Capital Gains, Losses, and the Tax Law

On the back page of your first page of your tax return, line 43 shows your taxable income. Anything above that $77,000, you start paying 22% federally on it. So anytime you can keep your ordinary income down in a year that you're harvesting long term capital gains, you can usually get a huge chunk of that tax free. If there's anything left over when your ordinary income is accounted for, wait 30 days to buy an index fund and then sell it next day.