There is a silver lining to this yr’s down market — the chance to offset any capital positive factors by promoting shares at a loss. Tax-loss harvesting is a key theme for year-end planning as buyers attempt to offset the tax chew from capital positive factors elsewhere of their portfolio. It is a technique that applies to taxable brokerage accounts. “As irrational as it might be (that is an instance of ‘anchoring bias’), tax loss harvesting will help you refocus your consideration on the progress that you have made in your long-term investing journey, which is much extra essential than a short-term snapshot of latest (and non permanent) losses,” mentioned Daniel Scansaroli, UBS’s head of portfolio technique and UBS Wealth Manner Options. Excessive-income households usually profit probably the most from the tax technique, however the dimension of the profit is affected by quite a lot of components — together with your taxable earnings, tax charges, your time horizon and your asset allocation, he mentioned. There are some things to bear in mind earlier than partaking in tax-loss promoting, together with what’s referred to as the “wash sale rule.” That rule states you may’t purchase and promote the identical safety inside 30 days of each other. So, you might be unable to promote your shedding inventory to offset a achieve, after which purchase it once more inside 30 days so you may get the upside when it rebounds. Listed below are three methods to scale back your tax burden. 1. Tax swapping With this technique, you promote your unique funding and use the proceeds to purchase a substitute asset. “A finest follow for implementing a tax swap with out lacking out on a restoration rally — and with out operating afoul of the wash sale rule — is to make use of a substitute funding in the identical asset class as your unique funding,” Scansaroli mentioned. As an example, that would imply promoting shares of Coca-Cola and shopping for Pepsi. 2. Doubling down There could also be some circumstances when you may’t simply discover a substitute funding for the one you wish to promote. Nevertheless, if you happen to promote your unique funding after which wait 30 days to purchase it once more, there is a danger that you’re going to miss out on any positive factors throughout that time-frame, Scansaroli mentioned. If you’re nervous about risk, you should utilize a “doubling down” technique. As soon as which safety you wish to promote, buy extra shares of it earlier than making a sale. Then, wait till after the 30-day interval to promote your unique property. With this technique, you will want additional money to make the acquisition since you will not have the proceeds of the prior sale. There may be additionally the possibility you could possibly see extra losses if the funding continues to fall. Conversely, the safety may rally again in that 30-day interval and you will not have the ability to promote it at a loss to offset your capital positive factors. 3. Tax administration overlay One of the best strategy is to make small and constant loss harvesting trades all year long as a result of markets are likely to go increased over time and losses are normally short-lived, Scansaroli mentioned. That might imply utilizing a systemic strategy that repeatedly displays every place. With a tax administration overlay technique, your supervisor considers your tax value every time making a portfolio adjustment, he mentioned. “Along with discovering loss harvesting alternatives, a tax administration overlay technique will help you to handle the impression of capital positive factors from deliberate gross sales — for instance, they’ll postpone a commerce in case you are near getting long-term capital positive factors therapy,” Scansaroli identified. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.