Reply #41: CEOs are not making millions in earned income or from selling homes.

[AP]

They're making it from dividend income and cap gains on stock sales taxed at 15%.

And they're making it at income levels way higher than 1 mil too.

Creating a second tier of 25% that began at something like 350K would have captured way more income from the people who are paying incredibly low effective tax rates than an addtional 5% on earned income over 1 million.

Look at Theresa Heinz Kerry. Her effective rate of tax was something like 14% on millions of dollars in income because all her income is either taxed at 15% (as cap gains or dividend income) or 0% (for the muni bonds).

Clark's tax plan would have eliminated tax on her first 50K in earned income (if she had any) and wouldn't have touched any of that other income. If she got paid 50K in earned income to do work for a charity and had all the other income as dividends, it might have been a tax cut for her.

How progressive is that?