ATR today sent a letter to President Obama asking him to clarify whether or not the 2.9 percent surtax on "unearned income" applies to capital gains. Here’s an excerpt:
In particular, I am referring to the following sentence:
In addition, it would add a 2.9 percent tax for such high-income households to unearned income including interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents (excluding income from active participation in S corporations).
The Joint Committee on Taxation has privately scored your plan under the assumption that it does not tax capital gains in this way. However, a February 22nd report in Bloomberg stated that an un-named administration source confirmed that the 2.9 percent tax did, in fact, apply to capital gains.
Which one is it, Mr. President? Is the “unearned income” list you provided exhaustive, as the JCT has assumed? Or is it an incomplete list, one which failed to include capital gains, as the Bloomberg report suggests?
In the interest of transparency and full disclosure in the healthcare debate, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that a multi-hundred billion dollar tax hike be made known in full well ahead of any further Congressional votes on healthcare.