New Peter Schiff Interview: Proposed Taxes Are Blatantly Illegal

Peter appeared on OAN’s Real America with Dan Ball to discuss new prospective income taxes, the latest idiotic craze in politics.

He starts by explaining why President Biden’s desired policy isn’t even an income tax:

“The worst of the capital gains tax is that Biden wants to impose a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains, which is definitely unconstitutional because it’s not an income tax. … If you haven’t realized the gain, you have no income subject to tax under the 16th amendment. It’s a property tax. You’re taxing property, and property taxes are direct taxes. They’re still bound by the rule of apportionment. They’re not exempted through the 16th amendment, so it would be unconstitutional.”

If such a tax was legal, it would still be a terrible policy, and it’d complicate the already burdensome tax code:

“It would also be economically destructive to try to force people to pay taxes on income they haven’t even received. They’d have to sell their assets. Imagine having to appraise your illiquid assets every year and then have to pay some kind of tax without having the liquidity to actually pay it. It would be an economic disaster if that were to be passed!”

Even raising corporate taxes would ultimately fall on the shoulders of everyday Americans:

“Nobody seems to understand: corporations don’t really pay taxes. They collect taxes. When you’re talking about taxing a corporation, you’re taxing the shareholders, you’re taxing the employees and the customers. So that’s the American public! One way or another, all corporate taxes are paid by the public. So if you’re raising the corporate tax, you’re raising the taxes on their employees, their shareholders, and their customers. That’s it.”

Thankfully, Peter thinks the proposed taxes are doomed to fail. He also reminds us of the government’s dishonest record with income taxes:

“It’s not gonna pass. At least we’ve got some Republicans with some sense in the House. This is just red meat to the base— the socialists that dominate the base of the democratic party. Yeah, they want to soak the rich. Remember, the only reason we have an income tax is because the government promised that it was only for the billionaires. … It was only 4% when it first started, back in 1916. So the government lied to the public, because as soon as they got the income tax passed, they started jacking up the rates.”