The Democrats say we should increase taxes on the rich by raising income taxes. Doesn’t being rich mean you have a lot of assets? Should be people that earn a lot of money be taxed higher even though they may not have accumulated any wealth (yet)? Isn’t there a difference between people how EARN a lot of money and those those that HAVE a lot of money?
FRITZ
Comments
You may be on to something. You should send your idea to congress or better yet you should run for congress.
You can have a high income (be seen as rich) and blow it all during the year (not growing wealth)
or, you can have a boatload of assets, not work, have little income, a be very wealthy.
Which would you prefer?
The assumption Congress makes is that to become wealthy, you have to earn income, which you were taxed on. You may become wealthy by inheriting assets, in which case you did not pay income tax, but rather estate taxes were paid. If you have assets, you can get money by selling them for more than you acquired them for, but this causes capital gains tax. Taxes are based on the flow of money, which in some way results in wealth. If you notice, wealth is always indirectly taxed. The system may not appear fair on the surface, but the wealthy will tell you that they do feel the pain of taxes. To answer your question, there is a difference, but not much.
I was just now googling around about this when I stumbled on your blog post. I’m just visiting to say that I definitely enjoyed reading this post, it is very clear and well written. Are you considering posting more about this? It appears like there is more fodder here for future posts.
