Capital gains tax rates benefiting wealthy feed growing gap between rich and poor
in part:
For the very richest Americans, low tax rates on capital gains are better than any Christmas gift. As a result of a pair of rate cuts, first under President Bill Clinton and then under Bush, most of the richest Americans pay lower overall tax rates than middle-class Americans do. And this is one reason the gap between the wealthy and the rest of the country is widening dramatically.
The rates on capital gains — which include profits from the sale of stocks, bonds and real estate — should be a key point in negotiations over how to shrink the budget deficit, some lawmakers say.
“This is something that should be on the table,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), one of 12 members on the congressional “supercommittee” tasked with reducing the deficit. “There’s no strong economic rationale for the huge gap that exists now between the rate for wages and the rate for capital gains.”
While it’s true that many middle-class Americans own stocks or bonds, they tend to stash them in tax-sheltered retirement accounts, where the capital gains rate does not apply.
By contrast, the richest Americans reap huge benefits. Over the past 20 years, more than 80 percent of the capital gains income realized in the United States has gone to 5 percent of the people; about half of all the capital gains have gone to the wealthiest 0.1 percent.
“The way you get rich in this world is not by working hard,” said Marty Sullivan, an economist and a contributing editor to Tax Analysts. “It’s by owning large amounts of assets and having those things appreciate in value.”
Republicans have led the way in pressing for low capital gains tax rates, but they have been able to rely on a significant bloc of Democratic allies to prevent an increase and to protect the preferential treatment of money earned through investments over money earned through labor.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/capital-gains-tax-rates-benefiting-wealthy-are-protected-by-both-parties/2011/09/06/gIQAdJmSLK_story.html?hpid=z1
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