Ep. 213 - The Trump Tax Cuts Case Before The Supreme Court

The 16th Amendment gives power to congress to "lay and collect taxes."  After all, a country has to have an ability to raise revenue. When it comes to that revenue, we have had a tradition of paying taxes on income, not the value of an investment, like paying taxes when we sell a few shares of stock in a company and not on the growth of that stock every year we own it.  Those are called realized gains.  There is discussion in the federal government to change that and tax unrealized gains meaning we would have to pay taxes on the increase in value in our homes or investments even before we sell that possession.  The genesis of this Supreme Court case was a provision in the tax cuts package passed and signed into law in 2017 to help pay for those cuts.  We know, tax code and tax law are confusing.  Fortunately, to help us navigate this confusing topic, we have a very special guest with an impressive legal career.  Paul Clement is the country's former Solicitor General (the Department of Justice's chief lawyer in front of the Supreme Court), now in private practice.  He has argued more than 100 cases in front of the Supreme Court, more than any other lawyer since 2000, in or out of government.