Hank, who is a complete ******* deleted much of the thread, undoubtedly to obliterate my comments to you. He knew I put a bit of time into my response, and thought it would be cute to delete my comments in order to annoy me and cause me to write for naught.

I hate to get into a pissing match here, but most of you know that I tend to speak my mind, and I hope you folks are figuring out what kind of a jerk this guy is.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, here was my response to you Laguna:

First the caveat. I am not a professional tax advisor. Please consult a tax preparer for advice as it pertains to you. Okay, that's done.

It might be time to consider a tax loss. You may be able to recover at least 1/3 of your loss (depending on your tax bracket, of course) via writing off your loss. Generally, you can deduct up to $3,000 against ordinary income and use the remainder against capital gains. If you can't use the entire loss this year, you can carry that loss forward until you deplete it.

Then you reinvest what's left, and also what you'll get back from tax savings. In other words, let's assume you're in a combined 33% bracket and you can take the full loss this year (illustrative purposes only). You invested $20,000 and it's now worth $10,000. Take your loss and you'll get back roughly $3,300 in tax savings. So you'll then (once you get your refund) have $13,300 or so to try to make it back (good luck!).

Generally, you must wait 30 days to repurchase the same stock you just sold, or you create a "wash sale" problem. However, if you don't, contrary to popular belief, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't still take the loss. It's just that your tax preparer will have to adjust the cost basis.

Still, it's best to wait 30 days if you want to repurchase the stock that you just sold, as if you violate the wash sale rule, you may not be able to take the loss in the year that you'd like to claim it.

Of course, all of this assumes that we're not talking about an IRA or qualified retirement plan.

 

i agree with BW...since that's what i did last year when i cashed some stock to buy a house. it helped, otherwise i would be a full-time employee for uncle sam.