The purchase of stock is not taxed, but the sale certainly is a taxable event, and does not even take inflation into account when determining the capital gain.

The purchase of stock is not taxed, but the sale certainly is a taxable event, and does not even take inflation into account when determining the capital gain. In the same way, when one company buys another company, that does not trigger a taxable event for the acquiring company, but it does for shareholders who sell their stock in the acquired company. What I think you are better off objecting to is the tax rate. In my opinion there should not be special tax rates for long term versus short term capital gains, or different tax rates for income received by selling capital versus income received by selling labor. Tax rates should be agnostic as to how the income was earned, and this alone will close a lot of loopholes and change the situation where a wealthy person living off of dividends or long term capital gains pays a lower rate than a middle class person living off of their wages.