OP,
This is not at all complicated if you take emotions out of your investing. The gains were made, they are real as of now, successful investing also requires cashing in, waiting for too long to let tax tail wag could be costly. The best way to do is think of your total gains as a joint owned balanced between you and the IRS. With LTCG, 85% of it belongs to you, and 15% belongs to the IRS. You need to only look at your share as your gains, the rest is not yours. Fortunately, you are in a low tax bracket with your actual income, so it's not a worry to get pushed into higher bracket, whatever bracket you get pushed in the effect on your real employment income is very low, most of the taxes will be what you actually owe IRS on gains on the shares.
I suggest selling 90% of all of those stocks, and leaving 10% there. Even if that 10% underperform the market at some point in future it shouldn't matter as those are just your gains, and the 90% you made more than make up. Once you do that then just take time figuring how to invest the money. Let it stay in cash for now, with MMF yielding close to 5% there is no need to make a quick decision.
This is not at all complicated if you take emotions out of your investing. The gains were made, they are real as of now, successful investing also requires cashing in, waiting for too long to let tax tail wag could be costly. The best way to do is think of your total gains as a joint owned balanced between you and the IRS. With LTCG, 85% of it belongs to you, and 15% belongs to the IRS. You need to only look at your share as your gains, the rest is not yours. Fortunately, you are in a low tax bracket with your actual income, so it's not a worry to get pushed into higher bracket, whatever bracket you get pushed in the effect on your real employment income is very low, most of the taxes will be what you actually owe IRS on gains on the shares.
I suggest selling 90% of all of those stocks, and leaving 10% there. Even if that 10% underperform the market at some point in future it shouldn't matter as those are just your gains, and the 90% you made more than make up. Once you do that then just take time figuring how to invest the money. Let it stay in cash for now, with MMF yielding close to 5% there is no need to make a quick decision.
Statistics: Posted by Elysium — Tue Apr 02, 2024 1:08 pm — Replies 11 — Views 1968
