You’ve come to expect here a very skeptical, verging on enraged, attitude towards how the elites talk about taxes — including Democrats. Aggressive proposals to raise taxes to reasonable levels, particularly on the wealthy, just can’t be found with a few exceptions. Here is one that makes a bit of progress.

It comes from the Citizens for Tax Justice:

■ Repealing the special, low tax rates for capital gains and stock dividends, as well as the rule allowing accumulated capital gains to escape taxation when the owner of an asset dies.

■ Setting the top tax rate at 36 percent — which would be a significant tax increase on the wealthy because this rate would apply to the capital gains and stock dividends that mostly go to the richest Americans and which are now taxed at much lower rates.

■ Increasing the standard deduction by $2,200 for singles and twice that amount for married couples.

■ Replacing several “backdoor” taxes (like the Alternative Minimum Tax) with President Obama’s proposal to limit the tax savings of every dollar of deductions and exclusions to 28 cents.

■ Repealing several enormous corporate tax breaks, including the rule allowing American corporations to “defer” paying U.S. taxes on their offshore profits until those profits are officially brought to the U.S.

I still think setting the top tax rate at 36 percent is too low. But, the advance by CTJ is to apply that rate to capital gains and tax dividends, which are currently taxed at a far lower rate.  As CJT previously pointed out:

The result would be $2 trillion in increased revenue over a decade, plus some additional revenue that would be raised in the first decade due to shifts in the timing of tax payments. The top personal income tax rate would be 36 percent — but this would apply to all income, including capital gains and stock dividends that are now taxed at much lower rates. Corporations would no longer have any incentive to tell the IRS that their U.S. profits are actually earned in a tax haven like Bermuda or the Cayman Islands because they would be taxed at the same rate no matter where they are earned.

So, a better step forward for sure — though I think the top rate should be at 40 percent.