If you work for income, you not only pay higher income taxes, you pay SS and Medicare.

Is work bad? Is being wealthy (even if you inherited it) good?

As an example, what did the Walton heirs contribute to society? Why should they be taxed less just because they inherited unimaginable wealth?

I say that income is income. Period.

100% inheritance tax on anything over,.. let us say one million USD of wealth transfer.

This is what would get rid of these people.

I am not worried as much about the capital gains of an individual, but the generational wealth transfer disturbs me greatly.

They rammed through that capital gains cut by moaning about elderly people who needed to sell stocks in order to live and they did have a point. Unfortunately, the hedge funds have reaped 99% of the benefit of low capital gains rates, not retirees.

They need to have a two pronged approach to solve this mess: a progressive tax structure that would spare lower middle class elderly people while taxing speculators and predators and a per transaction tax that would raise a great deal more revenue than an increased capital gains tax while eliminating the incentive for the HFT that has so skewed the market.

Progressive taxation is the only way to do this, to preserve the poorer while having the richer pay their fair share.

still refute the "stimulate" and "invest" argument and then say well it's reasonable at a point to tax higher - everyone can benefit from a lower rate at the bottom, but then you gotta pay up more.

I would argue for really high rates on folks like Mitt with the 10-20 million in investment income. That alone would be real stimulus.

Don't forget the American people can't remember what they had for breakfast this morning. He's smart enough to know that the best attacks will be the ones closest to the election. The tax issue worked when the campaign first raised it. Now the dog is out there, and the campaign is just waiting for the right time to use that little whistle. Don't worry. Taxes will come up, especially in regards to rich assholes like Rmoney.

He might not directly discuss capital gains because Americans don't understand economics. They think "Me like tax cuts 'cause me like more money." Try explaining capital gains to them. It'd be like teaching a toddler physics.

Because it's pretty much the last thing left that keeps them tethered to society.
I remember George H.W. Bush repeatedly saying in speeches he wanted to abolish the capital gains tax.
Then I think later he changed that to just trying to get it cut in half.
I think they will not rest until they somehow get it eliminated.
In my opinion capital gains should just be added to regular income and all of it taxed at the appropriate rate.
There should be no "discount" for capital gains.

which is exactly how it should be treated.

taxing different forms of income differently mostly just encourages people in a position to do so to recharacterize their income as the more tax-favored form.

really, a ceo who "earns" $10,000,000 in salary plus bonus without stock options should be taxed radically higher than a ceo who "earns" a $1 salary and $9,999,999 in capital gains from company options? that's just silly.

note that in the latter case, the ceo's total social security tax is a whopping six cents. not six percent, not even the $6 thousand cap (or whatever it is).

no, just six cents.

six cents on $10,000,000 of income.

investment into non capital markets.

That increase will lead more and more capital to seek other channels, like tax free bonds and so on.

I don't have a problem with it but it should be done with full knowledge that there is going to be an effect.

Personally I think it would be more effective to increase capital gains marginally and focus more on deductions to industry like the oil industry.

Finally you can make an argument that it is better to keep the capital gains tax low but increase inheritance tax on the rich.

One poster argued for 100% inheritance on everything over a million dollars and it was this proposal by Senator McGovern that had more to do with his landslide defeat than any others. We had good neighbors that were radical Democrats and didn't want McGovern to win because of that issue. If you don't have a million then it seems fair. If you have assets of $ 2 million (which is good but not that fantastically wealthy, especially if you have a small business or farm, then you see it another way.

Of all of the taxes that are easiest to get around inheritance tax is the easiest. Simply buy life insurance and its tax free.

So inheritance tax really only works well on the super rich but usually what happens is that they end up giving most of it away so that they can have a hospital wing named after them.

But your rate comes down and the burden also comes down on you for one more reason, and that is every middle-income taxpayer no longer will pay any tax on interest, dividends or capital gains. No tax on your savings. That makes life a lot easier.

IDK, But I am middle class and I don't have any capitopl gains to be taxed. What rMoney is saying he is going to do is completely wipe out his OWN taxes.

They quietly removed that term from common usage.