Millionaire tax! America only for now, so the rest of you millionaires in other coutries are safe!!!

[HappySqurriel]

Salnax said:

spurgeonryan said:

Wait? Millionaires pay less of a percent of there income than poorer people do! Is that what I am reading?

Yep. Most taxes are based on income from wages. A lot of millionares instead get most of their money from investments and the stock market, which are taxed far more lightly. Therefore, a millionaire who makes most of their money from investments will get taxed somewhere from 15% to 20%, while most Americans have to pay over 30%.

U mad, middle class?

No, because that's how it works in many/most countries becuase it is a fairly effective way to encourage investment over spending ... In particular, venture capital investments which are the primary drivers to job creation. From 1980 to 2005 firms that were less than 5 years old accounted for 100% of the net job creation within the economy. For the most part, these firms can not get financing from banks because they're too high risk (roughly 70% of startups fail in their first year) and are too small to have an effective IPO, and their only option is to have people with capital invest in them.

The question you should be asking is what these millionares return on investment was, and whether new taxes on capital gains will just encourage them to invest their money into safer investments like large companies stocks ... Remembering (of course) that the long term trend for large companies is to shrink their (domestic) labor force to increase their profits from offshoring and efficiency.