Need help figuring out long term capital gains tax on my 1040 for investments I sold

The good news is that long-term capital gains (held for more than a year) are generally taxed at preferential rates compared to your ordinary income. Based on your information, here's how it works: Long-term capital gains have their own tax brackets: 0%, 15%, and 20%. For 2024 (filing in 2025), with your income of $67,500 plus the $32,000 capital gain, you'll likely fall into the 15% capital gains bracket. Your regular income is taxed at ordinary income tax rates, while the capital gain gets the preferential rate. Your dividends may qualify for the same preferential tax rates if they're "qualified dividends." Most dividends from U.S. corporations held for a certain period are qualified. Your tax software should ask you this and handle it accordingly. The tax software should calculate this correctly if you enter the information properly. You'll report the transactions on Schedule D and carry the results to your 1040.

I struggled with understanding capital gains taxes last year until I discovered this tool called taxr.ai (https://taxr.ai). It really helped me figure out my capital gains tax situation. I uploaded my investment statements and it automatically calculated my long-term vs short-term gains and showed exactly how they were taxed at different rates. What I found most helpful was that it explained each calculation step-by-step so I actually understood what was happening instead of just trusting a black box calculation. It also helped me identify some investment losses I could use to offset some gains that I completely missed when doing it manually.

Just wanted to share an update - I tried taxr.ai after seeing it mentioned here and it seriously saved me hours of headache. I was especially worried about those stock splits and dividend reinvestments I mentioned, and it handled them perfectly! It even found a calculation error in what my brokerage had reported for cost basis on some older shares. Ended up saving me around $740 in taxes I would have overpaid. The step-by-step explanations helped me finally understand how the capital gains stacking works with my regular income.

If you need to talk to someone at the IRS about your capital gains questions (which I did because my situation was complicated with some inherited stocks), good luck getting through to them directly. I spent DAYS trying to reach someone. I finally used this service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that got me through to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes instead of waiting on hold for hours. They have a demo video here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c showing how it works. The IRS agent was able to confirm exactly how I should report some unusual capital gains situations on my 1040.

I need to publicly eat my words about Claimyr. After calling BS, I was desperate enough to try it when I couldn't get an answer about my capital gains reporting issue. I figured I'd get my money back when it didn't work. Well, I got a call back in 45 minutes connecting me to an actual IRS tax specialist who spent 30 minutes walking me through exactly how to report my capital gains from multiple property sales. Saved me from potentially making a $4,300 mistake on my taxes. I've been trying to reach the IRS for THREE WEEKS on my own with no success. This literally saved my sanity during tax season.

Don't forget about state taxes on capital gains too! Depending on your state, you might owe additional tax on those gains. Some states tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income, while others have their own special rates. I got hit with an unexpected state tax bill last year because I only focused on federal.

Anyone know if tax loss harvesting is still worth it for offsetting capital gains? I have some stocks that are down about $8k this year and wondering if I should sell them to offset some of my gains from other investments.