Blog 'about' says non partisan. However the author of this article by his past certainly would appear to have bias: https://itep.org/wamhoff-steve/ https://ite

Blog 'about' says non partisan. However the author of this article by his past certainly would appear to have bias: https://itep.org/wamhoff-steve/ https://itep.org/wamhoff-steve/ "Just before taking on the role of ITEP’s director of federal tax policy, Steve spent more than two years as the senior tax policy analyst for Sen. Bernie Sanders and as a member of the senator’s Budget Committee staff. In this capacity, he wrote legislation related to personal income and corporate income taxes, financial transaction taxes, estate taxes and tax avoidance." Now before even seeing this I could tell the socialist slant to the writing. For example he says: "When the value of an asset rises, that increase is income for all practical purposes, but our current laws do not tax this income until the asset is sold. (This untaxed asset appreciation is often called an “unrealized” capital gain.)" Except it's not 'income' until it's sold. And until it's sold the value can vary either higher or lower. Capital gains applies to a host of things including not only stock but also artwork, real estate, collectibles even 'domain names' being taxed when sold vs. prior. As anyone knows there is no guarantee with any asset sold will bring a certain price in the market. Note also that if Warren Buffett has '$70 billion net worth' unless he convert that net worth to cash he can't do anything with it. (Not discounting that being a billionaire has other value but that's a separate issue'. If I own an art collection (I don't) and the value of the art collection has appreciate to a value of $50,000,000 the only value of that art is that I can sell some and at that point I will pay taxes on the sale at capital gains rate. Part of the idea of taxing capital gains at a lower rate is to encourage investment in certain ways that leads to a presumably better financial good in the end (even if you are cynical and think there are other motives that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate reasons for the lower tax rate).