Income from money shuffling should be taxed at a HIGHER rate than ordinary income.

live off the capital gains in their retirement, should that be included also?

of carving out a selling of homestead exemption of some sort. non-homestead investent property i would not exempt.

agree for stocks or options they should be taxed at a regular rate, and yes it would effect me, but you are correct, it is another source of income which does nothing to provide jobs, at least on the secondary market

Restrictions on property status must be implemented to prevent children from transferring valuable assets to their parents to avoid taxes.

...there are some of us who invested long term...bought into various funds and IRAs and either had to put money away or had it garnished from paychecks. Should those capital gains be taxed at a higher rate than your house? Sadly I know too many people who saw their household investment sink when the housing market went bust but their investments rebounded back to where it was prior to the '08 crash.

Why not just look at interest as income and charge it accordingly...the game here is fairness not retribution...

...and it's been a shock to the system to those who thought their IRAs were fully tax exempt...but found out that taxes were still due. Also there are many, such as my late parents, who didn't have access to company plans and invested privately...stocks, mutual funds, et al, that surely aren't tax exempt. Raising capital gains from 15 to 35 percent could be a significant bite to those who rely upon that income to supplement their SS.

be closed.

Finding and closing them. I'm all but certain after all deductions and other bookkeeping tricks were applied Willard paid ZERO in taxes for most of the past 20 years. The fact he admitted to 14% (and even that's below just the plain CG rate) told me this had to be the case. That said, I'm all for a progressive taxation on gains...just like income...the more you earn the higher rate you pay. Thus, someone who earns $50k a year won't pay the same as someone who amasses $5 million. Flat rates always hurt those on the lower end of the scale and is vulnerable to "bracket creep" due to inflation.

Cheers...

So maybe something simple like: if all income and gains = x, you pay y. If income + gains = x+5, you pay y +5.

Flat rates are ridiculously unfair to the poor. But from the regressive tax place we are standing in, even a flat rate would be better.
(NOT THAT I'M ADVOCATING THAT! Because like I said, they are ridiculously unfair. It's just that where we are now is even more ridiculous and unfair.)

$250,000 ($500,000 for married) is exempt from capital gains tax

that is what i mean by shuffling money around. right now that is 15% and should be progressively taxed at the same rate as any other income. longt erm gains (currently 5%) should arguably be lower than short term gains because they are actual investments that stay in a company and creat jobs, make payrolls, etc. i am agnostic on that really.

What should your tax rate be on something which basically did not appreciate?

in some cases already are like primary residence.

Same may be true for retirement returns.

In any event, floors can be put in to give regular folks protection while making sure the predator class isn't running away with all the fruits of our productivity and at least tapping the brakes on the disparity with labor.

i stand corrected:

i believe it is 15 percent for long term.

should be increased. The hold period should be increased to 7 years. The reason for 7 years is that most invested capital requires 3-6 years to produce desired objectives. The Gains tax rate at 7 years should increase from the current 15% to 18-20%, this would still be well below income tax rates for the great majority of people that collect Capital Gains income. No adjustments should be made to how Capital Losses are handled, but loopholes that allow abuse of Capital Loss should be closed, if this is done legitimate business activity which didn't create profit can be handled properly.

Strike the words "capital gains" from the tax code and treat it like what it is, income.

income from selling a house, for instance, is a capital gain; taxing that at income rates would unfairly penalise the middle class.

Income is income, it should all be taxed at the same rate. Actually, I'll make one exception: If you sell your only house for the purposes of buying another house, that's exempt.

And no one has bothered to think that through.

Yes we should raise capital gains!

right now, capital gains are taxed only when the transaction is closed.

if you bought microsoft when it went ipo in 1986, and have been continuously holding those shares, you've only paid taxes on the dividends. the shares themselves represent an enormous gain, but you don't pay taxes until you sell.

this seems reasonable enough for capital investments that are difficult to value from year to year, such as specific works of art, or many private companies. but if there's a public market for equity that gives you a value every millisecond, it seems silly not to use that information.

the only wrinkle i'd add is that right now, capital losses can only offset ordinary income up to $3,000. i'd eliminate that so people come out whole if they gain big one year but lose it the next (or vice versa).

That will eliminate wash trading overnight!

Only the well to do will disagree with you.