Obama Is Flexible On Highest Tax Rates

[mostlyconfused]

57. Perhaps not. Capital gains are a relatively a small fraction federal tax receipts

"Figures from the Congressional Budget Office and the White House Office of Management and Budget show that for fiscal years 1995 through 2009, capital gains taxes as a share of all federal income taxes, both individual and corporate, averaged about 7.4 percent."
Source: http://wiki.fool.com/What_Percent_of_IRS_Revenue_Comes_From_the_Capital_Gains_Tax%3F.

FactCheck.org puts the percentages even lower. Source: http://www.factcheck.org/2008/06/breakdown-of-government-revenue/

Based on those numbers, if you doubled capital gains tax receipts (think Obama is going to push for that?) you could cover somewhere between 5% and 13% of last year's annual budget deficit.

Another way to look at it...7.4% of 2011 federal tax receipts equates to $170B from both individuals and corporations. If that represents 15% of capital gains for the year, then the total capital gains where $1.1 trillion for the year. They could have been taxed at 100% and would not have covered the budget deficit for the year.

I may be doing my math incorrectly (please help me if I am), but I'm not sure where income or capital gains tax rates could set high enough that they'd even come close to fixing the deficit.