There are lots of numbers in the tax code that aren't indexed to inflation. ISTM that automatic (as opposed to manual) inflation adjustments are a fairly new concept, given that the modern tax era (16th Amendment, first 1040) started in 1913. Why, for example, is the IRA catch-up amount fixed at $1,000? The proposed SECURE 2.0 Act (H.R. 2954) would index this figure for inflation, as well as raise the RMD starting age above 72 and a slew of other changes.
Here are some other aspects of this $3000 tax benefit that one might question:
- Why allow a capital loss to offset ordinary income, as opposed to treating the loss as a negative cap gain (i.e. get back 15% in taxes on the $3K instead of, say, 22% in taxes)?
- Why allow individual taxpayers to carry over cap losses indefinitely? (Until 2011, mutual funds could only carry forward cap losses eight years.)
- Why did H.R. 1619, sponsored by Zoe Lofgren in 2001-2002 fail to reach a vote? It would have amended "the Internal Revenue Code to increase, from $3,000 to $8,250, the annual capital loss limit applicable to individuals [and provided] for an annual inflation adjustment."
https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/1619
- Why should one have to hold a security for a full year before treating the gain or loss as long term? Through 1976, the holding period was 6 months, then 9 months in 1977. The Tax Reform Act of 1976 changed not only the holding periods, but the amount of loss carry forward permitted, from $1K in 1976 to $2K in 1977, to its present $3K in 1978.
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-473.html
These are not rhetorical questions. Virtually every piece of legislation involves horse trading and compromise. One needs to delve into the legislative process to find out what happened. Likely there will be another opportunity in the next couple of months to watch the process in real time, as SECURE Act 2.0 is raised in the lame duck session. Or not.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/landmark-retirement-bills-see-opportunity-in-lame-duck-congress

@rforno- Since you had steak for dinner it would seem to suggest that you didn't have a lot of money "invested" in this silliness.

In 2021 I setup an account w/Gemini in NYC due to how heavily regulated it was and low-key. They didn't sponsor NBA teams, run TV ads, or get stadium naming rights. I dabbled in some active-trading of BTC for a bit to see how it compared to futures trading back in the day, and then I parked $50K in their Earn product to get 8.05% interest. In early May of this year, when its interest rate dropped to 6.5% as rumors started swirling about 3AC, I started getting weird vibes in my Spidey-Sense and withdrew everything into (insured) cash in the account. Finally, I pulled 99% of it out to help pay for 2 bathroom renovations that just wrapped up -- but I am keeping the account open for possible future use....I think Gemini will be one of the few folks that survive this stuff given their fairly conservative approach to crypto investing, regulation, and stability. But for now, apart from a tiny slice of BTC that wsa part of my sign-up bonus with them, I hold no crypto assets.
Bottom line, I took away a modest amount in profits/intrerest for that initial forray into crypto, but the money was far better spent on home improvements -- plus that 'fun' fund (money i could 'afford' to lose speculating, not my life's savings) and some extra $$ coming in from work meant I didn't need to dip into other investments to pay for it, so double-win. It's the same approach I used years ago when I closed my active futures trading account and used the proceeds to pay cash for a new German car. :)
As to getting in/out of crypto lending: the lessons of the GFC about doing deep due diligence about counterparty risk controls, transparency, and listening to my risk-aware gut feelings paid off for me in several ways. I knew it was risky[1] going in ..... but a lot of people drank the kool-aid, bought into the hype, threw caution to the wind, had TONS of money in these types of products across many often less-risk-oriented ompanies (3AC, Voyager, Celsius, and now FTX), only saw profits but never considered the risks, both obvious and quite possible --- and in the end either lost it all, only retrieved some of it, or are waiting for the outcome of investigations/litigation to be made semi-whole again if even possible.
[1] I viewed crypto-lending's risk profile akin to junk bonds -- it was an either/or outcome about getting my money back on that speculatative position in my portfolio.

Not sure these are good ideas
I am also not CPA NOR tax expert
What about creating LLC and defined benefits distribution (if you have small business only family memebers up maxinum tax deferred ~ 250k per yr for husband and 250k for wifey) then roll over to this acct.... Don't really need to sale since may expect rebounds in 12-36 months.
If you don't need these monies then Hold until 64.5 yo. My old advisor from Edward Jones told me to roll it to retirement acct and control your yearly Rmd Outputs once 64.5 yo, take only what you need for living and travel (If you don't need monies then leave it until 64.5 yo) ... Everything is probably paperloss for now if you don't sale. Tax expected very little this year because most portfolio are 20-40% down (unless you are Michael Burry and gained so much this yr w short term trading)
Other options maybe Give to kiddos family think max life time gifts 11 millions limited tax paid but need filed by cpa (know Irs loopholes) but maybe lots headaches + hefty fees
Pls consult w tax advisor and financial advisor before taking actions and play w turbo tax first before choosing wisely.

Good M* analysis.
The YIELD-CURVE is mostly inverted (2y-10y, 3m-30y, etc) but what really matters is the short end that Powell is watching, 3m-18m and/or 3m-3m18mforward spread; these are unusual spreads but close is the readily available 3m-2y spread that didn't invert yet.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$UST2Y-$UST3M&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p26635956684

I am very sure that only short term loss can offset short term gain. Same goes for long term gain and loss.
The long term capital gains tax rate is 0%, 15% or 20% on most assets held for longer than a year. Short term capital gains taxes on assets held for a year or less correspond to ordinary income tax brackets: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% or 37%.

This is what other people tell me as well. Yet schedule D and its instructions seem to indicate otherwise and so do some fairly reliable websites. Here is one quote from kiplinger.com:
"Netting Rules. If you have a mix of short- and long-term capital gains and losses, you need to understand the order in which losses offset gains. First, short-term losses are used to offset short-term gains, and long-term losses are used to offset long-term gains. Then, if there are any losses remaining, they can be used to offset the opposite type of gain."
Elsewhere it is made clear that there is a $3000 yearly limit (married filing jointly) to what can be deducted per year from capital gains.

I am very sure that only short term loss can offset short term gain. Same goes for long term gain and loss.
The long term capital gains tax rate is 0%, 15% or 20% on most assets held for longer than a year. Short term capital gains taxes on assets held for a year or less correspond to ordinary income tax brackets: 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% or 37%.

Hi sir @Catch22
CUSIP 34540TB76
S&P rating BB+
We been holding Ford bonds. And bought more at time since 2011
The one you mentioned matures 2040s also look good

Good article: https://morningstar.com/articles/1125971/the-us-treasury-yield-curve-recession-indicator-is-flashing-red

@johnN
This one ?

@Anna, Facebook, Twitter, etc use AI to learn from your clicks and from Likes/Follows for news sources/pages and people. Same with Google News - I can see that on identical PCs that my wife and I have and those are offered quite different Google News (based on our search histories).
By the way, these discussion boards were the earliest social-media (version 0.0?). Kids are now growing up with smartphone and social-media. BTW, my granddaughter says that Facebook and Twitter are so yesterday.
We didn't even keep our 1st cell phone - that went first to our daughter decades ago when she had just learned driving; it had only local coverage. WE borrowed her phone when we went for long or late drives. Things are different now with kids 3-5 watching YouTube and swiping screens - even before they can talk much.

I used to be exclusively at M*, and for years, resisted posting elsewhere. But various M* platform changes, and loss of contents with each move, forced me to change my web/social-media approach.
Now, I am at several platforms. Each has its unique flavor and circle of people. Some stuff is duplicated but not much.
Covid downtime in 2020 also gave me time to reconstruct lot of my lost content at M* that I put on the YBB Site (a refence site, NOT a discussion site) and now just refer to it rather than posting same/similar stuff repeatedly in response to Qs.
BTW, some at Twitter are pointing out that Twitter may have saved us from WWIII, an overstatement that has some validity. Early mainstream media reports on the Russian missile strike in Poland and possible use of NATO Article 5 (when many world leaders were at G20 in Bali, Indonesia) were not based on facts. I saw at Twitter that several posters from Ukraine, Poland and elsewhere (including the US) posted conflicting info. My earliest posting on a related MFO thread was based on those reports (but there was no single link for them). Musk has tweeted (with obvious self interest) that the coverage of the recent missile event and FTX-Alameda collapse in the crypto universe have been more timely and better than in the mainstream media.

@royal4 et al
Would be a bit strange to not allow Ukraine officials to be part of the investigation and/or the forensics of the site.
Numerous articles here about this topic. The articles listed from various sources have some conflict in their reporting, too.

Charitable contributions is a valid idea. Use DAF to contribute right away but dole out contributions later; great if you can itemize.
Repositioning portfolio to take some gains and using TLH for offsetting those is also a good idea.
I am not seeing any unintended consequences. There is also a thread on Tax Ideas.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/60253/timely-tax-ideas-from-barron-s-this-week

If Twitter isn't down when there are only few hundreds of employees left now, down from few thousands (after another round mass resignations/layoffs yesterday, after 1-day email notice from Must to work hard/harder/hardest OR quit), some are saying may be computers can just run themselves (-:). Twitter HQ has been on lockdown mode from 5:00pm Thursday until Monday.

I hope these FB employees will find other meaningful jobs elsewhere with their skill sets. Twitter situation is even worse.

One writer's perspective:

The over-expansion at Big Tech has been bad not just for the companies’ shareholders (Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet are down by 43%, 67%, and 32%, respectively, this year), but for the U.S. economy in general, sucking up talent that could have been deployed more productively.
“We have a shortage of talent in Silicon Valley," [Altimeter Capital’s Mark] Gerstner said. "Meta and other large companies have made it very difficult for start-ups to hire.” Gerstner said he’s “confident that these employees will find replacement jobs and quickly be back to work on important inventions that will move us all forward.”
The economic data, so far, appear to be proving him right. While the number of layoffs is clearly increasing, the number of people filing initial claims for jobless benefits has not risen markedly from a 60-year low.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/weekly-comic-big-techs-day-022222952.html

Well, Crash, you may not know how you did it, but the address of that image is definitely located at ImgBB. The address of that image is: https://i.ibb.co/sqLc52q/Kaa-Awa-Beach-Oahu.webp
By the way- that beach looks almost exactly like the one at our Coast Guard station on Palawan Island in the Philippines, when I was 20/21 and out there for a year. Just maybe the best year of my life.

@Crash : You just got more for the same $$$ ! NICE ! Or was the buy yesterday ?

Yes, yesterday. It will come back up. Target price +125%.

Ka'a Awa Beach. Windward Oahu.

The next rate hike will be in December’s FOMC meeting; most likely 50 bps. So the CDs will rise above 4.7% in mid December. I would add more CDs and treasury bills at that point.
Also there are several more rounds of rate hikes coming next year. There will be more opportunities to add at higher yields.