Capital Gains Calculator
Capital gains rates are designed to encourage long-term investing.
Most people can get a significant advantage from holding stock investments for more than one year:
| Tax Bracket | Capital Gain Tax Rate |
| Short Term | Long Term |
| 10% | 10% | 0% |
| 15% | 15% |
| 25% | 25% | 15% |
| 28% | 28% |
| 33% | 33% |
| 35% | 35% |
| 39.6% | 39.6% | 20% |
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Short term gains on stock investments are taxed at your regular tax rate; long term gains are taxed at 15% for most tax brackets, and zero for the lowest two.
Here is a simple capital gains calculator, to help you see what effects the current rates will have in your own life.
(Before you use it for the first time, you may want to check out an example with numbers already filled in.)
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These are the rates for 2012 and 2013.
See the IRS for the ongoing saga.
Also see the government spending diagram for some context on taxes, deficits, and interest rates.
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