This is one of Roadmap's ready-made topic templates — a starting point for tracking something over time without writing a tracking brief from scratch.
Roadmap is an AI-assisted document editor: markdown with a live preview, a discussion panel where you can ask the AI about a specific section and apply its suggested edit straight to the text (you choose exactly what goes into each request's context), version history with restore, and export in multiple formats. Its "AI Update" button, on any document, searches the web for what has changed since you last checked and updates the document — with dates and sources — only when it finds something genuinely new.
To use this template: click "Open in Editor" above to copy it into your own documents, then press "AI Update" whenever you want to check for news. Browse the sidebar for more topics and categories.
Tax Regulation: Capital Gains Tax (US)
Brief
Tracking changes to capital gains tax in the United States: passed amendments, effective dates, official agency guidance. Not needed: blogger commentary, unofficial interpretations.
Description
Federal capital gains policy has prioritized stability and inflation-indexing over reform, quietly widening the share of income that qualifies for preferential rates each year, even as individual states increasingly diverge in their own treatment of gains.
2026 Rate Thresholds
Long-term capital gains remain taxed at 0%, 15%, or 20%. For married couples filing jointly, the 0% threshold rises to $98,900 (from $96,700 in 2025), and the 20% threshold rises to $613,700 (from $600,050) — pushing more income into the lower 15% bracket.
Legislative Basis
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), passed in July 2025, made most Tax Cuts and Jobs Act individual provisions permanent and permanently retained the capital gains rate structure: the 15% rate begins at $49,451 for single filers ($98,901 married filing jointly), and the 20% rate at $545,500 single ($613,700 married filing jointly).
State-Level Change
Missouri became the first income-taxing state to repeal its tax on capital gains, effective January 1, 2025.