Short-Term Capital Gain
Category: Investment · Related form: Schedule D
Gain on assets held one year or less. Short-term gains are taxed as ordinary income at your marginal rate.
How Short-Term Capital Gain fits 2026 planning
Short-Term Capital Gain sits inside capital gains, dividends, wash-sale timing, and surtaxes such as NIIT that sit beside ordinary brackets. For tax year 2026, US Tax Tools treats year-scoped constants (brackets, contribution limits, wage bases, credit schedules) as separate datasets — so explanations of Short-Term Capital Gain should be read with the same year selected in any linked calculator.
Category focus: Investment. Readers usually land on this page while comparing a paycheck estimate, a credit phaseout, or a retirement contribution room figure that depends on understanding Short-Term Capital Gain first.
Worked example
Shares bought in March and sold in November at a $3,000 profit are short-term and stack on top of wages in your ordinary brackets.
Treat the example as a teaching sketch, not a filing position. Change filing status, state residency, or mid-year events and the same definition of Short-Term Capital Gain can produce a different cash outcome even when the glossary text stays the same.
What to watch for
Definitions of Short-Term Capital Gain can differ slightly across IRS publications, SSA rules, Marketplace subsidy worksheets, and state agencies. When two programs both say “income,” confirm which modification rules apply — MAGI for one credit is not always MAGI for another.
Legislation and inflation adjustments can move the dollar thresholds around Short-Term Capital Gain without renaming the concept. Prefer the effective date on the primary source (Rev. Proc., SSA notice, USDA table, or state DOR bulletin) over any blog summary — including this one if a later notice supersedes it.
On a filed return, Short-Term Capital Gain most often surfaces around Schedule D. Read the official IRS instructions for that form for the tax year you are filing — glossary pages summarize concepts; they do not replace line-by-line worksheets.
Next step
When you are ready to model numbers, open the Short-Term Capital Gain related calculator on US Tax Tools. Engines keep tax-year datasets separate so a 2025 habit does not silently reuse a 2026 constant.
Related reading: Tax insights for longer 2026 explainers, Methodology for how engines store cents and traces, and Disclaimer for educational-use limits.