I am confused by your example

Reader comment on: What the GOP Would Do
in response to reader comment: Class warfare

Submitted by benjamin (United States), Aug 5, 2010 21:00

Was the businessman not earning any money or taking any income while he built his business? Was he eating at the soup kitchen and living in a homeless shelter while building his million dollar business? Presumably he was not, and most likely was earning more than the 50k the city worker makes, particularly in the run up to selling his business. So adding his accumulated wages and the 600k he would take after selling his business and paying capital gains taxes, he is doing quite well - particularly when measured against the city worker. I don't begrudge him success, he may have worked harder, taken more risk, taken less vacation etc. As a result, he is far wealthier. However, he should still pay capital gains tax.

I also wonder what percentage of the money gained or lost from a capital gains tax increase/decrease would benefit the kind of person you describe. My hunch is that a far greater amount of the tax break would end up in the pockets of people who we might not define as "rich," but as "loaded."

Perhaps we could agree to a progressive capital gains tax rate adjusted for a person's net worth? E.g., Billionaires pay 50%, people with a net worth of less than a million pay no capital gains. That could be an idea I could support perhaps.

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