LTCG harvesting calculator
See what the annual long-term capital gains exemption is worth when you actually use it every year, instead of letting it expire unused.
Runs entirely in your browserRuns entirely on your device — nothing you type is sent anywhere. Educational only, and not investment advice.
How to use this calculator
Each step names a control you will find on screen above.
- Total long-term gain
The unrealised long-term gain sitting in your portfolio — the amount by which your holdings exceed what you paid, on units held over a year.
- Spread over how many years
How many financial years you are willing to realise it across. Each additional year is another exemption you get to use.
- Harvest the exemption each year
Toggle this to compare the two worlds: selling everything in one year, against selling just enough each year to use the exemption and buying straight back.
- Read the tax saved
The difference between the two columns is real money, and it comes purely from timing. Nothing about the investment changed.
Worked example: A ₹5 lakh long-term gain, realised two ways
You hold equity mutual funds with ₹5,00,000 of long-term gain. The exemption is ₹1,25,000 a year and the rate above it is 12.5%. It does not carry forward — unused, it is simply gone.
What to enter
- Total long-term gain
- ₹5,00,000
- Spread over how many years
- 4
- Harvest the exemption each year
- On
What it shows you
- Sold all in one year
- ₹46,875 tax
- Spread over 4 years
- ₹0 tax
- Saved
- ₹46,875
12.5% on (₹5,00,000 − ₹1,25,000)
₹1,25,000 realised each year, all exempt
from timing alone
Where this is taught
A calculator gives you a number. These explain what the number means and when it misleads you.
- Market Basics12 minFiling taxes on your investmentsWhich ITR form, where the data comes from, how to report capital gains, set off losses, and harvest the annual exemption.
- Market Basics11 minHUF and family investing structuresA Hindu Undivided Family is a separate taxpayer with its own PAN and its own exemption limit. What it can genuinely do, and the parts people get badly wrong.
- Risk & Psychology11 minWhen tax decides the tradeWaiting five more weeks for a lower rate, or selling something good in March — how a tax rule quietly takes over an investment decision.
- Market Basics10 minWhat it really costs: charges and taxes"Zero brokerage" is not zero cost. Every deduction, why it exists, and how capital gains tax actually works in India.
- Market Basics12 minCash, and the rules that decide whether it can reach the marketMoney kept at home is legal to hold and heavily restricted to move. The receipt limits, the PAN requirements, the reporting thresholds, and why the explanation matters more than the amount.