Specifying when capital gains are realized

I just started with ESPlanner. I tried reading everything I could find in the forums about capital gains. Nothing I saw really addresses why ESPlanner makes the assumption that all gains a realized each year and taxed, other than Larry makes a comment that it happens so the gains are available for consumption. But there are scenarios where the money wouldn’t be needed for consumption in the current year and could grow “tax deferred” until realized. At a minimum I’d like an option to say only realize gains to the extent needed for consuption in the current year.

I think the problem is not unlike the IRA withdrawal problem discussed in the thread titled “Consumption Smoothing Procedure” from earlier this year. You have the same problem of how the user specifies when the gains are realized just like the IRA withdrawal. As for the problem of upping the computation time, I think you default to the simple assumption you use now and warn the user of increased computation time when they change it so it requires more complicated computations.

Maybe I’m missing something but it seems to me the timing of realizing capital gains will have an impact on the money available for consumption. So I’d actually like to test various scenarios. And I’d be willing to discuss ideas on how it could be implemented in the user interface.

Even though I want more I do appreciate how comprehensive ES already is. Thanks!