Thread is a bit long, will respond here On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 9:49 PM Max Katsev <mkat...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Really? A realized gain is not income? > > Yesterday I had 10 MSFT (that I've bought a year ago at $170) in my > Vanguard IRA account and $2500 in my Fidelity 401k. Today I've sold my 10 > MSFT for $2500 in Vanguard and bought another 10 MSFT in Fidelity. I now > have $2500 and 10 MSFT, exactly as yesterday, but somehow I've made $800 of > income? > Yes. You've turned unrealized gains into realized gains. Your total gains (unrealized + realized) hasn't changed though. Not only that, but if you did that, and you had a loss instead, you'd have a wash-loss case on your hands and would have to adjust your cost basis for your MSFT held at Fidelity by $800. And it gets nasty if you have multiple lots acquired at different times, and also, not exactly 10 lots. But maybe you don't care and that's fine. The thing is, you don't have to track any of this. You can legitimately use Beancount without using the cost basis, that's totally up to you, it'll do its thing just fine. You probably won't be able to use Beangrow, and you won't be able to properly estimate tax liabilities for calculating your net worth. That's fine if you don't need it. But if you don't take care to store the cost information as you go - which is sometimes costly in time - good luck adding it in later when you'll want it. > If you just need a text file with the current value of your > investments. Make a Google sheet, publish it, and then use wget to > download the results. > > I have that too :) The value of gnucash/beancount for me is in the > timeseries data and in having all assets/income/expenses (not just > investments) in a single place. > > On Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 4:07:16 AM UTC-7 Boyd Kelly wrote: > >> >> *When I sell old investments at a gain and immediately buy something else >> with the resulting money, it doesn't create any meaningful income for me* >> >> Really? A realized gain is not income? >> >> I have used Gnucash in the past, and it always wanted a purchase price >> for shares. And then it had some realized and unrealized gain reports. >> >> If you just need a text file with the current value of your investments. >> Make a Google sheet, publish it, and then use wget to download the results. >> >> On Thu, 22 Apr 2021 at 03:43, Max Katsev <mka...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hello everyone, >>> >>> I'm trying to switch from gnucash to beancount and having some trouble >>> with the concept of tracking investments at cost. I feel that I've RTFM'd >>> enough to understand the mechanics of cost vs price, but I'm not sure about >>> the benefits of using cost in the first place. >>> >>> Simply put: I have no plans to use beancount to calculate my taxes, why >>> should I track cost at all? What are the disadvantages of just using price >>> and not cost for everything (including investments)? As I understand it, >>> this would be equivalent to how gnucash does it, which seems to work just >>> fine for me so far. What am I missing? >>> >>> In addition to extra bookkeeping complexity, tracking investments at >>> cost turns capital gains into income, which (while correct from the >>> taxation point of view) feels wrong to me. When I sell old investments at a >>> gain and immediately buy something else with the resulting money, it >>> doesn't create any meaningful income for me (especially if it's in a >>> tax-advantaged account), my net worth is still exactly the same as >>> yesterday - why do I want it to show up as income in my reports? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Max >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Beancount" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to beancount+...@googlegroups.com. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/bf68f106-2913-41b1-8176-20ee0613755en%40googlegroups.com >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/bf68f106-2913-41b1-8176-20ee0613755en%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >> >> >> -- >> Boyd Kelly >> www: http://www.coastsystems.net >> Tel: +1 604 837-0765 <(604)%20837-0765> >> >> >> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to beancount+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/2384fae3-4d6b-4c4d-a382-25281fbc6bf4n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/2384fae3-4d6b-4c4d-a382-25281fbc6bf4n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. 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