I've been through a few accountants and CPA's and attorneys, the attorneys were the worst. There are legal tax methods to drastically reduce taxes and defer taxes. Everyone should have a second business or two set up in a corp. and take advantage of the benefits congress gave us in the tax laws. The big boys are doing this and all us little guys should be too. Before I got a handle on my taxes I busted my ass as a contractor for years, after taxes and business insurance I never had anything left. I was working full time for the IRS and the commercial insurance companies. I've got a handle on the taxes now, but I'm still working on an how to save on the insurance.
In case you missed it, my question was: has McCain acknowledged that the economy has changed his ballgame. From the last debate: "Let's not raise any taxes" - John McCain The short, direct (& accurate) answer to my question is "no". I'm not entirely sure why you'd rather proceed along such a long, convoluted road (to nowhere). Must be a 'Conservative' thang.
The real question is not why should income and LT cap gains be taxed at different rates but rather why should cap gains be taxed at all? Some of the most dynamic economies in the world don't tax them or tax them at very low rates. If you want to encourage an economy of people sitting around investing in muni bonds, then by all means put punitive rates on cap gains and dividends. If you want to encourage investment and risk taking, experience teaches us that low or zero rates is the way to go. Liberals have an obsessive desire to control other people. They want to control where you live, what you drive, what you eat, what you can watch on Tv or listen to on the radio. They want to control what your children think. Of course, they want to control your assets. In fact, getting control of other people's money is the foundation principle of liberalism. Conservatives donate large sums to groups they support. Liberals want to force others to support them and their pet causes. Is it a coincidence that liberal politicians are regularly revealed to give little or nothing to charity? Understanding this, we can see that low taxes on investments is directly contrary to the central governing tenent of liberalism. They hate the idea of you deciding where to invest. They want to make that decision for you. So you get all these crazy tax rebates for doing things they want you to do, you get these so-called public/private partnerships, which are really just slush funds, and you get this socialistic "spread the wealth"nonsense as a reason to raise taxes.
No, the question remains as originally stated: "Why should "sitting on your ass income" be given preferential treatment to "working" income?" You haven't answered it.
Hey FUCKWAD: McCain spoke about cutting taxes, cutting entitlements, cutting EVERY NON DEFENSE PROGRAM in the Federal budget. Period. That was in response to a question about What's Changed. Obama didn't mention ONE SPECIFIC ITEM that HE would cut. I'm sure it pisses socialists like yourself off but no McCain isn't going to RAISE taxes. Nor is he going to INCREASE spending. That's Obama's gig......
This exchange is hihgly instructive on a number of levels. Too bad McCain won't make anything out of it. Socialists like Obama look at the economy as a fixed pie. If Pabst gets too much, some poor person got too little. Basically, Pabst took the poor person's rightful share. So Obama naturally sees the job of government is to "spread the wealth." He thinks it is only fair that he decide how much the rich person has to kick back to the poor. People like Obama who have little or minimal private sector experience easily fall into the habit of thinking that the government is responsible for society's wealth. They don't understand that wealth creation is a dynamic process, and that over time, with proper policies, a rising tide lifts all boats. JFK understood that principle. Somewhere along the line, democrats lost it and decided that class warfare suited them better. I wish that plumber had told Obama if you want to spread the wealth around, then do everything possible to let people like me expand our businesses, hire more people and let them keep what they earn.
A punitive rate would be one in which a "sitting on your ass" dollar was taxed at a higher rate than a "working for your bread" dollar". I suggested a dollar for dollar equivalence. Nothing punitive about it. The rest of your post was an ideological rant which won't be addressed here.
It's a question of whether or not you want to encourage investment and risk taking, ie the sort of behavior that has been proved over time in many different countries to grow wealth, or if you want to encourage passive, risk-adverse behavior. I doubt businessmen who are trying to create or grow small businesses consider their investments "sitting on your ass" income. The fact you do speaks volumes.
Word of the day "FUCKWAD" I laughed my ass off when I read that. I going to use FUCKWAD at least once tomorrow in a conversation.