Talk:Unearned-income tax

From dKosopedia

I would suggest "Non-labor income tax" or something along those lines. "Unearned" will likely be too controversial, and is probably going too far.

In the end, I think it would be more productive to develop educational material about capital gains tax, and to characterize it for what it is, rather than change the name. -- RobLa 02:35, 31 May 2004 (PDT)

Without expressing my opinion on RobLa's approach, I have moved the article from Unearned income tax to Unearned-income tax in order to avoid ambiguity (and technically, mis-statement). "Unearned income tax" means an income tax that is unearned, an interpretation that must be avoided since it invites the thought "Oh, the government doesn't deserve this tax; it didn't earn that right."

Either the hyphen or a change of word order is necessary to make a unit of "unearned income" in writing. Orally, the hyphen is hard to pronounce clearly, and "tax on unearned income" is the better choice.

Similar issues apply to "non-labor income tax", and I don't mind personally writing ""Non-labor-income tax" but many people do, and if you think of stringing 3 words together with hyphens, it's a good sign you probably should change the word order, even in writing.
--Iks(TkPg) 10:30, 20 Jun 2004 (PDT)