Supreme Court upholds Trump-era tax on foreign earnings

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Trump-era tax on U.S. shareholders of some American-controlled foreign corporations, preserving a major source of government revenue while sidestepping the more controversial question of the constitutionality of the taxation of wealth.

In a 7-2 decision, the court said a 2017 law signed by then-President Donald Trump to generate more than $340 billion is allowed under the 16th Amendment, which gives Congress the power to collect taxes on incomes but not explicitly on property.

A Washington state couple, Charles and Kathleen Moore, sued to strike down the law saying a $15,000 tax bill they paid as shareholders of an Indian company was illegal because they had not personally realized any financial gain.

"Congress has long taxed shareholders of an entity on the entity's undistributed income, and it did the same with the MRT," wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the court's majority. "This Court has long upheld taxes of that kind, and we do the same today with the MRT."

The MRT, or Mandatory Repatriation Tax, was a key part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by then-President Donald Trump. It levied a one-time collection on investors' shares of corporate profits earned overseas, part of a complex plan to encourage greater investment in the U.S.

Conservative groups backing the Moore's urged the court to clearly disavow the possibility of a taxation on wealth – an idea that has been pushed by some prominent Democratic lawmakers – but Kavanaugh left the door open.

"We do not decide that question today," Kavanaugh wrote.

In dissent, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch argued that the MRT is not constitutional because it does not tax income "realized" by the taxpayer.

"The text and history of the [16th] Amendment make clear that it requires a distinction between "income" and the "source" from which that income is "derived." And, the only way to draw such a distinction is with a realization requirement," Thomas wrote. "Because the Moores never actually received any of their investment gains, those unrealized gains could not be taxed as "income" under the Sixteenth Amendment."