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Strategies & Market Trends : IRS, Tax related strategies--Traders -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Colin Cody who wrote (622)	12/12/1998 10:40:00 AM
From: Jim Lou	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1383

Any one facmiliar with TIAA-CREF under 403b plan? Is early withdraw with 10% penalty allowed? I wonder if this retirement plan requires "triggering events" (59 1/2, financial hardship, unemployment) for cashing out, even with penalty. thanks.

To: Colin Cody who wrote (622)	12/14/1998 7:46:00 PM
From: Dell-icious	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1383

Donating stocks to charities: Sorry if this has been addressed before, but I wanted to know the logistics of how exactly to do it. Does one need to get stock certificates from one's broker (and pay the hefty charge they charge for issuing these) and hand them over to the charity? Of course if the charity has a brokerage account presumably these can be transferred directly electronically? If the charity does not have one, then I presume that the stock certificate method is the only way to transfer shares to the charity; in that case do they need to open a brokerage account expressly for the purpose of encashing the shares? Or is there any way to do this without having to open a brokerage account? (Relevance to the thread is the tax deduction one can claim on the market value of the shares and not pay capital gains on the appreciated value, if held more than 1 year). Thanks in advance for the help, Dell-icious

To: Colin Cody who wrote (622)	12/15/1998 6:08:00 PM
From: Spots	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1383

Colin or anyone, Ok, my turn with a twister. This year I held 400 sh of WDC at broker A with a paper loss. As it happens these shares are long term, but that's not part of the question (or at most a minor part). At broker B, without thinking too much about it, I bought 500 sh of WDC, held them for a few days, and sold at a small profit (1/4, I think). At the time, knowing that if I took a LOSS it would be a wash sale (of 400 of the 500 shares), I had in my head that this wasn't a wash because of the small profit. No loss, no wash, right? Well ... Now I'm not so sure. First, I didn't designate the lot(s) of the 500 shares sold. I could gripe about web trades and designated lots, but the truth is I didn't think about it, either. So, by the FIFO rule, I sold the original 400 at a loss, plus 100 of the second 500 for a small gain. In that case, the original 400 sale portion is definitely a wash. The question is, what is the real tax situation? My preference is to report a gain on the full 500 sh swing trade at broker B and let broker A's shares sit (reportingwise). Do I really have that flexibility? In a related but independent question, does a sequence like buy X shares at broker B then sell X shares at broker B (with no other shares of the same equity at broker B) constitute a reasonable case for designated shares? I'd like to know the answer to this one independent of wash sale consideration. Supposing for argument that I HAD designated the shares at broker B in the sale at broker B (suppose I actually had a sale confirmation supporting this, to make the question clear). In THAT case, could I elect to report a gain on the 500 share swing trade and avoid a wash? Or does it make no difference insofar as the wash rule is concerned? I'd like to know the answer to this question too, independent of my current situation. Finally, a more practical question. The swing gain with commissions is around $95 (actually that's for the whole 500 shares, for the 400 in question it's ... hell with it). It appears my worst case scenario, if I simply report this swing as a gain, is moving $95 gain from this year to some future year under an audit. To be sure rates could change, but it seems at worst I will pay the gain later and get it back with interest earlier (a net gain for me at constant tax rates), or, at extreme worst if there's a very late audit, I can't get it back this year and pay tax on it twice. I just can't see getting put in jail or paying a penalty for OVERPAYing my 98 taxes by 30 bucks (especially since the call is hardly crystal clear either way). Plus interest, of course, which is louse nuts on mouse nuts. The final question is: Am I missing something in this analysis? Spots