Donald Trump is considering ending capital gains taxes on home sales in an effort to invigorate the housing market.
Taking this action would reduce the tax burden on homeowners looking to sell their homes, which could lead to a boom in the available housing market and potentially incentive sellers to list houses at a lower price.
The president acknowledged that if the Federal Reserve were to lower interest prices, which he has been pressuring Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to do for months, it could lead to the same benefit of encouraging future homeowners to buy.
‘How important is it we have no tax on home sales’ capital gains to unleash the housing market in this country?’ a reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
‘Well we’re thinking about that,’ Trump replied. ‘But would also unleash it just by lowering the interest rates. If the Fed would lower the rates we wouldn’t even have to do that.’
Trump has wanted lower interest rates and has been applying pressure on Powell to implement that.
There are a few positions, however, that purposefully span administrations in an effort to avoid entire overhauls. This includes the chairman of the Fed.
Powell was sworn in for his second term on May 23, 2022 and will serve into Trump’s second year in office when it ends on May 15, 2026.
‘But, we are thinking about no tax on capital gains on houses,’ Trump added during a gathering of press at the White House on Tuesday during his meeting with Philippines President Bongbong Marcos.
This proposal is something that Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) has been spearheading in Congress.
The lawmaker’s No Tax on Home Sales Act would end federal capital gains taxes when people sell their primary residences.
‘You worked for it. You should keep it,’ Greene wrote on X, insisting: ‘Let’s get this bill passed!’
Trump has spearheaded cutting a series of taxes he says are unfair to Americans, including taxes on tipped wages, taxes on overtime work and taxes on Social Security payments.
Encouraging more people to list their home for sale could increase supply and put a downward pressure on home prices, which have skyrocketed in recent years and pushed many future homeowners out of the market.
While interest rates increased after the pandemic slump to record lows, it has now leveled out around between 6 and 7 percent for mortgage interest rates.
As rates increased, home prices remained at pandemic-level highs.
This trend has stopped a lot of younger Americans from becoming first-time homeowners with many opting to continue renting rather than buy a house.