And capital gains...

This is a question more for United States people.

Do you support raising the top marginal federal income tax rates? Do you support raising the capital gains tax rate? What about the gift tax rate and estate tax?

Don't be selfish! I personally, however, have no dog in this fight since I have not had any taxable income on paper since 2001! heh.

No.

Why not? What is your current tax bracket? Do you pay capital gains tax at all?

I do. The wealthiest Americans don't pay enough in taxes, whereas middle class Americans usually pay their share. We've let the wealthy and big corporations off the hook for roughly the last 20 years as they earned more and more while our government cannot close its burgeoning deficit. It's time to milk the cow.

But don't rich people have loopholes? Why is there a cap on social security? The income tax was first introduced as a way to soak the rich, and it turned out to be the opposite. Inflation messes up the system, even more so when income is divided up into different types. A lot of the richest people don't have income. They're already rich. They own.

The problem shouldn't be poor versus rich anyway. It should be earned versus unearned. Why should the government tax the rich when the government is the one giving them their wealth in the first place? It would be like subsidizing the production of corn syrup, and then taxing the products that contain corn syrup. Oh wait! Just stop the corporate welfare.

"Loopholes" is a pejorative term. The main "problem" is that high income people have income from various sources, so calculating their taxable income is not as cut-and-dried as for people whose sole income is a wage or salary from a job. In any case, the vast majority of these "loopholes" were closed with the TRA of 1986.

But let's say that you have a job that paid you one million dollars a month salary, and that was your only income. Then calculating your taxes would be no different than if you were working at McDonalds making one thousand dollars a month. (You just would pay a higher percentage of gross income).