Fairness and the capital-gains tax

The article "Capital-Gains Tax Rises to a Boil in US Capital," Dec. 18, discusses the tax in terms of fairness. However, the present capital-gains tax is blatantly dishonest, far beyond the matter of fairness. It taxes people for transactions which in real terms (corrected for inflation) have resulted in actual capital losses, not capital gains.

Any change in the capital-gains tax should at least remove this egregious dishonesty by indexing capital gains to inflation. David P. Herron, Atherton, Calif.

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