Recently, a proposal has been discussed by U.S. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and President Trump of adjusting capital gains for inflation when it comes to taxation of those gains. This has rightly been criticized as a tax break for the rich, but what has not been widely discussed is the hypocrisy and inequity of not including savings accounts, certificates of deposits (CDs), Treasury bills and bonds, and corporate bonds, which yield “interest” instead of “capital gains,” in the inflation-adjustment proposal.

Although there are no legal restrictions preventing most Americans from investing in stocks (equities), about half do not. Reasons include more pressing financial concerns, fear of loss, and a lack of understanding of how stocks work. Therefore, adjusting capital gains for inflation will mainly be helpful to wealthier Americans.

Capital gains already have numerous tax advantages over earned income, such as:

• No 15.3% payroll taxes (7.65% employee and 7.65% employer share)
• If older than one year (long-term), the tax rate is much lower or even 0%
• Long-term tax rate tops out much lower (20% instead of 37%) for high earners
• You can choose when to incur capital gains taxes (when to sell)
• Capital gains tend to be received by high-earners, who gain the most from these advantages because they are in high tax brackets

Presently, interest on savings accounts, CDs, T-bills/bonds, and corporate bonds is taxed at the same rate as earned income and short-term capital gains. Except certain corporate bonds, these types of investments do not yield any capital gains, but rather yield interest only. Thus, none of the above benefits of capitals gains apply. Americans, especially those with lower incomes and net worths, are more likely to put their money in savings accounts, CDs, and Treasury securities rather than stocks. Therefore, they miss out not only on the capital appreciation power of stocks, which is much greater than low-risk assets over the long term; they also miss out on preferential tax treatment that already exists. To add an inflation adjustment on top of this is ridiculous.

Some may quip that stocks do pay something similar to interest, in the form of dividends, which are taxed like earned income and short-term capital gains. This is false; for most “buy and hold” investors in index funds and many individual stocks, the vast majority of dividends are treated as “qualified” dividends which are treated not like interest, but as long-term capital gains. Again, investors in stocks get preferential treatment.

Each year, banks, the U.S. Treasury, and other firms must issue Form 1099-INT to report how much interest income you received in the prior tax year on savings accounts, CDs, T-bills/bonds, et cetera. However, we should not forget that savings accounts typically pay low interest rates—sometimes as little as 0.03% annual percentage yield (APY), with the best accounts paying no more than about 2.0% APY. If we were to adjust savings interest for inflation, which is around 2.4% presently (or 2.9% including food and energy), this would be a loss rather than income! If we adjust capital gains for inflation, shouldn’t we adjust interest too?

Logisitcal challenges aside, if we were to go a step further, offering an above-the-line deduction (like we do with student loan interest) for lost purchasing power on Americans’ savings, capital gains would still be far too advantaged.

Due to the unfairness of how interest is treated, with no consideration of inflation, some have dubbed saving money a suckers’ game. Although a majority of Americans do not understand this, investing, on the other hand, is a winners’ game. The prudent step would be for the government to begin adjusting interest income for inflation but not capital gains. Even then, investors would still be receiving highly preferential treatment as compared with savers.