Month: October 1989

A capital gain is the difference between the sales price and the purchase price of an asset. Under current law, this gain is taxed at the same tax rate as ordinary income. Although the tax code is indexed to prevent recipients of ordinary income from being pushed into higher tax brackets by the effects of inflation, there is no similar protection for people who hold assets for several years. An investor who holds an asset which has increased in value with the rate of inflation is no better or worse off in real terms.

America is known throughout the world as the land of opportunity – a place where people can work hard and freely use their talents and abilities to make a better life for themselves and their children. Yet many elderly workers aged 62-69 are dismayed to find that the promise of America is conditional. For if elderly workers choose to work to improve their standard of living, they find that government takes the vast bulk of their additional wages through special taxes that apply only to them.