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Capital relief
Washington eyes tax breaks to soften the stock market's blow
BY LEONARD WIENER
Call it Washington weeps for Wall Street. Though it won't erase the sting of many investors' losses, some taxpayers could find themselves the beneficiary of a curious alignment: a battered stock market and a congressional election season.
This convergence has brought forth proposals to allow a bigger tax deduction for losses from the sale of investments. President Bush favors the idea, as do many Democrats. "Everybody wants to help people clobbered by the stock market," says a well-connected Capitol Hill aide. Indeed, investors of both political affiliations have suffered hits.
But there's no agreement yet on how to provide relief, and political posturing is rife. One approach is to raise the $3,000 annual cap on offsetting taxable wages and other income with losses from investment sales. While that could help investors with taxable mutual fund and brokerage accounts, some in Congress are also suggesting a way to indirectly help people with tax-sheltered individual retirement accounts. Their idea is to raise the age at which withdrawals must begin from IRAs–now 701/2–so people don't have to sell into a down market. Whatever the approach, legislators must face a budget deficit that will only grow if Congress hands out tax breaks.
Out of date. The limit on deducting losses is more than two decades old and ripe for updating. Losses are first subtracted from any gains to reduce the amount of taxable profits. If losses exceed gains–as they will for many sellers this year–up to $3,000 can be deducted to reduce the amount of other income hit by tax. Amounts in excess of that $3,000 must be carried over for deduction in future years. An idea that's now winning support on Capitol Hill is to boost the cap to as much as $20,000, though something like $10,000 seems more likely. Another suggestion: Allow losses not deductible this year to be claimed on amended returns for past years, resulting in a refund on prior taxes paid. One side effect of a bigger break for losses on stocks, however, could be new selling that places further pressure on a wobbly market.
Though any relief for 2002 is likely to be kept simple, a permanent boost in the write-off for investment losses could lead to reinstating a rule that required $2 of long-term loss in order to offset $1 of ordinary income. That type of restraint would be necessary, some tax analysts say, to block transactions that take undue advantage of a bigger write-off on losses while also benefiting from the low tax on capital gains.
Some investors who have profited from the bull market in bonds may not want to wait for Congress to act. One strategy for them is to take gains on the fixed-income investments and use losses on stocks to offset the profit, says Jeff Kelson, a tax partner at accounting firm BDO Seidman. Optimists can buy back the shares sold for a tax loss after waiting 30 days.
All of this talk has tax planners dusting off their playbooks. "We've had so many good years, we sort of forgot about having to take care of the bad ones," says Thomas Ochsenschlager, a partner at the accounting firm of Grant Thornton. |
