当查尔斯·施瓦布周四公布季度财报时，引起那些为富裕股票投资者管理资金的人们关注的，并非财报数字中的每股收益，而是一个607亿美元的数字。这一数字出现在关于保证金贷款余额的细节中，该余额环比增长14%，达到1879亿美元，其中包括与许多注册投资顾问使用的所谓“税务敏感”多空策略相关的高达607亿美元。
When Charles Schwab released its quarterly earnings on Thursday, it wasn't the quarterly earnings per share print in the numbers that caught the attention of those who manage money for wealthy stock investors — it was a $60.7 billion figure. That was reported in a detail about margin loan balances which increased 14% quarter-over-quarter to $187.9 billion, including a whopping $60.7 billion related to what are known as "tax-aware" long/short strategies used by many registered investment advisors.
这些策略正在成为富裕人士增强税务亏损收割方式以处理股票收益和损失的一种蓬勃发展的手段。据Tax Alpha Insider今年9月向CNBC提供的一份估计，TALS的总资产今年已从2022年的20亿美元激增至超过1700亿美元。
These strategies have been booming as a way for the wealthy to super-charge tax-loss harvesting approaches to stock gains and losses. According to one estimated provided by Tax Alpha Insider to CNBC in September, total assets in TALS surged to more than $170 billion this year from $2 billion in 2022.
现在，施瓦布计划分一杯羹。在财报电话会议上，施瓦布首席执行官里克·伍斯特在回答瑞银分析师迈克·布朗的提问时表示，该经纪商将推出其自身版本的税务敏感多空策略。
Now Schwab is planning to take a bigger piece of that action. On the earnings call, Schwab CEO Rick Wurster said in response to a question from UBS analyst Mike Brown that the broker will launch its own version of the tax-aware long-short strategy.
“显然，税务优势的多空产品一直是整个行业客户需求和资产募集的重要驱动力。越来越多的基金进入市场，考虑到施瓦布的定位以及客户对该类别的兴趣，您是否看到推出专有解决方案的机会？”布朗问道。
"Obviously, the tax advantage long/short products have been a meaningful driver of client demand and asset gathering across the industry. There is an increasing number of funds coming to market, and so given Schwab's positioning and client interest in the category, do you see an opportunity to launch a proprietary solution?" Brown asked.
施瓦布首席执行官表示：“我确实预计我们会推出一款产品，”伍斯特说。“我们今天已经拥有出色的直接指数化能力，在税务阿尔法方面表现出色，并为客户带来了良好回报，我预计我们能够在多空方面推出该能力的延伸版本。……这当然是我们实现货币化的另一种方式，但更重要的是，这是一种我们能够以在更长期内在运营和财务上都可控的方式，为客户提供可持续的多空策略的方法，”伍斯特说。
What Schwab's CEO said "I do expect us to have an offering," Wurster said. "We already have a great direct indexing capability today that has had wonderful performance in terms of tax alpha and delivering for clients, and I expect us to be able to deliver an extended version of that on long/short. ... Certainly another way we can deliver monetization, but more importantly, it is a way we can deliver sustainable long/short strategies to our clients in a way that is operationally and financially manageable over the longer term," Wurster said.
根据CNBC Inside Wealth的罗伯特·弗兰克（Robert Frank）最近的一份报告，随着股市连续多年大幅上涨，富裕人士正在寻找更多方式来规避资本利得税。对于正在套现的企业主、持有大量股票薪酬的高管，以及近年来刚刚上市的公司员工而言，情况也类似。对于经纪人和投资顾问来说，这些产品提供了相对较高的费用，并能吸引新的富裕客户。
With the stock market posting big gains for multiple years in a row, the wealthy are looking for more ways to shield capital gains from taxes, according to a recent report from CNBC Inside Wealth's Robert Frank. The situation is similar for business owners cashing out and executives with hefty stock compensation packages, and for employees at firms that have gone public in recent years. For the brokers and investment advisors, the products offer relatively high fees and attract new wealthy clients.
这些资本利得税策略是如何运作的？富裕投资者已经在包括施瓦布（Schwab）在内的平台上使用直接指数化策略，以税收高效的方式将股票收益和亏损配对。根据顾问研究平台Kitces对TALS的概述，富裕投资者在使用标准税损收割时遇到的问题是，随着时间的推移，可供收割的亏损越来越少。Kitces写道：“因为平均而言，市场倾向于上涨，所以在一个多元化投资组合中，大多数头寸最终会升至远高于其成本基础的水平，以至于即使出现后续下跌也不会产生应税亏损；而对于那些继续下跌的头寸，它们实际上能产生的亏损只有有限的数量（因为它们的市场价值——以及成本基础——只能下跌至零）。”
How these capital gains tax strategies work Wealthy investors already use direct indexing strategies on platforms including Schwab to pair up stock gains and losses in a tax efficient way. The issue that wealthy investors run into with standard tax-loss harvesting is that fewer and fewer losses become available to harvest over time, according to an overview of TALS from advisor research platform Kitces. "Because on average, the market tends to rise, and so in a diversified portfolio most positions will eventually rise far enough above their cost basis that even subsequent downturns don't result in taxable losses, while for positions that do continue to decline there's only a finite amount of losses they can actually generate (because their market value – and cost basis – can only go down to zero)," it wrote.
税收敏感型多空策略通过在现有投资组合的多头和空头两侧同时加杠杆来规避这一问题，投资者通过买入更多头寸并增加潜在亏损的数量来进行收割。这使得投资组合能够保持“经济中性……并且由于空头头寸理论上可以产生无限量的亏损（因为它们在市场上涨时会下跌），TALS投资组合相比标准的仅多头投资组合，随着时间的推移，耗尽可收割亏损的可能性更低。”Kitces指出。
Tax-aware long-short strategies get around this by adding leverage on both the long and short side of an existing portfolio, with the investor buying more positions and increasing the number of potential losses to harvest. That allows the portfolio to remain "economically neutral ... And because short positions can theoretically generate an infinite amount of losses (since they decline when markets rise), TALS portfolios are less likely to run out of losses to harvest over time than standard long-only portfolios," Kitces noted.
仍有疑问，涉及准入和税务风险。Tax Alpha Insider的布伦特·沙利文周四在X平台的一篇帖子中指出，顾问们对施瓦布产品将有许多疑问，他指出这些产品不应被称为“基金”——UBS分析师布朗在提问时使用了该术语。沙利文写道，合理推测施瓦布产品可能会“显著降低”这些产品通常要求的最低管理资产门槛，但这些产品是否仅对施瓦布顾问开放且仅在施瓦布平台上提供仍是一个悬而未决的问题。
Questions remain, from access to tax risks Brent Sullivan of Tax Alpha Insider noted in a post on X on Thursday that advisors will have many questions about the Schwab products, which he noted should not be referred to as "funds" — UBS analyst Brown used that terminology in his question. Sullivan wrote that it is reasonable to speculate that a Schwab product could "meaningfully lower" the assets under management minimum requirement typical on these products, but it is also an open question as to whether the products will only be available to Schwab advisers and only on Schwab's platform.
伍斯特提供的细节甚少，也没有透露发布时间表。“我们对此感到兴奋，正在推进，我们将在未来的通话中提供更多更新，以说明何时可能推出，”他说。
Wurster provided few details, and no timeline for a launch. "We are thrilled about that, working on it, and we will give more updates in future calls as to when that may launch," he said.
政府一直在对税收避避策略采取更为强硬的立场，针对一些但并非全部富人的“税收阿尔法”策略。财政部长斯科特·贝森特和美国国税局最近就使用复杂的ETF策略来规避资本利得税发布了一则通告。该通告还表达了对通常以合伙企业或单独管理账户形式构建的“税收意识”策略的兴趣，但根据律所Ropes & Gray的分析，该通告也明确指出，“税收意识”本身并不构成担忧，而年末税务亏损收割是一项成熟的做法。
The government has been taking a more aggressive stance on tax avoidance strategies and some though not all "tax alpha" strategies of the wealthy, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the IRS recently issuing a notice over the use of sophisticated ETF strategies to shield capital gains from taxation. The notice also expressed interest in "tax-aware" strategies typically structured as partnerships or separately managed accounts, but according to an analysis from law firm Ropes & Gray, it also made clear that "tax-aware" itself is not a cause for concern and year-end tax loss harvesting is a well-established practice.