Your Money : SPOTLIGHT ON TAXES : Handle Capital Gains, Losses With Care : Investment: Unrealized losses may provide some tax-planning opportunities.

For the first time in nearly a decade, even the savviest investors are looking at portfolios freckled with unrealized losses. That provides some modest tax-planning opportunities, particularly for high-end taxpayers in top brackets, tax experts say.

However, today’s decidedly mixed investment environment also has created some pitfalls that could cause the unwary to pay too much tax to Uncle Sam.

What do U.S. investors need to know to maximize their tax savings without minimizing their investment income?

Capital gains: For mutual fund investors, the biggest surprise of the season is likely to be that you’ve earned capital gains even though your fund’s net asset value may have dropped in price, says Harvey Gettleson, partner at the national accounting firm of Ernst & Young.

Impossible? Hardly. Fund managers have been selling during market upticks and locking in gains. But some of the shares still held in fund portfolios have dropped in value, paring stated net asset values. Fund managers won’t sell these down-and-out shares unless they think the company’s prospects have dimmed and the stock is unlikely to climb again in the near future.

The result: You can have unrealized capital losses but realized--that’s taxable--capital gains.

Capital losses: Even if you lost a fortune on paper, you can’t claim the losses on your tax return until you “recognize” them by selling the offending security.

Capital losses must first be used to offset any capital gains earned in the same year. If you have no capital gains--or your capital losses exceed your capital gains--you can use up to $3,000 in capital losses per year to offset any other income. (It’s worth mentioning that you don’t lose unused capital losses. They’re carried forward into future tax years, so there’s no reason to delay taking losses if you’re convinced that this is the right time to sell.)

As unpleasant as they may seem, capital losses can be valuable at tax time, particularly for high-income taxpayers who not only get a deduction, but can also use them to limit personal exemption and itemized deduction phase-outs, says Philip J. Holthouse, partner at Holthouse Carlin & Van Trigt in Los Angeles.

The formula gets complex, but in effect, a $3,000 loss that would save a middle-income family of four $840 in tax would save an identical four-member family a tidy $1,183 if it was in the 36% bracket. (See box above.)

Wash sales: Tempted to trigger a capital loss and just buy back the stock later? If you repurchase the same shares within 30 days, you’re subject to so-called wash-sale rules that bar you from recognizing the capital loss, Gettleson says. If you wait 31 days, you can repurchase the same shares without triggering a tax problem. But, of course, you may have hurt your investment prospects by buying or selling at the wrong time.

It’s far easier to trigger capital losses by selling devalued bonds, Holthouse notes. That’s because it’s easy to find two bonds that have similar investment characteristics but are not identical for tax purposes. You could sell $500 in 7% 10-year Treasuries today and buy $500 in 7.5% 10-year Treasuries tomorrow and not trigger wash-sale problems, for example. Even though the issuer and maturity dates are the same, the interest rate is different, making the investments distinct, Holthouse adds.

Investment interest expenses: Rules determining how to handle investment interest expenses got more restrictive in 1993, says Ken Anderson, partner at Arthur Andersen & Co. in Los Angeles. In the past, you could subtract these expenses from capital gains. But now these costs can be used only to reduce investment income--dividends and interest. Also make sure you pay the debt in 1994 if you want to claim it as a 1994 deduction.

Appreciated stock: Never has there been a better time to give your favorite charity stock rather than cash. That’s because a hefty capital gain can throw you into a lofty tax bracket or leave you facing the onerous alternative minimum tax. If you give the stock to charity, you can get a deduction for the full market value. And nobody has to pay the capital gain.

Consider Sally Givalot, a hypothetical taxpayer who wants to give $1,000 to her favorite charity. She also happens to have 100 shares of stock that she bought for $1 per share in 1987. This stock now is selling for $10 per share, or $1,000. If she sells the stock and gives the proceeds to charity, she gets a $1,000 tax deduction, worth $310, assuming she’s in the 31% bracket. But she also triggers a $900 capital gain, which costs $252 (28%) in federal tax. Net tax benefit: $58.

If, on the other hand, she gives the stock directly to the charity, she gets the $310 tax savings and doesn’t have to pay tax on the unrealized capital gain. Nonprofit organizations have become increasingly attuned to this method of gift giving, Holthouse says. Many can give Capital Losses Why does a high-income taxpayer get more bang from a capital loss buck?

Three reasons:

* The higher the tax bracket, the bigger the write-off value. If you’re in the 36% tax bracket, a $3,000 deduction saves $1,080 in tax. If you’re in the 28% bracket, the same deduction saves just $840.

* Personal exemption phase-outs. The government’s recent efforts to soak the rich have resulted in some fairly convoluted “phase-outs” of standard tax breaks. The first one affects personal exemptions--the $2,450 deduction you take for each dependent member of your family.

The formula is complex, but the result is this: A family of four would normally be able to reduce its adjusted gross income by $9,800 for personal exemptions. But if the family earned $200,000 annually, its personal exemptions would be reduced to $7,252.

If it is able to reduce its income by taking a $3,000 capital loss, the personal exemption phase-out is also reduced. The end result: The value of its personal exemptions rises by $196 to $7,448, which saves it roughly $70 in tax.

* Deduction phase-outs. Families with an adjusted gross income exceeding $111,800 also lose part of their itemized deductions--the write-offs for home mortgage expenses, property taxes, medical and dental costs and unreimbursed business expenditures. Simply put, for every $1,000 more than $111,800 you earn, you lose $30 in these deductions.

But if you reduce your adjusted gross income, you save part of your itemized deductions. A $3,000 capital loss would save this high-income family $90 in itemized deductions.

donors direction on how to transfer shares without selling.