net worth of more than $100 million.
While Vice President Kamala Harris has neither endorsed nor rejected Biden’s proposal on unrealized capital gains, Cuban said, it is dead on arrival.
“If you tax unrealized profits, you’re going to kill the stock market, and it’s going to be the ultimate jobless plan for private equity because companies aren’t going to go public because they might get ripped off,” Cuban said.
Cuban’s “whiplash” comment alluded to the main question investors have surrounding the proposed taxes on unrealized capital gains: What happens if those unrealized capital gains eventually turn into unrealized capital losses in a volatile stock market?
But according to Cuban, who said he had been speaking frequently with Harris’ campaign in recent weeks, Harris is highly unlikely to endorse such a plan.
“They realize that’s the problem,” he said, adding of Harris: “While it’s not in direct conflict with Biden’s tax plan, for her, her value proposition is that we should tax everyone fairly, starting with Biden’s plan as a starting point. But that’s not necessarily her end point.”
Harris has already rejected some aspects of Biden’s tax proposals, offering her own vision of what she would propose as president.
While Biden has proposed moving the long-term capital gains tax rate to 39.6% for households with taxable incomes of more than $1 million, Harris says that is too high and has proposed raising it to 28% instead.
“What I’m really trying to convey is that she’s open-minded. She’s not an ideologue. She wants to do what’s best for business,” Cuban said.
Cuban defended the Democratic presidential nominee despite criticism that Harris has yet to unveil a set of detailed economic policy proposals as the November election fast approaches.
“Like any good CEO trying to turn a battleship around, there’s a limit to what you can do each day,” Cuban said. “Like any good CEO, you have to do it when you do it right.”
Read the original article on Business Insider