I thought the TAXMAN is my friend. Is that him in the corner drooling over MY money?

The CPI, consumer price index, hit 9.1% now it is 8.5%. You can buy 10 year treasuries as of today 2/13/23 they pay 3.717%. FAIR? Actually in Florida we have no state tax. While you are paid 3.717% and your money buys 8.5% less,
the government, they owe 31 or is it 34 TRILLION has you pay full Federal Income tax on that 3.717 BUT they decide they will take their larger cut of the too low interest BUT you do not need to pay state or city tax-both of which need to live on a BALANCED budget.

Mutual fund managers have to sell their stocks to make distributions when many shareholders head for the exits. They sell the high fliers first . Hence, you can have high capital gains in a year where your fund lost 10%.

But why are Capital Gains even taxed?
 

I'll enter the question and hope for replies. As soon as I finish typing I'm going to research the tax history. Seems to me CG tax is a penalty for doing the right and responsible thing.

Why use the words "penalty" and "responsible"? Capital gains taxes are taxes on realized income just like income taxes on a pay check or taxes on the sale of an item that gained in value.

It was the "right" thing to do since the goal is to make money and capital gains are money you made. Although how "right" it was to sell the stock really depends on timing and a larger financial picture.

The taxes are not a "penalty" unless you mean all taxes are penalties.

Not sure how "responsible" applies at all.

Your performance record is very unusual.

TAXES are truly simple and always have been. Everyone wants to receive and no one wants to pay for what they receive. In terms of doing the right thing, I seem to recall reading a long while ago that there are only two or three countries that tax savings.
Perhaps a simple explanation why Americans have one of the lowest savings rates in the world.
Far as funds and taxes, it is easy to look up how tax efficient each fund is.
As stated elsewhere, this is the first year in like 15 years that the market lost money 18.11% for the S&P for 2021-2022. As happened in the past. If, you are making money,
humans tend not to notice they are paying TAX. When, you are loosing money and then find you are billed TAX. It seems OUTRAGIOUS.

Why do people think that ALL investments are down because the s&p is/was down 18% and Nasdaq was down much worse than this. Do you think all companies are down 18% or more? When the market goes up or down, it’s an average and my holding can go up or down drastically different than what the s&p or Nasdaq move. Case in point, Nasdaq was down over 30% but nvdia and sales force were down over 60%. On the other side, Exxon and chevron were up 50% in a down market. You can make good money in any market, but it is much harder if you have a bad economy like we are in and going to get worse

AAPL is a big part of my retirement. I've owned it for almost 20 years. Last year I started writing covered calls to generate income and it's worked out great so far. Kind of traumatic when I got my shares called away during a big runnup but I wrote cash secured puts for several weeks until I got assigned my shares back at a lower price.

Nothing in the market is a sure thing but after 20 years of literally watching this stock every day I think I have a pretty good feel for how it moves.

I just did my taxes and while it sucks to write a check to the govt I remind myself that it means I made money with my trades.

more taxes means that you are profitable, which is the whole point of managing and investing money.

Taxes are a by product, always will be. . . tax minimization is a different strategy than wealth maximization. . however, there are tax efficient strategies for investing which can be used. . .

Why do you ignore taxes on wealth management? because a 20% tax on success is still cheaper than a 30+ percent correction and still having to pay taxes, the goal is a higher amount in your pocket than when you started, after tax

///