Nearly 50 Years Later, It's Time to Update the Capital Loss Deduction
Washington, D.C. ,
October 2, 2026
The tax code shouldn’t be stuck in 1978. Nearly 50 years ago, Congress set the amount of capital losses an individual could deduct against ordinary income at $3,000 per year. Think about how much has changed since then. The cost of a home, a car, groceries, and just about everything else has gone up SIGNIFICANTLY. But that $3,000 limit? It hasn’t moved a penny. Let’s say you invest some of your hard-earned money in stocks, property, or another investment. If you sell those investments for a profit, you have a capital gain. If you sell them for less than you paid, you have a capital loss. Now, say everything is netted out at the end of the year and you’re left with a $10,000 capital loss. Under current law, you can generally deduct only $3,000 of that loss against your ordinary income that year. The remaining $7,000 has to be carried forward to future tax years. That makes absolutely no sense. My bill, the Capital Loss Inflation Fairness Act, would account for inflation and raise the annual capital loss deduction limit from $3,000 to $14,250 for individuals and from $1,500 to $7,125 for married taxpayers filing separately. Just as importantly, it would index those amounts to inflation going forward so we don’t find ourselves having this same conversation 50 years from now. This isn’t some new government program. It doesn’t create another federal bureaucracy. It simply updates an outdated provision of our tax code to reflect economic reality and allows Americans to recognize more of their investment losses sooner. I’m proud to have Reps. Michael Cloud, Thomas Massie, Sheri Biggs, and Andy Harris join me as original cosponsors, along with support from the National Taxpayers Union and Americans for Prosperity. Read more - https://norman.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=3672&fbclid=IwY2xjawVMaWBleHRuA2FlbQIxMABwZG9mAWJyaWQRMTZleTZtVjJjZkJGd002MldzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEevXMl4UdizgcR_6xwiVUHHlpgrJVytbqA2br-8hVobyRxkh14n0El91H4tSE_aem_YVAwRVjcghrtFTiY5gKDKw |