What if?
The same sale under different choices, each computed by the engine rather than estimated. Figures are the tax on the gain, so the rows stay comparable when a variant spans two tax years. Select one to load it into the calculator and read its full derivation.
Estimates only — this is not tax advice. Consult a CPA or enrolled agent before acting on these figures. The calculator does not model the alternative minimum tax, wash sales, like-kind exchanges, QSBS, installment sales, or state additions and subtractions. See what is out of scope.
Show your work — 0 steps, each with its rule and citation
How Louisiana taxes a capital gain
Statutory authority: La. R.S. 47:32(A), last modified 18 May 2026 (retrieved 3 September 2026)
Louisiana still has an income tax, whatever the repeal document is called
The Louisiana legislature publishes a document titled “Repeals the individual income tax”. It is genuine, it is on the legislature’s own site, and it is accurately named for what it does. Read the title alone and you would conclude Louisiana has no income tax and therefore no tax on a capital gain. That conclusion is wrong, and it is wrong by three percent of your entire gain.
What the act repealed was the structure. La. R.S. 47:32 has two subsections. Subsection B held the graduated bracket schedule, and it now carries the line “Repealed by Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11, s4, eff. Dec. 4, 2024”. Subsection A, which actually imposes the tax, stands untouched and reads: “The tax to be assessed, levied, collected, and paid upon the taxable income of an individual shall be computed at the rate of three percent on net income.”
So the ladder was abolished and replaced by a single rate in the same breath. The amendment history under the section ends at Act 11 of 2024; there is no 2026 act moving it again. A document can be authentic, current and correctly titled and still describe something far narrower than its name suggests, and this is the clearest instance of it in the fifty-one jurisdictions covered here. It is recorded as a named failure mode on the methodology page.
The same act took away the capital gains break
Act 11 is usually described as a rate change, which undersells it for anyone selling an asset. It also reached into the list of income Louisiana lets you subtract.
R.S. 47:293(9)(a) is that list — the statutory definition of what comes out of federal adjusted gross income before Louisiana taxes what is left. The phrases “capital gain”, “net capital” and “equity interest” now appear in it exactly zero times. The exclusion for gains on the sale of a business interest, formerly at item (xvii), reads “Repealed by Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11”. Item (ix) reads the same. The act that flattened the rate stripped the relief in the same section of the same law.
That is a verified absence rather than an assumption, and the distinction matters. Concluding that a state has no capital gains provision because you did not find one is a different act from reading the subtractions list and finding the provision explicitly repealed. This page rests on the second.
A single rate makes the arithmetic trivial and the planning narrow
Three percent applies from the first dollar of gain to the last. Your other income does not move it, your filing status does not move it, and how long you held the asset does not move it. A sale after eleven months and a sale after eleven years attract the identical Louisiana charge.
This is the flip side of the flat structure. In a graduated state a large gain can push part of itself into a higher band, so timing and splitting a sale across two years can genuinely change the state bill. In Louisiana it cannot: the rate is the same in every year and at every size, so the only Louisiana question is whether the sale happens at all, not when. Every remaining planning lever is federal.
Where the 3% sits against the states nearby
Against its neighbours Louisiana is now genuinely low, which is what the 2024 act was for. Texas, immediately west, has never levied an individual income tax at all, so a Texan pays nothing at the state level. Mississippi, immediately east, exempts the first $10,000 of taxable income entirely and then charges 4.0%.
The comparison with Mississippi is the more interesting one, because the two states arrived at similar places by opposite routes. Mississippi kept a band structure and put a genuine zero-rate band at the bottom of it; Louisiana abolished its bands and applied one rate to everything. For a small gain Mississippi is cheaper, because part of the income escapes entirely. For a large gain Louisiana is cheaper, because 3% beats 4.0% and the zero band stops mattering once it is used up by ordinary income.
Arkansas, to the north, is not quoted. Its ladder and its 50% long-term gain exclusion have been read, but not the figures needed to compute a given filer, so no Arkansas number appears here rather than an approximate one.
Why this page took an extra day, and what that says about the source
Every state on this site is verified from a primary source, and for most of them that means fetching a statute or a revenue department page directly. Louisiana could not be fetched. Its legislative host resolves in public DNS but refuses every connection from the machine this site is built on, and the revenue department sits behind a bot challenge that must not be worked around.
The gap was closed by a person opening the statute on a different network and supplying the text. Until then this site carried Louisiana as unverified and refused to compute it, on the ground that a news report is not a source for a rate — even one that turns out to be correct.
The result is a stronger source than the usual procedure obtains: most states here are read from a revenue department’s rate page or return instructions, which are authoritative but secondary, while Louisiana is read from the statute itself. The corrections log carries the entry, as a change of status rather than of figure.
What this calculator does not model for Louisiana
Louisiana grants a standard deduction under R.S. 47:294, and it is not modelled here. For almost every reader that omission changes nothing at all, because a flat rate makes the tax a sale adds equal to three percent of the gain no matter what the deduction is. Deductions move where your income starts; they cannot move a rate that is the same everywhere.
There is one case where it does matter. If your entire Louisiana net income for the year, gain included, falls below the standard deduction, Louisiana takes nothing and this calculator will still show three percent of the gain. That case is unusual for anyone with a gain large enough to be worth calculating, but it is real, and it is stated here rather than hidden behind a figure this site has not read from the statute.
The standing limits apply as everywhere: the state figure approximates Louisiana net income with federal ordinary taxable income, additions and subtractions beyond the repealed gains items are not modelled, and full-year residency is assumed. Federal treatment is untouched — the holding-period ladder, the investment-income surtax and the home and rental reliefs are worked out first and identically, and the 3% follows.
A worked Louisiana example
Every figure below is computed by the same engine that powers the calculator above, at the moment this page was built — not typed in by hand. When the tax-year data is updated, this example updates with it.
A $180,000 gain on a $95,000 salary
A single filer in Louisiana earning $95,000 sells long-held shares for a $180,000 gain. Under the ladder Act 11 repealed, the top of this gain would have reached a higher band; now every dollar of it meets the same rate.
- Taxable income after deduction
- $258,900
- Taxable gain
- $180,000
- Tax owed without the sale
- $12,070
- Tax the sale added
- $29,850
- of which net investment income tax
- $2,850
- Total federal tax
- $41,920
- Louisiana state tax
- $5,400
- Effective rate on the gain
- 16.58%
The Louisiana charge is exactly 3% of $180,000. Multiply the gain by 0.03 and you have the state figure without needing the rest of the return — which is the whole practical consequence of a flat rate.
Caveats on this example (1)
- Net investment income was derived from capital gains and qualified dividends only. Interest, non-qualified dividends, rents, royalties and passive business income inside ordinaryIncome are also net investment income under IRC 1411(c) and are not counted here.
Show the working — 13 steps, each with its citation
- Net short-term capital gain or loss for the year$0
Assets held one year or less. Taxed at ordinary rates if a net gain.
- Net long-term capital gain or loss for the year$180,000
Assets held more than one year. Eligible for the 0/15/20% rates.
- Standard deduction-$16,100
Adjusted gross income of $275,000 less $16,100.
- Taxable income$258,900
The figure the rate tables and the capital gain ceilings are both measured against.
- Ordinary income taxed at 10%$1,240
$12,400 of taxable income between $0 and $12,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 12%$4,560
$38,000 of taxable income between $12,400 and $50,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 22%$6,270
$28,500 of taxable income between $50,400 and $78,900.
- Ordinary income stacked below the long-term gain$78,900
Long-term gain is taxed by reference to where it sits ON TOP of $78,900 of other taxable income, not from the bottom of the rate table.
- Long-term gain taxed at 15%$27,000
Gain between the $49,450 zero-rate ceiling and the $545,500 15% ceiling.
- Net investment income tax threshold$200,000
Modified AGI of $275,000 against the $200,000 threshold for a single filer. This threshold is statutory and is not adjusted for inflation.
- Net investment income tax at 3.8%$2,850
3.8% of $75,000, the lesser of net investment income ($180,000) and the amount by which modified AGI exceeds the threshold ($75,000). Here the binding figure is the excess of modified AGI over the threshold.
- Louisiana income tax at 3%$5,400
Flat 3%, taxing capital gains as ordinary income, with no capital gains relief of any kind. R.S. 47:32(A): "The tax to be assessed, levied, collected, and paid upon the taxable income of an individual shall be computed at the rate of three percent on net income." The graduated ladder that preceded it is gone: subsection B is marked "Repealed by Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11" — the same act that set this rate. THE CAPITAL GAINS EXCLUSION WENT WITH IT. R.S. 47:293(9)(a), the statutory subtractions list, contains no occurrence of "capital gain", "net capital" or "equity interest"; the business-interest exclusion formerly at (9)(a)(xvii), and item (ix), both now read "Repealed by Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11". That is a verified ABSENCE read from the statute, not an assumption. Louisiana also has a standard deduction under R.S. 47:294 which is not modelled and does not change the figure below: at a single flat rate the tax a sale adds is 3% of the gain whatever the deduction is. It matters only if your entire net income falls under it, in which case Louisiana owes nothing and this calculator overstates by 3% of the gain.
- Total tax$47,320
$47,320 on $275,000 of total income, an effective rate of 17.21%.
The same sale, if the old exclusion had survived
An identical filer selling an interest in a Louisiana business for the same $180,000 gain. Before Act 11 a gain of this kind could fall under the exclusion at R.S. 47:293(9)(a)(xvii); that item now reads “Repealed”, so the gain is taxed in full and this example computes the figure that actually applies.
- Taxable income after deduction
- $258,900
- Taxable gain
- $180,000
- Tax owed without the sale
- $12,070
- Tax the sale added
- $29,850
- of which net investment income tax
- $2,850
- Total federal tax
- $41,920
- Louisiana state tax
- $5,400
- Effective rate on the gain
- 16.58%
The Louisiana figure is unchanged, because the exclusion is gone. Anyone relying on guidance written before December 2024 for the sale of a business interest is working from a provision that no longer exists, and the repeal line sits directly under the item in the statute.
Caveats on this example (1)
- Net investment income was derived from capital gains and qualified dividends only. Interest, non-qualified dividends, rents, royalties and passive business income inside ordinaryIncome are also net investment income under IRC 1411(c) and are not counted here.
Show the working — 13 steps, each with its citation
- Net short-term capital gain or loss for the year$0
Assets held one year or less. Taxed at ordinary rates if a net gain.
- Net long-term capital gain or loss for the year$180,000
Assets held more than one year. Eligible for the 0/15/20% rates.
- Standard deduction-$16,100
Adjusted gross income of $275,000 less $16,100.
- Taxable income$258,900
The figure the rate tables and the capital gain ceilings are both measured against.
- Ordinary income taxed at 10%$1,240
$12,400 of taxable income between $0 and $12,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 12%$4,560
$38,000 of taxable income between $12,400 and $50,400.
- Ordinary income taxed at 22%$6,270
$28,500 of taxable income between $50,400 and $78,900.
- Ordinary income stacked below the long-term gain$78,900
Long-term gain is taxed by reference to where it sits ON TOP of $78,900 of other taxable income, not from the bottom of the rate table.
- Long-term gain taxed at 15%$27,000
Gain between the $49,450 zero-rate ceiling and the $545,500 15% ceiling.
- Net investment income tax threshold$200,000
Modified AGI of $275,000 against the $200,000 threshold for a single filer. This threshold is statutory and is not adjusted for inflation.
- Net investment income tax at 3.8%$2,850
3.8% of $75,000, the lesser of net investment income ($180,000) and the amount by which modified AGI exceeds the threshold ($75,000). Here the binding figure is the excess of modified AGI over the threshold.
- Louisiana income tax at 3%$5,400
Flat 3%, taxing capital gains as ordinary income, with no capital gains relief of any kind. R.S. 47:32(A): "The tax to be assessed, levied, collected, and paid upon the taxable income of an individual shall be computed at the rate of three percent on net income." The graduated ladder that preceded it is gone: subsection B is marked "Repealed by Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11" — the same act that set this rate. THE CAPITAL GAINS EXCLUSION WENT WITH IT. R.S. 47:293(9)(a), the statutory subtractions list, contains no occurrence of "capital gain", "net capital" or "equity interest"; the business-interest exclusion formerly at (9)(a)(xvii), and item (ix), both now read "Repealed by Acts 2024, 3rd Ex. Sess., No. 11". That is a verified ABSENCE read from the statute, not an assumption. Louisiana also has a standard deduction under R.S. 47:294 which is not modelled and does not change the figure below: at a single flat rate the tax a sale adds is 3% of the gain whatever the deduction is. It matters only if your entire net income falls under it, in which case Louisiana owes nothing and this calculator overstates by 3% of the gain.
- Total tax$47,320
$47,320 on $275,000 of total income, an effective rate of 17.21%.
What this calculator does not cover for Louisiana
The Louisiana figure stacks your gain on your federal ordinary taxable income. Louisiana computes its own taxable income with its own additions and subtractions, which are not modelled here — so treat the state number as a close approximation for a straightforward wage-and-sale situation, and as a rough one if your return carries significant state adjustments.
Full-year residency is assumed throughout. Part-year residents, non-residents, and gains sourced to property in another state all turn on rules this calculator does not model. The complete list of what is in and out of scope is on the methodology page.
Other states
- TexasNo individual income tax. Federal tax still applies in full.
- MississippiFirst $10,000 of taxable income at 0%, then 4.0%.
See the full 2026 capital gains guide for the federal rules that apply wherever you live — the rate ladder, the net investment income tax, the home-sale exclusion and depreciation recapture — plus every state we currently cover.