These gains don't cause pain. A capital gain is the amount of money you pocket by selling one of your investments for more than you paid for it. Technically, capital gains only count for what's called a capital asset, but that's really just anything you own for investment purposes. Stocks and bonds obviously qualify, but your house and household furnishings can also count.

For tax purposes, capital gains are classified as either long-term (held for more than one year) or short-term (held for less than one year) and there are different tax implications for how long you hold onto a capital asset. For most long-term capital gains, you're taxed no more than 15% of the value of the asset. Short-term gains get taxed as regular income, so you pay the rate for the tax bracket you're in.

Capital gains can also be realized or unrealized. When you physically sell an asset like a stock, you've realized the capital gain. When you're holding the stock, and it has a value over its purchase price, but you're not selling it, you've got an unrealized gain, and you won't realize it until you sell.

In a perfect world, we'd all have capital gains. But no one¿s that smart or lucky. When the value of an asset at sale is below what you've paid for it, it's called a capital loss. The good news is that the government lets you count that loss against any gains you've had, lowering the taxes you pay. In fact, many people who sell a stock that has risen far over their purchase price tend to sell some stinkers, too, at the same time for the tax benefit. This is known as a capital-loss offset.

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

UPDATE 1-Boeing urges major boost in U.S. space funding

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Reuters

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado--Boeing Co which calls itself the world's leading aerospace company, said Tuesday the United States was in danger of losing its edge in space to countries like China and India, absent major funding increases.

"The road back to the moon will be paved with commitment, leadership and innovation, and a government willing to step up and fund space innovation at levels that haven't been seen in decades," Jim Albaugh, the head of Boeing's defense arm, told a big space-industry gathering here.

"Today, we have ample warning," he said, referring to India and China by name. "We can clearly see our international competitors fast approaching in the rear view mirror."

Since the end of the Cold War and the space race it drove with the old Soviet Union, the United States has spent a declining or flat share of its gross domestic product on space.

U.S. government space spending rose 3.4 percent in 2007 from 2006 while other governments' jumped nearly 12 percent in dollar terms, according to a report released Tuesday by the private Space Foundation, sponsor of the annual conference here called the National Space Symposium.

Combined U.S. defense-related space activities total $45 billion, or 71 percent of U.S. government space spending, said the Space Report 2008.

No comparable figure was provided for Chinese military space spending. The Space Foundation said it had used a "conservative estimate" of $1.5 billion for Chinese civilian space spending, which compares to the $17.6 billion being sought for NASA in the coming budget year.

Russian space spending rose 49 percent to $1.32 billion in 2007, from a year earlier, driven largely by increased investment in Russia's GLONASS global navigation satellite system, the survey said.

Overall, the United States accounted for 81 percent of global government space spending, based on available information, said the Space Foundation study.

Albaugh, who heads Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems business arm, said the stakes were great for the United States in commercial, civilian, national security and space exploration areas.

"It's about our nation's ability to lead and not to follow," he said.

Boeing operates the Space Shuttle and International Space Station for NASA and builds satellites for commercial, military and intelligence uses.

In 2007, Integrated Defense Systems accounted for about $32 billion of Boeing's $66 billion in revenue overall.