Capital gains isn’t a “2nd tax on money people already earned”. If I put my money in a bank account and earn 10% interest (laughable I know) and I earn $10k on the $100k I have in the bank, I pay income taxes on the $10k. If I buy a piece of land for $100k and I sell it for $110k, I pay capital gains tax on the $10k. In both cases I didn’t work for the money and I only paid taxes on the profit.

Capital gains tax is NOT taxing money twice, and even if it was, sales tax is a much more direct “taxed twice” tax. There is no such rule as “money can’t be taxes twice” in our society. Capital gains tax should be done away with and all profit should just be called “income” and taxed accordingly, just like the rest of us who work for a living.

Based on your response here, I don’t know what you were trying to say.

Wealthy people don’t pay income [tax] very much at all, their income is made via capital gains.

Also consumption based taxes are the primary [taxes the rich pay,] so the richer you are the less [taxes] this will be as a percent of your income.

I thought you were complaining about the authors of the study not considering capital gains taxes, but it wasn’t very clear.