Whats Fair When it Comes to Taxes?

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by saden1

This guy is a fcking dumbshit or purposefully misleading. He already paid 35% huh? When exactly did he do that? When did the company do that? Does he know what an equity firm is? What carried interest, which discussed not to long ago, is?

GTFOH

Im honestly not trying to be a dick, but i dont understand your comment. Forget carried interest for a minute thats a different issue, the author is speaking from a boarded view on long term capital gains in general.

Ive read before the reason Capital Gains are taxed at a lower rate is because they have effectively already been taxed. Non-speculative long term equity ownership can/should be thought of as ownership on a firms future profits. Long term increases in the price of a stock are primarily driven by earnings. Speculative or short term equity ownership is not thought as an ownership of future profits and that is why its taxed at higher ordinary income rates.

Since the firm is already taxed at the corporate rate taxing profits made from capital gains is effectively double taxation. This is from the taxman himself:

The profit of a corporation is taxed to the corporation when earned, and then is taxed to the shareholders when distributed as dividends. This creates a double tax. The corporation does not get a tax deduction when it distributes dividends to shareholders. Shareholders cannot deduct any loss of the corporation.

Corporations