‘Tis the season—for harvesting capital losses and avoiding capital gains on behalf of your clients—and there’s no better information source than CapGainsValet (http://www.capgainsvalet.com) on what gains will be dumped on your clients, and when.
The site is managed by planner Mark Wilson in Newport Beach, CA, who puts in one place all the reference links for mutual fund and investment company capital gains distribution estimates. In some cases, the impact can be extreme; Wilson has already identified six funds with distributions higher than 30% of NAV (!), and 19 who are estimating their distributions will exceed 20%.
So far, the site has collected information on 247 different funds from 84 firms. There’s also an interesting chart that shows how capital gains distributions have trended downward since 2014, suggesting that more funds are managing their gains more effectively. But Wilson estimates that, if the initial results hold up for the entire database, more than 500 funds will be making distributions in excess of 10% this year. It pays to pay attention.
The service is surprisingly inexpensive considering how much data you get and how much it could potentially save your clients: you can subscribe to the “pro” version for $45. Actually, that price would be $35 if you use the coupon code: veres-10, which Wilson offered me when he updated me on the site.
Here’s the link again: http://www.captainsvalet.com) I hope it helps you navigate through the annual tax planning season.