This isn’t a stop-the-presses new piece of information to people paying attention — the capital gains tax preferences benefit only the very rich, like Mitt Romney. But, here is a simple way to argue it.

Courtesy of the Citizens for Tax Justice:

1) The capital gains tax preference mainly benefits the richest one percent of Americans.

2) It reduces revenue, despite claims to the contrary.

3) It gives rise to tax shelters and makes the tax code overly complicated.

4) These problems will be mitigated, but certainly not eliminated, by the reform of the Hospital Insurance tax coming into effect in 2013.

5) The way to fully resolve the problems described here is to eliminate the special, low personal income tax rates for capital gains so that they are taxed just like any other income.

The full report is here: