To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider Janitors
We should tax wealth, not income. [1]<p>The majority of income the top 0.1% make is from investments and gets taxed as capital gains, only about 15% of their income is taxed as ordinary income. [2][3]<p>We have an economic system where it's dramatically easier to make money the more money you already have. If you have $50M, you can park it in an index fund to get 4% returns and make $2M every year just off of your investment returns (which then gets taxed at 15% instead of 35% for ordinary income). If you don't spend all of that $2M, you'll continue to make more money just by having more money.<p>By taxing income instead of wealth, we're also essentially penalizing labor and rewarding wealth. We shouldn't penalize something that actually contributes to the economy and instead ask people who have more (not earn more necessarily) to contribute via taxes.<p>1. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/to-reduce-inequality-tax-wealth-not-income.html?mcubz=1" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/opinion/to-reduce-inequali...</a><p>2.<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-critical-difference-between-the-top-1-and-the-top-1-capital-gains-2011-7" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/the-critical-difference-betwe...</a><p>3. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/11/20/the-top-0-1-of-the-nation-earn-half-of-all-capital-gains/#6c7ceb647893" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2011/11/20/the-to...</a>