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Politics : Mainstream Politics and Economics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (50288)	8/6/2013 12:18:03 AM
From: i-node	Respond to of 85487

This is a point that, during the election season, was totally over the heads of the voters. Why should a wealthy guy be taxed at a lower "rate" than a not-as-wealthy guy (even though both guys in the race were "wealthy" by any reasonable standard)? But capital gain and ordinary income, as your post shows, are of two different characters. Congress recognized very early on that they should not be taxed the same, thus the capital gains deduction (which at times has been an "exclusion", but whatever). For most people, tax rates are tax rates -- they have no care or awareness of the difference in taxes on capital vs. taxes on profits. When you have Warren Buffett saying, "Look, I pay a lower rate than my secretary" many people go, "well, hell, that isn't right." But it IS right, because they're different. I don't think most people in the country have the slightest idea about it. At least, when I was in practice in the 80s and 90s, probably not one in ten really had any idea their capital gains were taxed differently.