Shifting realized profits from Options to Stock

[Mich]

Hi!

I pay ~50% tax on profits I make on option trading but only 27.5% on profits of trading stock.

I made a very nice fortune on deep out of the money options this year. I was not able to exercise the calls so I had to sell them facing a 50% tax on the gains.

Any ideas how I could shift profits from calls to stock to lower the tax bill for 2020? I was thinking about buying calls and puts at the same time. One will make money, the other lose money. Net neutral. But then I could realize a loss on option trading but exercise the profitable leg so gains are counted as stock trading.

This sounds very complicated, risky and cash-intense. That's all somethig I want to avoid. Any ideas?

thanks
Mich

(for those who are curious: these tax rules are valid for Austria on options traded on non-Austrian brokers)

 

[vikings123]

I don’t know anything about taxes in your country but I would just pay the taxes. Probably not what you want to hear though.

For future though you could look into exercising some and sell deep itm calls to get back most of what you needed to exercise. That would be one way of deferring taxes. I have some Jan 21 300 calls that I plan to exercise early in the next few weeks based on what the stock price does due to the S&P squeeze and sell deep ITM calls to get most of the money back.

 

[FS_FRA]

Hi!

I pay ~50% tax on profits I make on option trading but only 27.5% on profits of trading stock.

I made a very nice fortune on deep out of the money options this year. I was not able to exercise the calls so I had to sell them facing a 50% tax on the gains.

Any ideas how I could shift profits from calls to stock to lower the tax bill for 2020? I was thinking about buying calls and puts at the same time. One will make money, the other lose money. Net neutral. But then I could realize a loss on option trading but exercise the profitable leg so gains are counted as stock trading.

This sounds very complicated, risky and cash-intense. That's all somethig I want to avoid. Any ideas?

thanks
Mich

(for those who are curious: these tax rules are valid for Austria on options traded on non-Austrian brokers)

Are you taxed in Germany or in Austria?

 

[Mich]

Are you taxed in Germany or in Austria?

Austria

 

[Mich]

I don’t know anything about taxes in your country but I would just pay the taxes. Probably not what you want to hear though.

This is my plan. I just did some math on it and I was just re-thinking this. Maybe I just miss some easy way to do this. Can be non-tsla transaktions as well.

 

[LN1_Casey]

This is my plan. I just did some math on it and I was just re-thinking this. Maybe I just miss some easy way to do this. Can be non-tsla transaktions as well.

It may be worth your while to speak to a tax lawyer in your country. This is an English-based (thus largely US based) website after all, and your question is hyper specific which a lot of us here would have no experience on.

If the % difference is 24 between stock and options, a consultation fee of however much may be a significantly cheaper than paying the difference.

 

[Mich]

It may be worth your while to speak to a tax lawyer in your country. This is an English-based (thus largely US based) website after all, and your question is hyper specific which a lot of us here would have no experience on.

If the % difference is 24 between stock and options, a consultation fee of however much may be a significantly cheaper than paying the difference.

The question was not about tax, the question was just about trading, profits and losses.