Could you do some arithmetic? I'm not really sure what you are talking about.
But this is a ludicrous assertion, since the part taxed as labor income is not taxed as capital income.
This is simple arithmetic. Suppose I'm paid $100, taxed $20 on labor income. Then I invest the remaining $80, cash out at $90 and pay $2.50 in cap gains. I've then paid another 2.8% (adjusted for NPV).
Taxes on capital income always come after labor income, except for certain special tax deferred investment vehicles which treat capital income as equal to labor income.
Its not a matter of arithmetic. Its a matter of understanding that the kind of arithmetic you suggest doesn't make sense, because an asset doesn't have to be subject to corporate income tax on the process by which it increases in value for the proceeds derived from it to be subject to favorable capital gains taxes rather than normal income taxes. E.g., among other things, real estate investments.
> This is simple arithmetic.
The issue isn't with arithmetic, its about the justification for ascribing menaing to the arithmetic you are choosing to do.
> Suppose I'm paid $100, taxed $20 on labor income. Then I invest the remaining $80, cash out at $90 and pay $2.50 in cap gains. I've then paid another 2.8% (adjusted for NPV).
And, so? You paid taxes at the rate applicable to labor on the $100 of labor income, and taxes at the rate applicable to capital on the $10 of capital income. This isn't "double taxation" -- the portion of the income on which you pay taxes at the rate applicable to labor income isn't taxed as capital income, and vice versa.
> Taxes on capital income always come after labor income
First, so what? "After" is irrelevant to the discussion, its still separate taxes on separate buckets of income. Chronological sequence isn't relevant to the discussion of Summers claims that there is a double taxation that comes from a combination of labor income taxes and capital income taxes.
Second, in any case, as well as being irrelevant, that's untrue in the general case. While capital assets may be purchased with after-tax labor income so that there is a sense in which the capital-income-generating event and associated taxes follow after a labor-income-generating event and associated taxes, capital assets may be created or generated by events other than purchases from the proceeds of labor income, in which case the capital income, and associated taxes, are not after some kind of even loosely-connected labor income and associated taxes.
And so if I consume immediately, I get $80 worth of consumption for every $100 I earn, whereas if I invest I consume only $77.2 of consumption for every $100 I earn. That's the core of Sumner's argument.
Do you have any argument beyond playing with definitions and arbitrary divisions of wealth as to why a person who invests should consume only $77.2 while a person who consumes immediately should consume $80.0?
With the numbers you gave, the first number was correct ($80 of consumption on $100 in pre-tax labor income), but with investment the actual number is $88.75 on $110 of pre-tax labor and capital income, or $80.68 per $100 of income.
consuming immediately gives you 80% of income
assuming you invested all of it, 80$ and made back 10$ which was then taxed at 25%, you're left with 87.5$ out of 110$ in total income.
consuming after a year gives you 87.5/110 = 79.5% of income, 1 year in the future. After discounting at 2.8%, you're left with only 77.38% of income.
In that case, you'd rather splurge than invest.
Comparing dollar values of money in the future to dollar values of money in the present is simply incorrect.
Yes, it does.
> The combined taxes on income + corporate tax + capital gains greatly exceed the tax rate on labor income.
It makes no sense to combine those things, especially since not all capital holdings which recieve the benefit of favorable capital taxation are investment in entities that are even theoretically subject to corporate income taxes.
> Scott Sumner explaining how all capital income taxes are additive w.r.t labor income tax
He certainly asserts that income tax "doubles [sic] taxes the money saved, once as wages, and again as capital income." But this is a ludicrous assertion, since the part taxed as labor income is not taxed as capital income.
> Also just do the arithmetic; 1-(1-corporate income tax)(1-cap gains tax) >income tax for pretty much any bracket.
Even for the things where that might be relevant, that's probably only true if you look at the nominal corporate income tax rate rather than the effective corporate income tax rate.