The beauty of tax planning your year-end stock portfolio is that it might cost you pennies in commissions but allow you to pocket real money.

Here’s the basic strategy:

Avoid the high taxes (up to 40.8 percent) on short-term capital gains and ordinary income.

Lower the taxes to zero—or if you can’t do that, then lower them to 23.8 percent or less by making the profits subject to long-term capital gains.

Think of this: you are paying taxes at a 71.4 percent higher rate when you pay at 40.8 percent rather than the tax-favored 23.8 percent.

And if you can avoid that higher rate with some easy adjustments in your stock portfolio, doesn’t it make sense to do that now? ... Log in to view full article.