Thanks for the post - I have come to a similar conclusion that if you are not actively contributing new money, it is unlikely that tax loss harvesting is a big concern since most of one's earlier investments have embedded gains rather than losses. This is also one of the reasons that a separately managed direct indexed tax account doesn't make sense for us (and also avoids the the obvious complications of having many different small number of shares of a gazillion stocks).There is NO constant tax-loss harvesting because for losses to be harvested they have to exist. And for them to exist I think one has to be constantly contributing to a taxable account. We haven't tax-loss harvested since about 2016.
However, when one has realized losses they can be used over a few years to offset any realized capital gains from selling to pay for expenses and/or for rebalancing. But rebalancing should be done tax-free in a tax-deferred account.
In addition for losses to exist for a portfolio in the decumulation stage, the markets have to have a pretty big dump. I posted this chart this week:
See the pretty big dump? It was actually NOT big enough to create any losses.
And as time goes on, folks in the decumulation stage have sold more and more of their high basis assets, so there is even less chance of tax-loss harvesting since the market might have to drop 70%, 80% or more to create a loss.
I could set a price alert with a price that would be below my last purchase price and thus create a small loss. I don't think I would ever get that alert. You could do the same for your mom's holdings. You would not have to even own the asset and could still set the alert(s).
Statistics: Posted by drzzzzz — Sun Sep 14, 2025 11:55 am — Replies 7 — Views 619