This Supreme Court case could seriously alter US tax law — in favor of the rich: report

04 December 2023

This Tuesday, November 5, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to oral hear arguments in U.S. v. Moore — a case involving the federal government's right to tax foreign corporate profits that they haven't received yet.

In an article published by Mother Jones on December 2, journalist Michael Mechanic stresses that the case, depending on its outcome, could have a major impact on U.S. tax law — in favor of the rich.

Steven Rosenthal, a senior fellow with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told Mother Jones, "If the Supreme Court revives a rigid rule from a case they issued a century ago, they will overturn decades of tax rules on capital and on international transactions. And they will preempt billionaire taxes and future capital taxes."

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Charles and Kathleen Moore are the couple who are challenging federal tax law in U.S. v. Moore.

Rosenthal told Mother Jones, "The Moores invested a small amount of money in a foreign corporation and were required, after the restructuring of our tax laws in 2017, to report $15,000 of taxes on their unrepatriated earnings from abroad. It's an inconsequential amount — their share of what had been like $3 trillion in unrepatriated profits, largely of multinationals. But the Moores litigated. They lost in federal district court, the 9th Circuit, and they went to the Supreme Court."

Rosenthal added, "It's not about the $15,000 — the legal fees are far in excess of that. Rather, it's about trying to hamstring Congress' ability to tax capital, especially some of the billionaire and wealth taxes that are being floated…. The Moores are really, in my view, a stalking horse to block Congress from being able to tax billions, maybe trillions of dollars in gains that now often escape taxation completely."

Read Mother Jones' full report at this link.

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