@heather64 you are not correct ordinary income can push LT capital gains from being taxed a 0% to being taxed at a higher %
examples for 2023 using standard deduction
1) $40K ordinary income
$70K of LTCG
tax is about $1200 and only the ordinary income is being taxed
2) $50K of ordinary income
$70K of LTCG
tax is now about $2700
that $10K of additional ordinary income gets taxed at 10%
however that additional $10K pushes over $3K of capital gains into the 15% bracket
a recap of tax a) taxable income 50K + 70K less std deduction of 27.7K = 92.3K
b) LTCG 70K
c) a-b = 22.3K
d) LTCG exclusion 89.25K
e) d-c LTCG taxed a 0% 66.95K
f) b-e LTCG taxed at 15% 3.05K
g) tax on ordinary income of 22.3K using tax tables
