Will Joe Biden’s proposed taxes on capital make America an outlier?

IF PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN succeeds in raising America’s top rate of federal capital-gains and dividend tax to 39.6%, as he pledged to Congress on April 28th, it would be twice the average top rate in Europe. But it would apply only to the highest-earning 0.3% of taxpayers: those earning more than $1m. The fact that countries cast their nets differently makes comparing taxes on capital, which include levies on companies and property as well as on capital gains and dividends, tricky. The OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, does not publicly track members’ capital-gains-tax rates because exemptions and carve-outs make them so hard to compare.