US Senators Propose Bill to Close Tax Loophole for Trump Billionaire Appointees

Four Democrats in the US Senate have introduced a new bill to prevent billionaires appointed to the Trump administration from using an old loophole to save huge sums on paying taxes, Senator Tammy Baldwin’s office said in a press release on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — According to the release, Senators Tammy Baldwin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Elizabeth Warren, and Dianne Feinstein reintroduced the bill "to prevent President-elect Donald Trump’s enormously wealthy cabinet nominees – and possibly Trump himself — from ducking millions of dollars in taxes."

A provision of the US tax code currently allows executive branch and judicial appointees to defer paying taxes on profits from assets they sell to comply with ethics rules. But the legislation would limit to $1 million the amount of capital gains that can be deferred under the program, the release explained.

“President-elect Trump has every right to fill his cabinet with billionaires… but these wealthy insiders should not be allowed to dodge paying their fair share of taxes,” Baldwin claimed.

Section 1043 of the tax code, added during the George H. W. Bush administration, allowed former Goldman Sachs CEO and George W. Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to avoid paying an estimated $200 million tax bill, the release noted.

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