> Stocks are generally such assets and the disposition of stocks results in capital gain income (or capital losses). Apples are not intended for investment; the

> Stocks are generally such assets and the disposition of stocks results in capital gain income (or capital losses). Apples are not intended for investment; they are intended for consumption. Wheat is also intended for consumption, but it -- as with many other goods, consumable or not -- is also a commodity that is traded. I realize I may have pointed out some edge cases that weren't actually edge cases. I am not a tax attorney, so I don't know what the law says. I am only trying to point out that determining what is income and what is a capital gain is a hard problem, even though laws exist that try to put various activities into one of the two categories. The US uses an arbitrary 1-year limit, while the tax code of my country of residence (Denmark) says the tax rate is determined, not by how long the assets are held, but by trying to determine whether the profit constitutes ones primary source of income. If the answer is "yes", it's taxed as income. So different countries use different methods to solve this problem of discerning income and capital gains, but I still maintain that it's a hard problem, that has not been solved adequately anywhere. And that there are many edge cases, resulting from current law, that are counter-intuitive.