Raising taxes on the superrich is popular with voters.  So why is it so hard to get done?

Americans are deeply divided on many issues. But taxing billionaires isn’t one of them.

Polls consistently show broad support for raising taxes on the wealthy. Eighty percent of Americans worry about the rise in economic inequality and believe the ultra-rich exercise too much political power. Yet efforts to raise taxes on the richest Americans have made little headway.

The continued debate over taxing the wealthy raises a broader question: Can democratic institutions respond to legitimate concerns about fundamental fairness when a small but extraordinarily wealthy group believes its interests are threatened?

With $55 trillion in assets, the richest 1 percent owns almost one-third of the country’s wealth — about the same as the bottom 90 percent. That gap, which far exceeds that of other developed economies, is the largest it has been since the Federal Reserve began tracking Americans’ wealth in 1989. 

Reform efforts have been stymied by the nature of our tax system and the political influence that accompanies concentrated wealth. Reformers confront a hostile White House and Congress, and a flat tax race to the bottom in many red states. 

In the U.S. (and most of the rest of the world), taxes are typically levied only on income and realized gains. Assets that increase in value, including stocks, are not taxed unless they are sold. Because the super-rich hold about 80 percent of their wealth in appreciated assets, they do not pay their fair share.

Between 2014 and 2018, the collective net worth of the wealthiest 25 individuals in the U.S. increased by $401 billion. Over those five years, their effective tax rate was about 3.4 percent. During the same period, the rate paid by households with median........

© The Hill