> so let me rephrase my statement about capital gains. it doesn't make sense to treat LTCG as income unless we first make significant changes to the way we assess income tax in the first place.
I disagree. LTCG as income without smoothing makes exactly as much sense as taxing regular income without smoothing does.
Yes, there’s a strong case for smoothing. There’s, independently, a strong case for not structurally favoring capital income and not structurally disfavoring labor income. While it is desirable to address both of those (and doing so simultaneously would be a good idea since there is no conflict), there is no dependency between them.
(Likewise, indexing capital asset basis values for inflation is a third thing that there is a good case for, but neither of the other two things depends on it to be a good idea; I’d oppose furthering the favoring of capital by doing it without first taxing capital income as income, though.)
> obviously this would be a lot more complicated.
Smoothing doesn’t have to add significant complication. The essence can boil down to:
(1) a taxpayer may freely recognize any amount of as-yet-unrealized income for tax purposes in any tax year and pay appropriate income tax on it. Any amount of the unused balance may be freely applied to reduce taxable income in any future year to no less than $0 (with one exception, see below.) Unused balances are indexed for inflation.
(2) a taxpayer may defer to the following year recognition of any amount of income over the greater of the top of the lowest marginal rate bracket or prior year taxable income (after applying any deferrals or advance recognition), with thr caveat that no more than 90% of any previously-deferred income may be deferred again.
(3) In final taxes after death, all remaining advance/deferred amounts are applied, with negative taxable income resulting in a refund calculated by applying the minimum marginal rate to the balance.