“How can that be? We’re paying 35%?”
Wage income, like from doing work, is taxed at around 35%, depending on where you are in the tax tables.
Interest income or capital gains from stocks is taxed at 15%.
More than half of Congress and the president and VP are millionaires, and they write the tax laws.
This is one of the major complaints of OWS and was the basis for Warren Buffet’s rant some months ago.
If you work, save, and invest, the fruits of that investment is taxed less. It’s a great incentive to invest your dough so other people can work with it (grow the economy). As Eisenhower found out, raising that rate makes people hide their stash so nobody gets the benefit. Kennedy drastically cut taxes on “the rich” and increased Federal revenue significantly, as well as investment and growth in general as “the rich” could now make a buck by spreading their wealth around in the form of investment via stocks and bonds.
You can see the result in Buffet’s letter, when he complains about how much people make and how much they are taxed, do the math and you’ll see that Buffet proves the point that lower taxes on The Wealthy results in higher federal revenue (to pay for federal stuff).
@#^#&!! I wish...........!!! I pay cap gains near 40% to the Feds every year!!
Of course lets be a bit clearer....Long Term Cap Gains are taxed differently than Short Term Cap Gains....of which I an referring to.
“If you work, save, and invest, the fruits of that investment is taxed less.”
Not really. As no one seems to remember in this mad age of the Buffet Argument, we have a national VAT tax, which eats away at potential return. Because said tax is paid by the fictional personage of the corporation, people forget it affects actual people’s income. Of course, corporations are not the only means of investing, but you know what I mean.
“Buffet proves the point that lower taxes on The Wealthy results in higher federal revenue”
Can I stop you right there and ask whether you really think the wealthy are taxed less? I agree with the general drift of your argument, but that’s not the world we live in. I can’t believe Buffet has managed, against the plain truth, to con people into thinking the rich pay less. Except that I know, per some writer whose name eludes me, “the Credulous Man finds most delight in believing strange things, and the stranger they are, the easier they pass with him.”
All because some silly semantic trick with the word “income.”