Yea, that's part of the Bush tax cuts, too. If you haven't realize that :P. The capital gain is set to flat 15% for long term i.e. 1 year, lol! It's time to quit your jobs and start a company!

Um, yes, that is the objective of passive income versus salaried income, in case you haven't figured it out. It's not like the government is trying to hide this as a secret handshake of some sort. Long term cap gains treatment has always been around, and isn't it obvious that given that if you could make and extra say $100k on a W-2, or be given $100k in stock, you would pick the later versus the former? You've heard of the term financial independence…It means being able to live off of passive income and "not having to work (IE earn a salary)."

That's why every dollar you spend from your W-2 on "bling" that you don't need is one less dollar that you can use to work for you in moving in that direction and why that $2000-$3000 plasma really costs a hell of a lot more than what you actually paid for.

That's why I say you reach a point in your salaried comp when really when you boss says, I'll give you between a 5-10% raise (or you don't get one), it doesn't really make one iota of difference after taxes (though your ego might be bruised a bit).

It's not just from long term cap gains on stocks. What about the $250k/$500k earnings exemption from selling a primary home? I suppose we should get rid of that too. What about rental exchanges and favorable tax treatments from that. I guess we should get rid of that too. The list goes on and on.

You forget also that rich folks like buffet already end up paying 80-90% of the taxes in the system, and a good portion of the population pay 0 taxes and even get a credit.