The Uneasy Case for Capital Taxation

I. INTRODUCTION I write not to praise all tax-reductions but to bury one particular set of taxes. Over a decade ago I began writing on the subject of comprehensive tax reform, in a piece titled The Uneasy Case for Wealth Transfer Taxes,[2] echoing the classic work on tax-rate progression by the law professors Walter Blum and Harry Kalven.[3] While I have never viewed the case for progressivity in tax burdens…