SEC v. Wealthfront Advisers, LLC (tax-loss harvesting disclosures, 2018)

Settled

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In December 2018, the SEC settled charges against robo-adviser Wealthfront Advisers, LLC, ordering a US$250,000 penalty for falsely saying it monitored client accounts to avoid tax wash sales and for other advertising violations.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$250k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$250k

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on December 21, 2018 as release IA-5086. The respondents named are Wealthfront Advisers, LLC (formerly Wealthfront, Inc.) (0 individuals, 1 entity).

The order finds that from October 2012 to May 2016 Wealthfront's tax-loss harvesting whitepaper said it monitored all of a client's accounts to avoid transactions that could trigger a wash sale, but its software did not. The "wash sale" is the tax rule that disallows a loss if a substantially identical security is bought within 30 days, which differs from manipulative wash trading. The order also covers retweeted client testimonials.

This library applies no technique tag to the matter. The "wash sale" here is the tax-loss rule, which differs from market-manipulation wash trading.

A $250,000 civil money penalty, a censure, and cease-and-desist relief.

Wealthfront consented to the order without admitting or denying the findings.

Timeline

1. 2018-12-21 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC order

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.