(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump retweeted a pair of messages pressing for the U.S. to index capital gains to inflation, a move that would slash the tax payable on any asset that's appreciated in value over a lengthy period of time.
Trump on Friday retweeted Forbes Media Chairman Steve Forbes, who'd circulated an article co-authored by Republican Senator Ted Cruz calling for indexation.
“An idea liked by many?” Trump added, after recently having described the notion as “somewhat elitist” and saying he wasn't interested in it.
Moments later, the president retweeted a message -- this time without further comment -- from the Club for Growth, a small-government advocacy group, calling on him to “boost our already winning economy by indexing capital gains to inflation.”
Cruz has been pressuring Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to cut taxes for investors by indexing capital gains, arguing that the move would encourage savings, investment and innovation. Mnuchin has so far been hesitant to making the change.
Trump said last week that he's not looking to cut taxes by indexing capital gains and that doing so would be perceived as “somewhat elitist” as it would primarily benefit the wealthy.
“I've studied indexing for a long time,” Trump said at the time. “It will be perceived if I do it as somewhat elitist. I don't want to do that.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Ros Krasny
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