Top 0.1 Percent Netting Nearly Half Of All Capital Gains: Report

[Kadie]

Top 0.1 Percent Netting Nearly Half Of All Capital Gains: Report
The Huffington Post Jillian Berman
First Posted: 11/21/11 10:47 AM ET Updated: 11/21/11 10:47 AM ET

As large as the income gap between rich and everyone else is today, one area of the economy has an even wider gulf to bridge.

The top 0.1 percent of earners are netting half of all capital gains -- or gains on the sale of shares or property -- according to Forbes. That means that 315,000 Americans are benefiting disproportionately from the financial transaction, which accounts for 60 percent of the income of the Forbes 400.

Capital gains have been featured prominently in the debate over how best to overhaul the tax code and reduce the budget deficit. That's because capital gains, which largely benefit the wealthy, are taxed at a rate of about 15 percent -- lower than the 26.5 percent top effective tax rate paid by households making less than $100,000 in 2006.

The discrepancy in tax rates exacerbates the widening wealth gap. After accounting for taxes, the top one percent of earners saw their incomes grow by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while the bottom fifth of earners saw their incomes grow by just 20 percent during the same period. In addition, the richest 10 percent of Americans control two-thirds of the country's net worth, Mother Jones reports.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/the-top-01-percent-capital-gains_n_1105055.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

[hedgehog]

1. We need to add tax brackets at the very top. Call it the "Millionaire's

Protection Act" to get it passed. The ultra rich are now taking the money of the merely rich!