Double Taxation

(Via Felix Salmon)

I was enjoying the gnashing of teeth spawned by Warren Buffett's Op Ed/PR stunt about taxes for the wealthy - and I ran across Daniel J Mitchell whining about how Buffett has it all wrong. The highest tax bracket has it rough, you see. What with their tax rates plummeting to less then half of what they were only three decades ago.

The horror!

But he was useful in that he regurgitated one of the lamer talking points on raising the capital gains tax - It's Double Taxation!!

You see, investors bought stock and were taxed, then the investment barfed out more money and it was taxed again. That's not fair..!

Salmon beats all over that, then pulls in some backup to wail on it more. By far the best 'graph I've read on this yet was from the Citizens for Tax Justice, who point out the very selective nature of objections to multiple taxation:

It’s striking that hardly anyone in Washington talks about how the wage income of middle-class Americans is subject to “multiple taxes.” For the typical American, all income consists of wages and all of it is subject to the Social Security tax, and much or most of it to the income tax. Then when people spend their income, a great deal of the purchases are subject to sales taxes. Apparently, taxing income multiple times is something that concerns economists and politicians only when it affects the wealthy investor class.

As in - hello... whiny little investor b!tches? You think double taxation is a bad thing- I don't hear you crying over how everyone else's paycheck money gets wrung out twice to pay the feds, then stretched again for virtually every transaction its used for.

But taxing capital gains is a shameful double taxation? Oh shut the hell up, already.