Are you in some kind of contest with SF to bait me instead of honestly debating me? If so, you are losing.
I really get the sense you are not thinking this through. Let me try to help you. Everyone tries to avoid taxes. I have Roth accounts so I can get tax free distributions on our money in the future. I also buy insurance through my work for the tax benefit. I claim the charitable donations, and do a million other things to legally avoid taxes. You probably do these things to. Some idiots buy complicated whole life insurance products to avoid taxes. There is nothing immoral or wrong or unfair about tax avoidance. It is a legal and it is smart. If the capital gains rate were to be raised to the relative income tax rate most smart individuals would not realize the gains. They would let their wealth continue to go and cash out only what they needed in hopes that a future administration would re-enact smart cap gains policies.
Are you familiar with the term sarcasm? That isn't at question, you are trying to reroute the conversation. What is at question is the number of tax credits available to reduce taxes and who they benefit the most. Not all tax rates and credits are created equal. Raucous speculation. They cash out only what they need to anyway, everybody does. Nobody cashes out to bury it in the backyard. If they hold mutual funds, and they hold lots of them, they will have to take some capital gains anyway.
Tax credits benefit everybody. They are also not restricted to any sect of the population, unless there is an upper end restriction. There are far more deductions and credits available to the bottom 90% than there are to the top 10%. But they may cash out extra to buy a new yact or comercial property or whatever. That is why when the tax dropped to 15% associated revenues went up. More gain was realized and taxable because of the lower rate. Why?
But not equally. Capital gains taxes affect those who pay only 7% of their income as salary and the rest as capital gains versus those who pay 90% on salary and 10 on capital gains. Income is income. There should be no flavors of income. Source? Evidence? Who says? Hmmmmm. Here is a screencap from page 22 of OMB's "Historical Tables: Budget of the United States." The column on the left represents total unified tax receipts, the center is total unified expenditures, and the right is the associated surplus or deficit. Note that revenues dropped for 4 straight years before inching back to 2000 levels. How can you associate that 2005 increase directly with the tax cut? Mutual funds can buy and sell individual stocks during the year, growth funds especially. When your 1099's come in, they show capital gains owed on those mutual funds that sold stocks for a profit. Or losses on those sold at a loss. Owners have no control over this. I ended up owing $2,400 more than I expected due to funds I owe that took profits last year. I took no direct action and didn't actually see the money, but my income went up and taxes are owed on it.
You are right. The rich end up getting credits phased out and can't take the credits. I have explained this a bizillion times. There are differences between W-2 and investment income are numero5 s. Your inability to see this ain't my problem. The tax code. Come on you're just being obtuse demanding that. It is common knowledge that most credits and deductions phase out. I said associated revenue. As in revenues from realized capital gains. Your data is useless. I don't even count that. When you do end up selling the fund you will get a credit. It is just prepaying the tax you will eventually owe.
Non-answer. Evasion. Everyone knows there is a difference. The whole friggin' issue is that this difference amounts to unfairness. Put up or shut up. You said that the bottom 90% get more credits than the top 100%. Is that documented somewhere or is it just more assertive rhetoric? Ah, qualification. Yes, I can see why you now wish to qualify your statement. Tax fraud. How delightful! So what? It is income. It is tax.
