Does that include the restoration of pre-Bush capital gains tax? Because I'm sure that would add up to a lot. In fact, I think that's the biggest thing that the ultra-rich have become addicted to in the past decade.
The idea of taxing investment income leads to a lot of terrible, perverse outcomes. It steers wealth towards being locked up in big companies and funds, since this is how you compound investment fashion without that money being repeatedly taxed. It also makes sure the incentive to invest on one's own accord belongs primarily to capitalists, since the tax naturally compounds when you buy and sell on your own account. Non-capitalists must allocate their money in one of a handful of government-approved fashions, or be eaten by repeated capital gains taxes for things as simple as rebalancing.
Capital gains taxes seem motivated by a broad desire to soak the rich, but you will find very few economists on the left (or the right) supporting this idea over alternatives like a progressive consumption tax. Capital gains taxes are one more example of a clueless "progressive" idea leading to outcomes that are poor to both progressive and non-progressive perspectives.
NPR's Planet Money once brought together a bipartisan panel of economists and asked them what they agree on. Consumption taxes as a replacement for investment+income taxes got universal support: https://nathensmiraculousescape.wordpress.com/2012/08/08/pla...
The effect of a consumption tax would be to never tax investment income until it is spent on something that isn't investment.
Beware Krugman; he is brilliant but sees himself as a pundit in service of a political agenda, and has baldly admitted as much himself. I would be surprised if he disagreed with consumption taxes on grounds other than political expediency. I don't believe that particular question is raised in the posts you link.
Your last comment is largely an ad hominem. Consumption taxes are typically regressive.
Edit: your last link did not say what you said it said. It did not say to replace capital gains taxes with a consumption tax. It didn't mention capital gains at all.
"If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would be just $616 billion. That’s only a third of this year’s deficit." [2012] -- http://www.forbes.com/sites/danbigman/2012/04/03/john-stosse...
The challenge is that when you change the rate, people change their behavior.
Here's some interesting data showing the historical relationship between behavior and capital gains policy over time:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...
If you assume currently capital gains collections are $150B, increasing them 33% will add $44B.
From a pragmatical pov, that just doesn't seem like much. And that's assuming there's not a contraction in capital gains harvesting, which wouldn't square with history.
Look, I'll admit, I'm not unbiased here. I generate 80% of my income from churning long-term assets.
I sold a company that I bootstrapped a few years ago, and we got a good price.
I'm able to generate about $120k per year after-tax. My goal is to never touch the principal and live off returns.
Now, I'm bootstrapping my next startup... The $120k allows me to work 1 day a week consulting to "plug" the gap between my family's spending and my income. The other 4 days, I work on bootstrapping my startup.
If taxes go up, that will cost me an addl $6700 per year in taxes.
So my choices are...
1) take more consulting work -> Won't do this because my startup needs my time and I'm already working 60 hr days
2) try to generate higher returns, -> Not going to do this because I'm already maxed out with the risk I feel comfortable with
3) cut back my personal spending, -> Yes, this is what will happen.
For the affluent retired, I suspect many of them will choose to cut back too.
From where I'm sitting, the tax policy is going to hit me fairly hard, will only produce an additional $44B in taxes, and will probably cause a recession. So it doesn't seem very wise.