Losses can be used to offset gains in the same year, or up to a 3K write off against other income (or both). Any loss beyond that carries forward to future years as a write of (again 3k per year). Don't re-buy same fund again within 30 days or you get a wash sale and can't write off the loss (until selling the wash shares in future). Answer from Huge-Power9305 on reddit.com
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Vanguard
investor.vanguard.com › home › investor resources & education › tax forms & information › maximize your tax savings with tax-loss harvesting
Tax-loss harvesting explained | Vanguard
Tax-loss harvesting is when you sell investments at a loss and use those losses to offset gains in other investments. You then take the money from the sale and use it to buy an investment that fills a similar role in your portfolio, so you stay ...
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TurboTax
turbotax.intuit.com › tax-tips › investments-and-taxes › wash-sale-rule-what-is-it-how-does-it-work-and-more › c5ANd7xnJ
Wash Sale Rule: What Is It, How Does It Work, and More - TurboTax Tax Tips & Videos
Written by Rocky Mengle, Attorney ... stock or other securities at a loss and then buy substantially identical stock or securities within 30 days before or 30 days after the sale....
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Internal Revenue Service
irs.gov › taxtopics › tc409
Topic no. 409, Capital gains and losses | Internal Revenue Service
You have a capital loss if you sell the asset for less than your adjusted basis. Losses from the sale of personal-use property, such as your home or car, aren't tax deductible. To correctly arrive at your net capital gain or loss, capital gains and losses are classified as long-term or short-term.
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Investing News Network
investingnews.com › home
Mark These Tax-loss Selling Dates on Your Calendar | INN
3 weeks ago - As the end of 2025 nears, investors ... ideal, but sometimes investments go sour. In such cases, all hope is not lost — at the end of the year, investors can sell investments that provided ......
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Kiplinger
kiplinger.com › home › investing
How Selling a Losing Stock Position Can Lower Your Tax Bill | Kiplinger
December 17, 2024 - You recognize it's a risk to have a large concentrated position, but you're not excited about selling and paying taxes on the massive return the ... One option you have is to sell losing positions elsewhere in your portfolio to carve out a little room to rebalance. If you manage to find $5,000 in losses, for instance, you could sell just enough of that appreciated Nvidia position to realize $5,000 in gains, netting you out at zero. And what works for single stocks works just as well for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or
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Charles Schwab
schwab.com › learn › story › 4-reasons-to-sell-your-losers
4 Reasons to Sell Your Losers | Charles Schwab
Taking the loss could allow you to get your portfolio back on track more quickly—and potentially offset capital gains and/or ordinary income. If you've decided to sell some losers, it's important to understand a few of the applicable tax rules before you act: Short-term capital gains are taxed at ordinary federal income tax rates, which, for many taxpayers, are higher than the long-term capital gains rates of 0%, 15%, or 20%, depending on your income level.
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Fidelity
fidelity.com › viewpoints › personal-finance › tax-loss-harvesting
Tax-loss harvesting | Capital gains and lower taxes | Fidelity
1 month ago - If your employer awards stock or stock-like bonuses, selling for a tax loss in anticipation of new stock awards being announced can be a good strategy to ensure your stock-based bonuses don’t accumulate more than you intend.
Find elsewhere
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Charles Schwab
schwab.com › learn › story › how-to-cut-your-tax-bill-with-tax-loss-harvesting
How to Cut Your Tax Bill with Tax-Loss Harvesting | Charles Schwab
When conducting these types of transactions, you should also be aware of the wash-sale rule, which states that if you sell a security at a loss and buy the same or a "substantially identical" security within 30 days before or after the sale, the ...
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Bankrate
bankrate.com › investing
How To Deduct Stock Losses From Your Taxes | Bankrate
September 30, 2025 - The IRS allows you to deduct capital losses on a stock or other investments from your taxable income. You will have to file Form 8949 and a Schedule D to report any losses. You may want to consult with a tax professional if your situation is complicated. Investing and taxes go hand-in-hand. When you sell a stock for a profit inside a taxable brokerage account, you’ll owe taxes on the realized gain.
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TurboTax
turbotax.intuit.com › tax-tips › investments-and-taxes › capital-gains-and-losses › L7GF1ouP8
Capital Gains and Losses - TurboTax Tax Tips & Videos
So, if you bought a stock on March 20, 2024, your holding period began on March 21, 2024. Thus, March 20, 2025, would mark one year of ownership for tax purposes. If you sold on March 20, you would have a short-term capital gain or loss.
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NerdWallet
nerdwallet.com › article › taxes › tax-loss-harvesting
Tax-Loss Harvesting: What It Is, How It Works - NerdWallet
December 18, 2015 - Tax-loss harvesting involves selling assets at a loss to offset capital gains taxes on other investments and then replacing the sold assets with similar ones.
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NerdWallet
nerdwallet.com › article › taxes › taxes-on-stocks
Taxes on Stocks: How They Work, When to Pay - NerdWallet
May 21, 2019 - Similarly, if the value of your ... profit locks in "realized gains," which will be taxed. However, you won't be taxed anything if you sell stock at a loss....
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Merrill
ml.com › articles › selling-high-performing-stocks-3-ideas-to-help-minimize-capital-gains-taxes.html
Selling Stocks and Bonds: How to Avoid Capital Gains Taxes
June 30, 2025 - If a good part of your portfolio is up in value, while a smaller part is down,” Curtin says, “selling some of those ‘down’ investments at a loss — known as tax-loss harvesting — could help offset the tax you owe from selling ...
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Medium
genemarks.medium.com › with-stock-prices-falling-consider-tax-loss-harvesting-to-stay-invested-bd8745599738
With stock prices falling, consider ‘tax-loss harvesting’ to stay invested | by Gene Marks | Medium
March 18, 2025 - According to Malvern-based financial firm Vanguard, “tax-loss harvesting is when you sell investments at a loss and use those losses to offset gains in other investments.
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Morningstar
morningstar.com › personal-finance › how-you-could-benefit-tax-loss-selling-this-year
Don't Rule Out Tax-Loss Selling Before the Year Ends | Morningstar
November 13, 2024 - The specific share identification method for cost-basis elections provides the most opportunities for tax-loss selling or gain harvesting because it allows you to cherry-pick specific lots of a security to sell. But it’s important to note that the average cost basis is usually the cost-basis election default for mutual funds, while the default cost basis election for individual stocks is often first in, first out.
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Investopedia
investopedia.com › articles › taxes › 08 › tax-loss-harvesting.asp
How Tax-Loss Harvesting Works for Retail Investors
August 27, 2025 - Be mindful of the wash sale rule which prohibits repurchasing a "substantially identical" security within 30 days before and after selling at a loss. Tax-loss harvesting is a financial strategy that allows investors to use capital losses from selling losing investments to offset capital gains from profitable ones, potentially reducing their tax liability. The IRS permits the technique under specific conditions and it can be applied to stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and even cryptocurrencies.
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Investopedia
investopedia.com › articles › personal-finance › 100515 › heres-how-deduct-your-stock-losses-your-tax-bill.asp
Maximize Tax Savings by Deducting Stock Losses
October 13, 2025 - It's generally better to take any capital losses in the year for which you are tax-liable for short-term gains, or in a year in which you have zero capital gains because that results in savings on your total ordinary income tax rate.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/tax › how does claiming money lost in stocks work exactly?
r/tax on Reddit: How does claiming money lost in stocks work exactly?
November 4, 2024 -

I tried to post this on ExplainLikeImFive but they don’t allow posts related to taxes.

I tried looking it up on my own but I don’t understand what short term losses, long term losses, short term gains, long term gains or capital losses are. I’m not familiar with any of it. My husband mentioned that money lost on stocks could be claimed on our taxes but I still don’t understand how that works?

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You have a W2 from work. That's income. You invest in stocks. They go up. Yeah!! So you sell some, the profit is capital gain. Some go down. Boo - sell them. The loss is a capital loss. Some of them you owned for more than a year. Those are long-term. Some, you held less. Those are short-term. Add the long term ones together. That's your net long term gain or loss. Add the short term ones together. That's your short term gain or loss. A. If both of those are gains, you owe tax on all the net gains. Your software will calculate the tax. But net short term gains are taxed as ordinary income, just like your W2. Net long-term gains can get special lower rates. Your software will do that math. B1. If one was gain and the other is loss, you add them together. Net gain? Pay tax. The rate depends on whether the net total, whether short term or long. B2. Net loss? Then you get to use up to $3,000 on your taxes for this year. Just a deduction. Reduce your taxable income. Any excess carries to next year, to be entered into these calculations next year. C. If both are losses, again, you get to use $3,000 of them this year, and the excess, if any, goes to next year. You use the short term losses first, then long-term losses. Again, your software will do this.
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A gain or loss results when you sell an asset for more or less (respectively) than you paid for it. If you buy a stock for $100 and sell it for $120, you have a $20 gain. If on the other hand you sell it for $80, you have a $20 loss. Short vs long term gains/losses refers to the holding period of the asset. If you owned the asset for over one year, your gains and losses are considered long term. One year or less, and your gains/losses are short term. This is important because in most cases long term gains are taxed more favorably than short term gains. When you put these two variables together you can end up with one of four possible outcomes when you sell an asset: A short-term gain, a long-term gain, a short-term loss or a long-term loss. If you bought shares at different times and/or prices the outcome is determined for each share individually even if you sell them all at the same time, so it is possible for a single sale to result in both gains and losses, and for those gains and/or losses to be a mix of both short-term and long-term. Thankfully these days you don't need to keep track of all of this yourself; your brokerage should send you a tax form with all of the information you need. Once you have said tax form, you tally up everything from each of the four categories separately. If you have losses, those losses must first be applied against gains of the same holding period: Short-term losses credit against short-term gains, and long-term losses credit against long-term gains. Once you've done that, if you have a net loss in either the short-term or long-term category, you can apply that loss against gains in the other holding period (i.e. a net long-term loss can be used to further reduce short-term gains or vice versa). If both your short-term and long-term sales have a net loss, or if the losses from one completely eclipse the gains of the other, you are permitted to deduct up to $3,000 of these excess losses against your total income. If your losses exceed $3,000, the remaining losses are carried forward and can be deducted in future years until they are all used up.
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RBC Wealth Management
rbcwealthmanagement.com › home › insights › tax-loss selling – building a better understanding
Tax-loss selling – building a better understanding
November 1, 2023 - The main limitation from a tax-laws standpoint individuals need to be aware of with tax-loss selling is what’s termed “superficial loss.” These rules look at the period of 30 days before and after the sale date, and will deny an individual’s ...