Turning Stock Downturns Into Tax Advantages
Have you ever invested in a company only to see its stock value plummet? (This may become relevant in light of recent market volatility.) While such an investment might be something you’d rather forget, there’s a silver lining: you can claim a capital loss deduction on your tax return. Here are the rules when a stock you own is sold at a loss or is entirely worthless.
How capital losses work
As capital assets, stocks produce capital gains or losses when they’re sold. Your capital gains and losses for the year must be netted against one another in a specific order based on whether they’re short-term (held one year or less) or long-term (held for more than one year).
If, after netting, you have short-term or long-term losses (or both), you can use them to offset up to $3,000 of ordinary income ($1,500 for married taxpayers filing separately). Any loss in excess of this limit is carried forward to later years until all of it is either offset against capital gains or deducted against ordinary income in those years, subject to the $3,000 limit. If you have both net short-term and net long-term […]
