wash sales on a gain?

Question

I just sold my stock A for a long-term loss of $50K.

I then sold my stock B for a long-term gain of $50K.

Can I then immediately buy back stock B (same number of shares) and still offset the two gain/loss to not pay tax on B's 50K capital gain? If yes, wouldn't this be an always-win situation for me: not having to pay tax on B's 50K and now own the same number of B's shares at a higher cost-basis?

Let me clarify my question/situation a bit here, based on some of the answers: selling stock A is already done, as part of my earlier-in-the-year annual "cleaning up the bad stocks." It has absolutely nothing to do with stock B. However, now that I have such a big capital loss in place, and with only $3K to offset any capital gain, why not sell and buy-back B to offset such a huge capital loss?

Answer 1

First, it's important to know exactly what a wash sale is.

A wash sale is if you sell a stock at a loss but purchase the same (or substantially similar) security within 30 days of the sales (that's 30 days either before or after the sale). When that happens, you have to list the sale on your 1040 Schedule D and another entry listing it as a wash sale and a positive number to offset the loss just listed. That loss cannot be taken off your taxes for that transaction. However, the loss does get added to the cost basis of the stock which you purchased within the 30 days so you can take the loss when you sell the newer shares.

In your case, since you sold stock A for a loss and didn't repurchase stock A, wash sale rules don't apply. Stock B doesn't factor into wash sale rules for you. The $50k loss in Stock A does offset your $50k gain in Stock B and you owe no additional taxes. Note that you also didn't make any money either. You can purchase stock B at that cost basis whether you made the previous transactions or not.

Answer 2

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RE:
wash sales on a gain?
I just sold my stock A for a long-term loss of $50K.

I then sold my stock B for a long-term gain of $50K.

Can I then immediately buy back stock B (same number of shares) and still offset the two gain/loss to not pay tax on B's 50K capital gain? If yes, wouldn't this be an always-win...

Answer 3

You seem to be working to hard at avoiding taxes. If you just keep the B stock you do not have a gain nor the commission for that sale and the buy back. But you have a loss on the A stock which you can use to offset gain on stock you no longer want or other income up to the $3,000 limit.

Answer 4

It's not necessarily a win-win, because you have liquidated your position in Stock A, so that if Stock A were in appreciate in the future you wouldn't be able to participate in that appreciation.

Doing something for tax purposes only is never a good enough reason to take that action.

But the answer is yes, you can do this.

Answer 5

Wash sale rules only apply to losses.

Yes, your "net" of the above two transactions would be zero. You could by back B at any time.