A Big List of Tax Loss Harvesting Partners

Tax Loss Harvesting is a great tool for generating tax alpha and lowering your annual tax bill, but it only works if you can find a suitable partner when the time comes to dump your loser(s).

If you are not familiar with tax loss harvesting or would like to see step-by-step tutorials, please review the post.

A Big List of Tax Loss Harvesting Partners

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On March 2nd, I had a little over $5000 in losses in my small cap value holding, VIOV (Vanguard S&P Small Cap600 ETF).

Tax Loss Harvesting Small Cap Value Holdings

I sold it and went to VBR (Vanguard Small Cap Value ETF)-which is my default holding. I had been out of it for the last few months due to a prior TLH session in 2019.

Originally, when people were tax loss harvesting, they sold a fund at a loss. Then sat on the sidelines for the 31 days to pass to avoid the wash sale rule.

The Case for Multiple Partners

This is no longer broadly recommended owing to the market recovering within those 31 days and you losing out on buying at the same low price.

In order to avoid the “substantially identical” rule of the IRS, it is best to TLH between funds that track different indexes. So, you do not get the exact same exposure.

(TLH) Partners Are Not Perfect

Even within the same or closely correlated benchmarks, different funds have different tracking errors. Some of them do a better job of tracking their benchmarks than others do.

They may differ in tax efficiency. The difference should not be much since they are all passively managed index funds and belong to the same asset class, but it’s there.

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