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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 April 2015
The American experience with income taxes began with the Act of 1913, but it was not until 1921 that capital gains were identified separately and taxed differently from other sources of income. This fundamental revision of the income tax was justified on equity grounds; proponents of the change argued that it was unfair to tax income accrued over many years in the year that income was realized [6, p. 192].
The present capital gains provisions have been and are now—strongly attacked alternately as being too lenient and too strict [5, p. 184]. Unfortunately, this symmetry in the opposition to present capital gains treatment does not imply the present provisions are near the optimum.
Paper presented at the Southern Agricultural Economics Association annual meeting, New Orleans, February 2-5, 1975.