I see what you're saying...
But (and you'd know better than I), wouldn't that increase be more detrimental than an increase in the income tax... or pretty much any other kind of tax they could come up with?

Granted, it obviously won't "ruin the economy" but isn't that about the worst option for raising revenues?

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

Everything I can find refers to federal tax rates. Even adding payroll taxes, it does not reach 32%.

What about individuals? What about old people who rely on the equity in their home to finance their retirement? You think only businesses pay capital gains?

When my husband was in the Army, we were unable to sell our house due to cuts in the military. We were forced to rent it out for 8 years at an average monthly loss of $50. During this time, tax laws required us to depreciate the house each year though this saved us very little on our taxes. When we did sell the house, we had to pay capital gains on the difference between the depreciated value of the house and the sales price. IOW, we paid tax on about 30K when in fact, we had a net loss.

Besides the fact that revenues will decrease?

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Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. - Theodore Roosevelt

Does cutting capital gains tax always increase revenue? Well actually NO.

New Republic's The Plank asked economist Jason Furman if that was true:

" Joint Committee on Taxation and Treasury both score raising capital gains taxes as raising revenues. There is some behavioral response but much of that is timing and doesn't affect the medium-to-long term revenue loss.

Note that the experience after the 1997 cut and the 2003 cut is not a meaningful way to assess the impact of capital gains tax cuts on revenues because so many things were happening simultaneously. The JCT score of the capital gains cut in 1997 was a few billion dollars annually. The 2003 cut was something like $5 billion annually. But capital gains revenues can go up or down by tens of billions annually. So it is hard to look at the noisy data and infer ex post the revenue impact of these changes."

In regards to timing, Comments From Left Field added:

"Capital gains accrue when an asset is sold. Except in a few specialized instances, people have a choice about when to sell an asset. If they know the capital gains tax rate will be going down as of a certain date, they are likely to sell assets AFTER that date rather than before it, in order to minimize the tax due. So the increase in revenues experienced once the capital gains tax rate goes down is largely due to the fact that more people are selling assets."



Almost 2 out of 3 households that own stock hold portfolios valued less than $5,000. Plus isn't the point of a 401 k to hold it until retirement?

You realize that everyone can take a one time break on the capital gains on their home? Most people wait to do that until they reach their retirement age. As long as you roll the gains of one house into another house, you don't pay capital gains. It is not an issue for most people.

Reread. I said to finance their retirement. Also, that doesn't help what happened to us when we could not sell.

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Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive. - Theodore Roosevelt

That is just one of the numerous things people say because they've heard so many people say it. The fact is, there isn't and never was any economic basis on which to make the blanket statement that lowering taxes will increase government revenue. Otherwise the tax rate would be 0.5% and the government would be swimming in money. But it's not 0.5% because they wouldn't be. All things being equal the Laffer curve is an accurate representation of the actual impact of tax rates on tax collections. Simply put, the effect of a lower or higher tax rate depends on where you are on the Laffer curve. Hence, you could easily lower rates and get more revenue or raise rates and get more revenue. Going from a 5% income tax to a 10% income tax would raise more money than going from 10% to 5%. Likewise, going from 45% to 55% would likely raise less money.

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Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket?

Supply-side theory has never worked--ever.

Every recession in history, save for Carter's brief term, has come under a Republican president implementing supply-side economic theory.

Putting money into the pockets of people who are already wealthy does not stimulate the economy. This should be history and not economics by now.

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Not sure what you are talking about, then. Reverse mortgages?
Sure, sometimes circumstances don't work out for a person to avoid the capital gains on their primary residence. Of course, for those who buy and sell as an investment their is no reason why they should avoid it.

The capital gains tax should be DECREASED if anything, surely not increased. That is a tax that people of lower income really need to stay low.

Obama will tax us all to death! And his program won't even fix the health care crises which Hillary's plan would have by preventing dead beat non payers from forcing the rest of us to pick up their tab in our own increased medical costs.

This is just ONE of the many reasons, he will join the ranks of the LOSERS who have supported him from the beginning: Ted Kennedy, Bill Bradley, John Kerry etc. He will soon be joining the LOSERS CIRCLE.

If Hillary can't pull it off, then VOTE MCCAIN or be prepared to turn over half your money to the government.

Thats bull (*)(*)(*)(*). Most people have a little stock or other investments besides their homes which would come under the capital gains tax.