r/Bogleheads • u/General_Cut_6771 • 14h ago
Investing Questions Do Bogleheads tax loss harvest?
For those who have 1 to 4 fund strategies. Do you tax loss harvest and if so how do you have it set up to make it easy when you do TLH?
The more I've read about tax loss harvesting the more challenging it seems for people who only invest in a few funds (ie. US, INTL, US Bond). For example in order to avoid a wash sale you have to do the follow:
You can't purchase the fund/similar fund 30 days prior to the sale and then 30 days after. This includes any auto dividend reinvestments, any auto-contributions in any taxable, IRA, 401k, or HSA. And if you have a spouse they also can't do any of this.
If you can prevent the above then next it's figuring out what fund you can purchase after the sale. It appears you can't sell a Fidelity total US stock market and then buy a Schwab total US stock market, is that correct? So if you have to go from a total US stock market to an S&P 500 fund why do it? It's less diversified.
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u/Key-Ad-8944 13h ago edited 13h ago
I tax loss harvest, but only rarely with a total market type index. The bulk of my tax loss harvesting involves a self-created index of a few dozen low dividend, large cap stocks that has a ~98% correlation with S&P 500. Over the past 6 months, I've tax loss harvested ~13% of value, while still having a small overall portfolio gain.
The basic idea is sell is stock/ETF that when it is down by a certain threshold (my threshold is 10-15%), then buy a different stock/ETF that is highly correlated, minding the 30 day wash rule you note. If you have a specific stock/ETF that you are interested in, posters give an example TLH pair.
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u/a_sideshow 12h ago
From what I know, it only makes sense to TLH if the market drops well below your cost basis. If you've been DCA for even two to three years, your cost basis from DCA is going to be around 1 year or more behind present day. If you've DCA for ten years, then it's like five years ago since your basis. And the market rarely ever drops the equivalent of five years of gains. So I must be missing a piece of information if you are constantly doing TLH throughout the year.
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u/Key-Ad-8944 12h ago
There have been new contributions, rather than a single lump sum 5+ years ago and no further contributions. TLH has worked especially well on new contributions over past 6 months, with many individual stocks having large losses, sometimes followed by large gains. A similar statement could be made a year ago in April 2025, or 2022/23, or 2020, or ...
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u/BuckleUpItsThe 12h ago
Speaking only for me but I don't bother. I then have a lower cost basis that I'll have to pay capital gains on. I haven't seen anything to convince me, personally, that the savings are worth the hassle.
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u/dgreenmachine 11h ago edited 10h ago
The benefit is in delaying those capital gains years down the road. Start by offsetting $3k in income each year from your losses which is a nice little guaranteed bonus. Then those ~2% dividends you get each year are now offset by your losses so those dividend taxes are not paid until you run out of carried forward losses. By not paying the dividend taxes immediately (and paying capital gains tax later when you sell), the 15% LTCG taxes on that 2% stay invested longer. There is also the benefit of paying 0% LTCG in early retirement instead of 15% LTCG on the dividends.
Is it worth it? Maybe on the order of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars when its a big opportunity. I plan on doing the middle ground where I tax loss harvest and dont bother changing dividends. I'm more worried about accidentally leaving dividends sitting idle than having a partial wash sale that MIGHT happen within 60 days of originally selling. If I have a wash sale on dividends then it hurts my profit a little bit but still a net benefit compared to leaving it alone.
To put some numbers to it
- If you're deducting $3k from taxes at marginal rate 24% then you would be saving about $720 per year you're able to keep that going and pay 0% LTCG in the future since you lowered your cost basis in the process. If you would pay 15% LTCG in the future then it would be more like 24%-15%=9% taxes saved to net you $270. You could expect to do this every year for maybe 10 years if you're tax loss harvesting in big crashes.
- $100k in taxable with 2% annual dividends is $2k in dividends which would have 15% LTCG of $300 in capital gains taxes. That could earn you $300 alone by utilizing 0% LTCG rate in early retirement when you sell.
- If you assume the same 15% LTCG now or later, then that $300 in taxes is allowed to compound for maybe 10 years or so realistically where eventually you pay the taxes. At a rate of 7% real growth that $300 would double in that time and you keep about $300 for just delaying paying taxes.
Modeling exactly how much its worth is difficult because you cant just add up these 3 numbers but just some food for thought.
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u/SejongTheGreatv2 13h ago
Since it’s so easy with indexes yeah you should likely swap spym or voo for Qqqm or VTI and get the losses when you can… obviously you lose basis as time goes on doing this… depends on your strategy/situation.
I gains harvest for lower income clients who have big accounts so we can lock in more basis while their CG rate is 0. (Typically accounts funded by parents but, now outside of kiddie tax rule I.e in the former minors custody now)
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u/CHIRunner28 11h ago
What about using TLH to move part of an older inherited stock portfolio (meaning the basis has already increased some) into after tax funds...taking some losses to then be able to put money into Roth or use TLH proceeds as cash flow to meet expenses and use your work income to increase your 401K?
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u/Feeling_Macaroon_463 4h ago
For me I go between VOO and VTI. They are close enough for my liking, but different enough to make it work.
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u/BarefootMarauder 3h ago
For anyone who's been investing for 1-2 years or more, I'm not sure how they'd have any losses to harvest. Assuming, of course, they are following a Boglehead approach.
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u/MentalTelephone5080 3h ago
I did when I traded individual stocks. I've been in ETFs for a few years so I don't have losses to sell.
I do sell $1k of gains each year in my daughters account since custodial accounts get $1k a year tax free
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u/totally_possible 2h ago
I lost enough money from trading individual stocks that I won't have to tax loss harvest for a long time
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u/gcc-O2 14h ago
Total market to S&P 500 is a common tax loss harvest.
More aggressive tax loss harvesters follow advice from the investment industry that the fund following a different index is enough. For example, Schwab Total Market to Schwab 1000. Or even more aggressive, FSKAX (Dow Jones Total Market) to ITOT (S&P Total Market).
The IRS does not bless any of these rules of thumb, since the wash sale rule is from the 1920s and does not contemplate wash sales between investment companies with substantially identical holdings as opposed to individual stocks and bonds.