4 ms·
This seems beyond misleading it doesn't even have a method to enter most of the now illegal methods to lower your tax bill. Tax straddles were only banned in 1
by tick_tock_tick 4y ago
This seems beyond misleading it doesn't even have a method to enter most of the now illegal methods to lower your tax bill.
Tax straddles were only banned in 1977 before that you should have easily been able to more then halve your tax bill with futures.
- divbzero 4y agoTax straddles—now illegal—is a new concept to me. A couple old articles about it from New York Times: Looking for Tax Losses in Commodities (1977) https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/11/archives/investing-looking-for-tax-losses-in-commodities.html https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/11/archives/investing-lookin... I.R.S. Wins On Tax Straddles (1982) https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/10/business/irs-wins-on-tax-straddles.html https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/10/business/irs-wins-on-tax-...
- yieldcrv 4y agoInteresting, this is probably why I never heard of straddles in a futures context They are wildly popular in the options (including futures options) market, but what is described here would be called a calender spread or an unbalanced strangle of some sort. No tax benefits from closing long dated contracts early aside from losses offsetting the gains
- thelamest 4y agoDoesn’t this fit into “other adjustments”? Net operating loss is listed among the examples there.
- mywittyname 4y agoI've never heard of tax straddles, but they sound an awful lot like what we now call "tax loss harvesting." > For example, an investor with a capital gain manipulates investments to create an artificial loss from an unrelated transaction to offset their gain in a current year, and postpone the gain till the following tax year.
- brewdad 4y agoAt least tax loss harvesting is recognizing a real loss. Wash rules mean you can't just dump your money back into the same investment.