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Historical buybacks: Fast follow or trade with care?
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S&P 500 Spared From Big Tax Hikes

Wall Street, after winning big with President Trump's 2017 tax cuts that cut the corporate income tax rate to 21% from 35%, has largely escaped a big payback under President Biden. That's not for lack of trying.

Biden sought over $2 trillion in tax hikes aimed at corporations and wealthy investors. Hiking the corporate tax rate back to 28% would have raised $900 billion. Biden proposed hiking the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 43.4% from 23.8%, raising $400 billion. Tax hikes on foreign corporate income might have raised $1 trillion in the first decade.

But with every Democrat in the 50-50 Senate owning an effective veto, Sen. Joe Manchin relentlessly squashed down Biden's wish list from well over $2 trillion to an estimated cost of $430 billion. Worried that more government profligacy would exacerbate the inflation threat, Manchin recrafted the bill as the Inflation Reduction Act.

In a worst-case scenario, Wall Street strategists said $S&P 500 Index(.SPX.US)$ earnings could take an 8% haircut, but figured a hit of 3%-4% was more likely. In the end, Goldman Sachs estimates that S&P 500 earnings will be trimmed by about 1.5%. The buyback tax will pare earnings 0.5% and the 15% minimum corporate tax 1%.

The corporate minimum tax targets big companies like $Amazon(AMZN.US)$, which paid a 6% tax rate on U.S. income in 2021. Yet even that provision was shrunk down in 11th-hour negotiations, which preserved the tax advantage of accelerated depreciation for equipment purchases. $Citigroup(C.US)$ analysts think the 15% minimum tax will cut earnings by just 0.4% next year. $SPDR S&P 500 ETF(SPY.US)$ $Invesco QQQ Trust(QQQ.US)$
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