Taxing the “Angel of Death” – Brookings

“In a new study (Gale, Hall, and Sabelhaus 2024), we show that taxing those unrealized capital gains upon an owner’s death can raise significant amounts of revenue, would be highly progressive, and would make the economy more efficient as well…Relative to current law, taxing unrealized gains at death would raise significantly more revenue: CBO (2024) estimates that it would raise about $536 billion over the next 10 years.”

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