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The Capital-Gains Myth Lives!

Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, May 28, 1997, at 1:38 PM ET

In the May 26 Time, Daniel Kadlec writes about a capital-gains tax cut: "There are, of course, good reasons to like a rate cut. It ... could unlock tremendous sums to be spent and further the economy--which in turn would enrich federal coffers." Will this fallacy never die? Every dollar "unlocked" when someone sells an asset is a dollar "locked" by someone else who buys it. There may be good reasons for a capital-gains tax cut (see SLATE's recent article and dialogue on the subject), but this ain't one of them.

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