Schakowsky introduces bill to raise taxes on rich

The Huffington Post:

Washington - Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) announced new legislation on Wednesday that would create new tax brackets for earners who make significantly more than the baseline for the current top income bracket.

Currently, the top marginal tax rate of 35 percent applies to income starting at $373,650, and the tax code fails to distinguish between earners making a few hundred thousand dollars a year and those making a few hundred million dollars a year.

“In the United States today, the richest 1 percent owns 34 percent of our nation’s wealth -- that’s more than the entire bottom 90 percent, who own just 29 percent of the country’s wealth,” she said during her prepared remarks at a press conference. “And the top one-hundredth of 1 percent now makes an average of $27 million per household per year. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of Americans? $31,244."

Schakowsky's bill would create new tax brackets for earners making between $1 million and $1 billion annually, with tax rates starting at 45 percent with the millionth dollar and increasing on a sliding scale. The legislation would also tax capital gains and dividend income as ordinary income for those earning over $1 million in a given year.

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that the most popular way to reduce the federal deficit was to place a surtax on federal income taxes for Americans making more than $1 million per year, with 81 percent of respondents agreeing with that statement.

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