The kinds of assets owned also vary with income. Ownership of capital gains assets varies with age, because people tend to accumulate assets over their working lives and sell them off during retirement. This life-cycle pattern is reflected in statistics on asset ownership. The percentage falls slightly to 47 percent for families whose head is sixty-five or older. Capital gains are before carryover and loss limit.
Age is for the first listed social security number on joint- returns.
The proportion increased to a maximum of about 24 percent for taxpayers in the highest income categories. Some taxpayers faced a maximum effective tax rate higher than 28 percent, as discussecl in chapter 2. A few face even higher tax rates because of other provisions, such as the partial taxation of ,, . For example, taxpayers whose income excluding capital gains is below the threshold for taxation of social security may find that realizing capital gains subjects some of their social security benefits to tax. Some taxpayers faced lower tax rates because they had carried over capital losses from previous years that sheltered current-year capital gains from tax, or business losses and other deductions that put them in lower tax brackets.