Raising your personal income tax rate on dividend and capital gain income to 30 percent increases your effective tax rate to 45.3 percent.

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The dividend and personal income windfall from late last year may partly explain the healthy increase in consumer spending in January and February despite the big payroll-tax increase.

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Of course, Fix The Debt while rejecting the idea of returning the tax rates for the upper 2 percent of Americans to the progressive rates of the Clinton era, thereby severely impacting on their personal capital gains and dividend income does appear prepared to support a proposal that would limit deductions as a way to raise revenue.

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