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Economic Definition of capital gains tax. Defined.

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Term capital gains tax Definition: A tax on the difference between the sales price of a "capital" asset and it's original purchase price. The capital assets subject to this tax include such things real estate, stocks, and bonds. This tax is frequently a source of controversy between the second and third estates. In that the second estate owns and sells a lot of this sort of capital, they don't like to pay taxes on capital gains. However, because the third estate doesn't have much capital it seems like a pretty good thing to tax. Those who oppose the capital gains tax argue that it takes away funds that would be used for further capital investment, which thus inhibits economic growth. Those who favor it argue that helps equalize unfairly unequal income and wealth distributions.

 

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