Can someone please provide me with a clear definition of Capital Gains? I recently invested $16,500 with a friend of mine. The purpose of this investment was to acquire football tickets for one game and resell them. We indeed sold them and my profit was $8,500. We claimed the $8,500 as Capital gains because it was the proceeds from an investment. The IRS is claiming this is ordinary income because there were multiple tickets and therefore constituted an "inventory asset". This is not a business. This was a one time opportunity. The tickets should not be claimes as an asset because after the game, the tickets are worthess. So, my question is simple, are the proceeds from ticket sales capital gains or not?