(Bloomberg News) President Barack Obama's budget plan calls for taxing dividends received by high-income taxpayers as ordinary income, raising the top rate to 39.6 percent from 15 percent.

The proposal, in the president's fiscal 2013 budget released today, would reverse his previous policy that called for taxing dividends more lightly than wage income. Obama would treat dividends as ordinary income for married couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000.

In all, compared with current tax policies, today's budget would raise $1.4 trillion over the next decade from high-income taxpayers.

The dividend tax proposal would raise $206.4 billion over 10 years. Obama is proposing a top individual income tax rate of 39.6 percent in 2013, up from 35 percent. His budget would tax capital gains at a top rate of 20 percent, up from 15 percent. The top dividend tax rate is now 15 percent.

Another 3.8 percent tax on the unearned income of couples earning $250,000 and individuals making at least $200,000 will take effect in 2013 as part of the 2010 health-care law.

The administration's fiscal 2012 budget had said that setting the top capital gains and dividend tax rates at 20 percent "reduces the tax bias against equity investment and promotes a more efficient allocation of capital." Before 2003, all dividends had been taxed as ordinary income.

The proposal is part of Obama's attempt to tap the wealthiest Americans to reduce the federal budget deficit.

"We don't need to be providing additional tax cuts for folks who are doing really, really, really well," Obama said in a speech at Northern Virginia Community College in the Washington suburbs today.

Along with the rest of the administration's proposed tax increases, the change in the dividend tax will probably run into resistance from Republicans and business groups. A coalition of companies, including AT&T Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc., has been lobbying to maintain the rates on capital gains and dividends.

Clint Stretch, managing principal of tax policy at Deloitte Tax LLP in Washington, said the administration's proposal to tax dividends at higher rates than capital gains is surprising, because capital gains tend to go to people with the highest incomes.

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