SCOTUS Ruling on Moore Prevents Big Retroactive Corporate Tax Break, Leaves Door Open to Federal Wealth Taxes

Today the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 2017 Trump tax law’s mandatory repatriation tax, one of the few revenue-raising measures in the law. While this tax on corporate profits stashed offshore was a half-measure, it was an important one that raised a lot of revenue.

The Court’s ruling is an important victory for fair taxation, as invalidating the tax would have given about 400 multinational corporations a collective $271 billion tax break. The Court ruled narrowly and chose not to rule on the issue of whether broader federal taxes on unrealized income or wealth would be constitutional.

STATEMENT FROM ITEP EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AMY HANAUER:

“Today’s ruling is a win for anyone who didn’t shelter income in offshore tax havens before 2018. It preserves close to $300 billion of tax revenue paid by some of the biggest and most profitable corporations in human history. If the Court had retroactively repealed this one-time tax, any other way of making up the resulting shortfall would have fallen far more heavily on middle-and-low-income families and small businesses.

The Supreme Court also could have taken an activist turn of the worst kind by preemptively ruling federal wealth taxes unconstitutional today. To its credit, the Court did not do so.”