Anonymous wrote:Make charitable donations with the stock - as in donate the stock. That saves you cap gains on the stock plus you get a charitable deduction.
That is the best answer. To repeat: You don't pay any gains on the stock you donate, AND you can take the charitable deduction for the NEW higher value of the stock. So for example if you invested $100,000 and it increased to $200,000, and you donate the $200,000, you avoid about $25,000 in taxes on the gains that you don't pay, plus you can take a $200,000 itemized charitable deduction, reducing the amount of taxes you pay on your other income. Of course, you don't have to donate it all; that's just a simple example. (There are complications; for example, you can generally only deduct 50% of your AGI as charitable deductions.)
If you don't want to donate it all at once, you can move it to a Donor Advised Fund. You get all the tax benefits up front but can direct the donations over time.
And this is only tangentially related, but I'll recommend considering donating through GiveWell (
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23976937/charity-giving-tuesday-givewell-ten-percent)