Washington (AFP)

Faced with the opposition of part of the Democrats to an increase in taxes on multinationals to finance infrastructure programs and social measures, an idea has resurfaced: taxing so-called "latent" capital gains is ie tax the dormant gains in the thick portfolios of stocks of the great American fortunes.

Today, a wealthy shareholder like Elon Musk, boss of Tesla or Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, does not pay tax on these unrealized capital gains on the pretext that these gains do not exist until they do. are not actually cashed.

It was the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi who indicated on Sunday that this proposal was on the table.

"We will probably have a tax on the rich," she announced on CNN.

"I would not call it a tax on the rich", hastened to underline for its part the American Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, on the same channel.

"But this would make it easier to achieve gains on capital, which represent an extremely important part of the income of the richest people and which are currently not taxed," she admitted.

The proposal targets people with more than $ 1 billion in assets or more than $ 100 million in income over three years, or less than 1,000 U.S. taxpayers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Other media mention some 700 billionaires.

Ms. Pelosi said it could generate at least $ 200 billion in revenue over a decade, a far cry from the $ 3 trillion to $ 3,200 billion in spending over 8 to 10 years that Joe Biden wanted to reform America.

The option is still under discussion among Democratic senators, according to Pelosi.

But as time is running out to pass the investment plans through Congress, Senator Ron Wyden, head of the Senate finance committee, is expected to detail the final proposal earlier this week, Pelosi said.

Far from the account

He has been working on different versions of this project for two years.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who proposed a more radical version of a tax on these unrealized capital gains last year when she was a presidential candidate, unsurprisingly supports this idea.

"What we need is a tax that focuses on the wealth of the richest Americans," she repeated on MSNBC on Sunday.

Especially since Ron Wyden's project would target not only stocks but also other assets such as real estate.

Republicans will not bring their voice because they have long opposed such a tax, which they say will create additional bureaucracy and is difficult to implement.

Unrealized capital gains fluctuate with the price of the shares.

Therefore, will the tax administration have to reimburse the taxes paid if the prices collapse?

Photo combo of billionaires Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, with President Joe Biden ludovic MARIN, Olivier DOULIERY, Brendan Smialowski, MANDEL NGAN AFP / Archives

On the Democrats' side, the proposal could be deemed acceptable after the compromises made by President Joe Biden who drastically reduced the amount of his investment plans.

However, this new tax, although symbolic, would at best finance 10% of the project, admitted Nancy Pelosi on Sunday.

In other words, the Biden administration will have to find other sources of funding for its pharaonic programs.

The "Build Back Better" plan for social and climate measures remains in the order of 2,000 billion dollars over 10 years and that to modernize infrastructure amounts to 1,200 billion.

Joe Biden has repeatedly insisted that "it is time for American companies and the richest 1% of Americans to pay their fair share".

But he had not until then been in favor of a tax on unrealized capital gains and pushed for higher taxes on multinationals and the wealthiest households.

In the House of Representatives, the Democrats had proposed to increase the corporate tax rate to 26.5% against 21% currently and the personal tax rate to 39.6% against 37%.

But in the Senate, these proposals were rebutted by moderate Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, opposed to tax increases.

© 2021 AFP