Year-end Capital Gains Strategies

2011 has produced some significant gyrations in the financial markets that have had an impact on everyone’s portfolios. But for tax purposes, gains and losses are not measured by the increased or decreased value of your portfolio, but by gains and losses recognized from the sale of capital assets during the year. So you still have until the end of the year to structure your gains and losses to suit your particular tax situation.

Conventional wisdom has always been to minimize gains by selling “losers” to offset gains from “winners,” and, where possible, generate the maximum allowable $3,000 ($1,500 for married taxpayers filing separately) capital loss for the year.

As a reminder, the maximum long-term (assets held for more than a year) capital gains are still at the all-time low maximum rate of 15%, and unless changed by Congress, will remain at that rate through 2012. Taxpayers who are in the 15% or lower marginal tax rate actually enjoy a 0% tax rate on long-term capital gains and should do whatever is possible to take advantage of that tax benefit. The capital gains rates are currently scheduled to revert to 20% (10% to the extent a taxpayer is in the 15% or lower tax bracket) in 2013.

Assets that are not held long-term, referred to as short-term capital gains, do not receive the benefits of the special rates afforded long-term capital gains. Taxpayers achieve a better overall tax benefit if they can arrange their transactions so as to offset short-term capital gains with long-term capital losses.

If you exercised incentive (qualified) stock options with your employer this year and you are still holding the stock, selling the stock before year’s end to avoid phantom income created by the alternative minimum tax may be appropriate.

If you are planning substantial gifts to charity or to relatives and have capital assets that have appreciated in value, gifting the appreciated assets rather than cash may be beneficial.

Finally, as an advance warning, the reporting of the sale of capital assets will become significantly more complicated this year. With the advent of brokerage firms being required to track and report basis for stock sales, the transactions for the year will have to be segregated into four possible groups: those for which the broker reported basis and those for which the broker did not know basis, and each of those categories split by short- and long-term transactions. The IRS has developed the new Form 8949 for this purpose. Each category of transactions must be reported on a separate Form 8949, and then the totals transferred to a redesigned Schedule D. The IRS requires this separation of transactions to facilitate its computer matching of transactions.

The actions mentioned above may have additional factors that must be considered and require careful planning. You are encouraged to consult with our office before acting on any of the suggested strategies.