Capital Gains Tax Cuts Both Ways

It’s about time! Finally Congress has decided to do something about the capital gains taxes (“Waiting to Exclude,” Personal Finance, July 13). In the past, bureaucrats have argued that the capital gains tax exclusions only benefit the wealthy.

I am a very middle-class citizen who will be greatly affected by this new law. The wealthy are not the only ones that own homes. So often the middle class gets taken to the cleaners when the government decides to eliminate a tax exclusion that it feels is a benefit to the wealthy. The middle class are often the ones who are not able to move up when buying a new home and therefore get hit hard when they sell their homes.

In today’s current market, real estate is not the sure deal that it used to be. It is a legitimate risk, and the everyday Joe should be rewarded for taking that risk. If Realtors are upset that they have fewer homes on the market as people waited to see if this law was passed, they should just look at the upside. Maybe this will help to increase the value of the Southern California housing market and those Realtors can make a bigger commission if the homes are worth more.

KRISTIN LYNCH

Chatsworth