Back in December 2017, Donald Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, claiming the bill was going to do wonders for the middle class. Of course, as it turned out, that wasn’t exactly accurate. In reality, the legislation was all about saving corporations billions—money that, shockingly, has not trickled down from the pockets of multinationals, top executives, and shareholders. In fact, American workers received, on average, a bonus of 1 cent, despite the elaborate fantasy spun by the White House that the TCJA resulted in sizable cash prizes for the little guy, all while the extremely rich benefited bigly. And now, less than two years later, Trump is pretty sure the über-wealthy could use another tax break.

Bloomberg reports that the White House is working on a plan to cut taxes by adjusting capital gains for inflation, a move that would significantly reduce taxes on long-held investments. Currently, when an asset like real estate or a stock is sold, tax is paid on the appreciation tied to inflation. So while corporate stock with dividends held for 10 years would be hit with an effective tax rate of 24.3% at present, the White House plan—which may be advanced “soon”—would mean the same holding would be subject to a tax rate of 21.4%, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The move would reduce tax revenue by an estimated $102 billion over a decade and the benefits would almost exclusively go to the wealthiest people in the country:

.…the top 1% [would receive] 86% of the benefit, according to estimates in 2018 by the Penn Wharton Budget Model.

Naturally, this is not something that would have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing the House, where lawmakers are (rightfully!) still bristling about the fact that the 2017 tax cuts disproportionately helped the rich. So the White House has a plan: cut out the middle man and do it by executive order. To give you an idea of how unpopular an idea that is, Steven Mnuchin, one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers, doesn’t even want to be a part of it:

The work is largely taking place at the White House because the Treasury Department has been slow-walking the process, over concerns that the change could be challenged on legal grounds and that it might require Congress to rewrite the law, the people said.

But Trump has told confidants recently that he remains deeply invested in making the change, they said. Trump last year said in an interview with Bloomberg News that he was considering indexing capital gains to inflation…. A Treasury Department spokesman declined to comment. The White House hasn’t asked the Justice Department for a formal legal opinion on the matter, the people familiar with the matter said.

While the Bush White House—the one that thought the executive branch could basically do whatever it wanted—mulled such a plan, it was reportedly shelved over arguments among senior officials as to whether or not it was legal. Luckily, the Trump administration has at least one guy in its corner ready to praise this thing to the high heavens. “It would be a giant economic stimulus for the economy,”said Stephen Moore, the guy who dropped out of consideration for a seat on the Fed Board after, among other things, experts deemed him economically illiterate. “It would help the stock market and it could unleash hundreds of billions of dollars of new capital for investment.”

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Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli thinks he’s done enough time

Remember Martin Shkreli aka the “Pharma Bro”? Four years ago he shot to fame after raising the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000% overnight, earning the ire of a diverse group of individuals that included everyone from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump to the Wu-Tang Clan. Not content to rest on the laurels earned by price-gouging people with HIV, Shkreli cemented his status as “The Most Hated Man in America” by putting a bounty on a lock of Clinton’s hair, harassing journalists, threatening to do everything in his power to make a former employee’s family homeless, and by generally behaving like an unrepentant troll. Anyway, in 2018 he was sentenced to seven years in prison after being convicted of defrauding investors in his hedge funds and while he’s had a good run running his business from the inside, his lawyer thinks it‘s time to set him free in addition to vacating his conviction:

A lawyer for imprisoned “Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli will attempt to convince a higher court Friday to toss his client’s 2017 securities fraud conviction. Attorney Mark Baker is expected to argue to the Second Circuit appellate court that Brooklyn federal court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto erred in her instruction of the jury before they began deliberating Shkreli’s fate…. The 36-year-old “Most Hated Man in America” was convicted on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in August 2017, following a six-week trial in which prosecutors said he defrauded investors while running an $11 million Ponzi-like scheme. He was acquitted on four other counts, which Baker claims in appellate papers shows that Matsumoto failed to accurately explain the law to the jury.

Shkreli, who is slated for release in October 2023, is not expected to attend the hearing.

Elsewhere!

Jony Ive, iPhone designer, announces Apple departure (Financial Times)

How Much Was Ive Worth to Apple? Market Says $9 Billion (Bloomberg)

JPMorgan, Goldman, and others boost dividends and buybacks after passing Fed stress test (CNBC)

“It’s going to be like a hot IPO” (NYT)

Credit Suisse is the sole bank tripped up by Fed stress test as rest get approval to boost payouts (CNBC)

Zuckerberg Says Safeguarding Democracy Is “Above Our Pay Grade” (The Hive)

Pilots Flagged Software Problems on Boeing Jets Besides the Max (Bloomberg)

Swiss Stocks to Be Barred From E.U. Trading as Talks Fail (Bloomberg)

Overweight Florida cat gets sent to fat camp (NYP)

Melting Autobahn, jaguars in pools, naked men on scooters: Europe faces an “inferno” (Washington Post)