3 ms·

Because income and capital gains are two different things. Capital gains should be lower because there is a risk that you may lose money, if you add a high tax

• yaix 15y ago
  If you start a company and then pay yourself part of the earnings, there is a risk too that the company goes bankrupt. If you specialize in an industry and get a paid job, there is a risk too that you dont find a job or get laid off. I dont see how the risk of capital investments is any different to other kinds of investment that would justfy it to be taxed differently. A better explanation would be the higher capitalization of the groups lobbying for a lower tax for that income group.
• sqrt17 15y ago
  The problem with this way of thinking is that, this is not necessarily true: Regular ways of getting income also make you take part in the risk of whatever or whoever you get your income from, and as a result, more and more things that would be income get wrapped into capital gains. The fair thing to do would be something where losing money (or unvoluntarily suffering relocation expenses or losses as a result of your source of income) gives you a tax credit, valid for the next 10 years.