SG

I take it you have never paid CG?


"One other peculiar aspect of the capital gains tax has made many economists conclude that it is economically inefficient: it is a form of double taxation on capital formation. Economists Victor Canto and Harvey Hirschorn explained:

A government can choose to tax either the value of an asset or its yield, but it should not tax both. Capital gains are literally the appreciation in the value of an existing asset. Any appreciation reflects merely an increase in the after-tax rate of return on the asset. The taxes implicit in the asset’s after-tax earnings are already fully reflected in the asset’s price or change in price. Any additional tax is strictly double taxation.6

Take, for example, the capital gains tax paid on a pharmaceutical stock. The value of that stock equals the discounted present value of all of the company’s future proceeds. If the company is expected to earn $100,000 a year for the next twenty years, the sales price of the stock will reflect those returns. The “gain” the seller realizes from the sale of the stock will reflect those future returns, and thus the seller will pay capital gains tax on the future stream of income. But the company’s future $100,000 annual returns will also be taxed when they are earned. So the $100,000 in profits is taxed twice—when the owners sell their shares of stock and when the company actually earns the income. That is why many tax analysts argue that the most equitable rate of tax on capital gains is zero.7"

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/CapitalGainsTaxes.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------