This week, the Supreme Court decided the largest tax case of the past generation, Moore v. United Statesso narrow that it writes a ticket that applies only to Moore’s trains, not to almost all future trains.
Breaking News I See From Views in Reading Moore v. United States It’s Justice Kotanji Brown Jackson, Biden’s appointee to the Supreme Court. Joe Biden himself (though his Justice Department) believes Congress has unlimited power to tax unrealized capital gains or impose a wealth tax on your net worth. Judge Jackson summed up her opinion by saying, in essence, that all questions about the tax provisions of Article I, Section 8, or the scope of the 16th Amendment are political questions and cannot be reviewed by federal courts.
This means the government can tax the appreciation in your home or condo; in your IRA; or any other stock you happen to own, even if you don’t sell any of those items. To my knowledge, until this week, no previous Supreme Court justice had taken a position as radical as Judge Jackson’s that all cases arising under the Tax Clause or the Sixteenth Amendment always raise political questions.
Former President Trump should confront President Biden on this issue at the upcoming debate. President Biden says he expects the winner of the 2024 presidential election to appoint two Supreme Court justices. Appointing two more Supreme Court justices like Justice Jackson would be a mistake.
