ITOT
iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF
stock NYSE ETF

\>And I guess if This is right, what’s the day that you need to sell your fund for it to count as a loss.
For the loss sale to not be a wash sale you have to sell it more than thirty days after any previous purchase of a substantially identical security\* and not buy a substantially identical security within 30 days of the loss sale. The previous and subsequent purchase applies across all of your accounts. Your broker will catch it in the same account. They have no way to know about what happened in accounts elsewhere.
As a practical matter the IRS won't know about wash sales across accounts. They only get info about security sales, not purchases. They would only catch it in a deep audit. It is not advisable to do this. I don't play catch-me-if-you-can with the IRS.
The IRS has not clearly defined exactly what substantially identical means. We know from experience that brokers will not flag wash sales of securities with different CUSIPs. You can trade between two S&P500 funds without getting flagged for wash sales. It is probably ok because they have different managers, tracking error, and index sampling that makes them not identical enough. I personally would not do that, because, again, I don't play catch-me-if-you-can with the IRS.
Trading between VTI and ITOT or VXUS and IXUS should be fine even though they are both total market funds. They follow different indexes.
\*The wash sale rules apply to any type of investment, not just securities.

> if it’s down I would sell vti for an equivalent fund (ITOT) 30 days before tax day and let that sit in there until my taxes are filed and then sell that fund back for VTI
Not quite, on several fronts.
Really doesn't have anything to do with tax day. And you want to avoid two funds that are "substantially identical" tracking the same index. A good TLH companion to VTI would be VOO, since they are highly-correlated *separate* indexes.
On any given day you could sell VTI for a loss, *and immediately buy into VOO*, and you've effectively bought into "the same thing" (close enough) at a lower cost basis while banking a loss.
The thing is it's not magic. It's more like shuffling your tax burden around rather than eliminating it (unless you happy to be in a 0% LTCG bracket, in which case you can do some good stuff). By buying back in at a lower cost basis, it means there will be more gains at some point down the road when you sell that new position.
But it can be very handy in rebalancing taxable portfolios, if nothing else.
It also really helps to have regular influx of new $$ to work out long term. Otherwise if you just buy in with a pile of money and don't add to it, over a long enough time period all of those positions will likely be gains.

So my plan is to buy VTI and VXUS for my taxable, now with tax harvesting I would go and if it’s down I would sell vti for an equivalent fund (**ITOT)** 30 days before tax day and let that sit in there until my taxes are filed and then sell that fund back for VTI, and same goes for VXUS. And I guess if This is right, what’s the day that you need to sell your fund for it to count as a loss.

Lump sum it into a taxable brokerage that does tax loss harvesting. So for example, I use Wealthfront, and about half of my brokerage is in VTI. But if VTI suddenly loses value, my brokerage sells VTI and buys ITOT (which is basically the same thing). Then I can use those harvested losses any time I want in the future, to sell at a gain without paying taxes
It’s great because I never really have to worry about picking a bad entry. If I dump money into my brokerage while everything is at an ATH and then things dip, then I get losses harvested that will help me save on taxes whenever I realize gains in the future

\>And I guess if This is right, what’s the day that you need to sell your fund for it to count as a loss.
For the loss sale to not be a wash sale you have to sell it more than thirty days after any previous purchase of a substantially identical security\* and not buy a substantially identical security within 30 days of the loss sale. The previous and subsequent purchase applies across all of your accounts. Your broker will catch it in the same account. They have no way to know about what happened in accounts elsewhere.
As a practical matter the IRS won't know about wash sales across accounts. They only get info about security sales, not purchases. They would only catch it in a deep audit. It is not advisable to do this. I don't play catch-me-if-you-can with the IRS.
The IRS has not clearly defined exactly what substantially identical means. We know from experience that brokers will not flag wash sales of securities with different CUSIPs. You can trade between two S&P500 funds without getting flagged for wash sales. It is probably ok because they have different managers, tracking error, and index sampling that makes them not identical enough. I personally would not do that, because, again, I don't play catch-me-if-you-can with the IRS.
Trading between VTI and ITOT or VXUS and IXUS should be fine even though they are both total market funds. They follow different indexes.
\*The wash sale rules apply to any type of investment, not just securities.

> if it’s down I would sell vti for an equivalent fund (ITOT) 30 days before tax day and let that sit in there until my taxes are filed and then sell that fund back for VTI
Not quite, on several fronts.
Really doesn't have anything to do with tax day. And you want to avoid two funds that are "substantially identical" tracking the same index. A good TLH companion to VTI would be VOO, since they are highly-correlated *separate* indexes.
On any given day you could sell VTI for a loss, *and immediately buy into VOO*, and you've effectively bought into "the same thing" (close enough) at a lower cost basis while banking a loss.
The thing is it's not magic. It's more like shuffling your tax burden around rather than eliminating it (unless you happy to be in a 0% LTCG bracket, in which case you can do some good stuff). By buying back in at a lower cost basis, it means there will be more gains at some point down the road when you sell that new position.
But it can be very handy in rebalancing taxable portfolios, if nothing else.
It also really helps to have regular influx of new $$ to work out long term. Otherwise if you just buy in with a pile of money and don't add to it, over a long enough time period all of those positions will likely be gains.

So my plan is to buy VTI and VXUS for my taxable, now with tax harvesting I would go and if it’s down I would sell vti for an equivalent fund (**ITOT)** 30 days before tax day and let that sit in there until my taxes are filed and then sell that fund back for VTI, and same goes for VXUS. And I guess if This is right, what’s the day that you need to sell your fund for it to count as a loss.

Lump sum it into a taxable brokerage that does tax loss harvesting. So for example, I use Wealthfront, and about half of my brokerage is in VTI. But if VTI suddenly loses value, my brokerage sells VTI and buys ITOT (which is basically the same thing). Then I can use those harvested losses any time I want in the future, to sell at a gain without paying taxes
It’s great because I never really have to worry about picking a bad entry. If I dump money into my brokerage while everything is at an ATH and then things dip, then I get losses harvested that will help me save on taxes whenever I realize gains in the future

ITOT - since it is different than your other holdings it also gives you the option to Tax Loss Harvest should the opportunity present itself.

Yes but if I sell VTI in my taxable and then buy VTI in my 401k is that not a wash? Even if I buy ITOT or whatever in my taxable brokerage?

I’m having a hard time choosing if I’m dedicated to the S&P as much as broad market. There’s VTI & ITOT, I love the Schwab mechanics tho.
SCHB or VOO, QQQM, something like VGT & International maybe?

Umm I am almost 100% invested in iShares (e.g. ITOT) and a couple of individual stocks.
OMG How wrong can one person be on reddit!
Give it up brother, take the L!🤣🤣