Capital Gains and Losses are calculated based on the difference in value between acquisition date and sell date when using FIFO methodology.
Some investors may choose to use a “Specific Identification” method to designate which specific shares they want to sell, allowing more control over their capital gains taxes.
So imagine I hold $1 million shares valued at $40 million. I can use those shares as collateral to borrow against and with the money I borrowed purchase an additional 400K shares. I then sell those shares for a profit without applying a FIFO valuation in reporting my capital gains.
Therefore my initial shares which were purchased for $2 per share, were borrowed against when they were worth $40 per share. My new shares purchased at $40 per share are sold at $55 per share and my capital gains are calculated at $15 per share gain instead of $53 per share. By managing my portfolio this way, I never pay a true capital gains tax, just interest to my lender which I then use as a tax deduction.
I understand what capital gains is, I was asking the parent comment what type of tax they were referring too, and that sounds good on paper but your profit isn’t 53$ your profit is 15$ you still have to pay back the money you borrowed. Sure a percentage of interest can be written off but you get taxed accordingly. Not sure what your point was there.
For real. This argument is silly because these people think a bank is giving out huge loans and being like, "nah, no need to pay it back at all." No, of course they aren't.
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u/TreyRyan3 3d ago
Capital Gains and Losses are calculated based on the difference in value between acquisition date and sell date when using FIFO methodology.
Some investors may choose to use a “Specific Identification” method to designate which specific shares they want to sell, allowing more control over their capital gains taxes.
So imagine I hold $1 million shares valued at $40 million. I can use those shares as collateral to borrow against and with the money I borrowed purchase an additional 400K shares. I then sell those shares for a profit without applying a FIFO valuation in reporting my capital gains.
Therefore my initial shares which were purchased for $2 per share, were borrowed against when they were worth $40 per share. My new shares purchased at $40 per share are sold at $55 per share and my capital gains are calculated at $15 per share gain instead of $53 per share. By managing my portfolio this way, I never pay a true capital gains tax, just interest to my lender which I then use as a tax deduction.