Correct... Currently, if you purchase or lease a membership on a futures exchange you lose the 60/40 treatment and your profits are taxed as ordinary income. I have previously confirmed this with Robert Green.
Don't forget to call or send an email to your broker with the url to the story today. Getting the brokers to give some pushback will help keep this thing from seeing light of day. If it happens, most of us are finished.
that would more or less stop short term trading. the loss of liquidity then would kill markets even faster.
Now you're seeing the real plan unfold. "They" don't want us managing our own money. "They" take over all the banks and brokerages and "they" manage the money. That's where this whole thing is going. They're trying to smooth this whole thing out, for themselves. No more trading by the common man. We can pick up the phone, call the government broker, buy your shares of XYZ company and wait until retirement to cash out. The market goes up a very predictable and manipulated 8%, they take their commish and all is right in the world...their world.
My guess is that the 60/40 gift we futures traders have been getting for the last twenty five years or so is going to be a casualty. On principle, it is difficult to justify it; though when it comes to my taxes, I love it.
Two quick rebuttals. 1.Unless one meets the criteria of professional status making them eligible for mark to market-your carry over on losses is capped at 3k a year. 2. If you're a long term holder of futures, i.e. if you index your holdings via ES rather than an ETF-you're then paying a higher rate on the 60/40 blend than the more applicable to your style cap gains rate.
Unfortunately I heard the CEO of Overstock.com on the radio last night commenting on the bailout; he mentioned that the transaction tax was a core component of the plan.