advice sought...

[babysquirrel]

Hi.  This is more of a tax question than a PP question, but I do have a sizable portion of my portfolio in a DIY 4x25 PP, and consult this forum often and find it very helpful/informative.  I am in the process of taking around 100K that is being managed by a fee-based manager back and managing it myself.  It has YTD around 4K in realized losses and about 2K in unrealized gains.  I want to do things as tax-efficient as possible.  Should I sell the winners to off-set some of the losses?  Is there any reason to wait until after Jan. 1?  Is it better to liquidate then transfer or vice versa, etc. etc.   Anything else I should be aware of?  I am not as tax-savvy as  I probably should be. Thanks in advance...

[KevinW]

What are the assets with the unrealized gains? Could they be used acceptably as one of the PP assets?

[ns2]

Hi.  This is more of a tax question than a PP question, but I do have a sizable portion of my portfolio in a DIY 4x25 PP, and consult this forum often and find it very helpful/informative.  I am in the process of taking around 100K that is being managed by a fee-based manager back and managing it myself.  It has YTD around 4K in realized losses and about 2K in unrealized gains.  I want to do things as tax-efficient as possible.  Should I sell the winners to off-set some of the losses?  Is there any reason to wait until after Jan. 1?  Is it better to liquidate then transfer or vice versa, etc. etc.   Anything else I should be aware of?  I am not as tax-savvy as  I probably should be. Thanks in advance...

I had to read through those few sentences several times and I probably still didn't understand all the subtle implications.

But if you have the opportunity to record a 2K loss right now, if I'm understanding it right, I would say "why the hell not?". I was carefully manipulating my own PP to take advantage of some losses a few months ago but it hasn't been all that successful with a little more than a month to go before the end of the year.

I haven't seen anybody present any charts but I have to think that the long term effects of careful TLH would probably prove to be quite significant over the long haul.

[babysquirrel]

What are the assets with the unrealized gains? Could they be used acceptably as one of the PP assets?

The assets with gains are individual stocks - LO, SDRL, and LMT.  Suitable for VP but not so much for PP. 

[KevinW]

If the LDO, SDRL, LMT are a small part of the portfolio --- let's say less than 10% together --- you might consider holding them and treating them as part of the PP stock allocation, until the next dip when you can sell them at a loss.

If it were me I'd sell everything all at once; AFAIK the 4k capital loss will offset 2k of the capital gain, and you can carry forward 2k of capital loss for future use.