Although it could give a lot of work to appraisers, the proposed billionaire tax is an example of “really bad tax law,” says the dean of valuation, Aswath Damodaran (New York University Stern School of Business). An article in The Wall Street Journal also rips into the proposal, making some of the same points Damodaran did, but also notes that it would accelerate the shrinkage of the U.S. public capital markets. The proposal’s tax on unrealized gains would discourage entrepreneurs from taking their companies public, the article says. For now, the proposal has been eliminated from the latest version of the spending bill, but the current version has a provision that would impose a 5% surtax on those earning more than $10 million a year, with an additional 3% on income of more than $25 million.
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