Tax break looks cheap

WASHINGTON - The movement toward enactment of a targeted capital gains tax gained momentum last week with the release of favorable "scoring" data that are used to calculate the financial cost of legislation to the U.S. Treasury.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, the final arbiter of fiscal impacts of tax legislation, released data indicating that the cost of the targeted provisions in legislation sponsored by Senators Orin Hatch, R-Utah, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., are a veritable drop in the bucket compared to the overall costs of capital gains legislation...