Taxation and the middle class

[tomh009]

This relates to a valid concern about changes of this nature: if someone has planned based on the rules that have been in effect, new rules may have a significant negative effect on them, and characterizing everybody affected as wealthy and therefore not worthy of concern does not change the fact that a middle class person can easily have a small number of significant assets by the time they retire.

I don't think "not worthy" is the right term, but tax fairness definitely does come into play. A wage-earner earning $70K will pay about 30% marginal tax on income. A real estate investor selling a property and making a $210K gain (three times the amount) will have a marginal rate of just 25%. At $280K (four times the wage-earner's income) that marginal rate on capital gains will still be only 35%, not much more than someone earning $70K per year.

Is that unfair, do you think?