Letters to the Editor: Double Taxation

International Herald Tribune Sunday 5th February, 2012

"The 'Buffett Rule,"' (Editorial, Feb. 2) incorrectly implies that people who earn millions of dollars a year, like Mitt Romney, only pay a 15 percent tax rate if most or all of their income comes from capital gains. In fact, such income is taxed once at the corporate rate of 35 percent and again when it is passed through to the individual as a capital gain or dividend at 15 percent, to the highest legal marginal tax rate of 44.75 percent. So people like Mitt Romney are already subject to double taxation.

And if this so-called Buffett rule should become US law and all millionaire investment income is taxed at a minimum rate of 30 percent, not 15 percent, the tax rate on investment income from corporations would rise even further to 54.5 percent from the 44.75 percent.

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