On 12/1/2022 8:40 AM, Fred Tydeman wrote:
As a USA taxpayer, how should I record long term and short term carryover losses from stock sales? And, how do I show that they get used up or added to? Are they a negative asset?
This isn't a gnucash question (not specific to gnucash). You'd be asking the sane question(s) were you keeping your books the old way pen and ink on paper. So you really should look up "accounting for short term and long term stock trade losses" in a US accounting text.
Personally, I would probably choose to track carry-overs (could be more sorts than from stock trading) outside of the general ledger. Remember, whether or not you claim on your tax filing has no effect on equity. I would probably use a subsidiary ledger (also under gnucash), A zero equity mini ledger with just account types income (total losses) and expenses (short term carry-over) (long term carry over) (shot term deducted) and (long term deducted).
When about to do taxes for yyyy enter transactions to bring data in from yyyy (the calendar year is now yyyy+1). You haven't used any of these so the credit side is losses not yet deducted and the debit side the carry overs. Now when doing taxes, know how much can transfer between the respective carry overs and deducteds (leaving the correct amount in the carry overs for next year).
If you insist on doing within main set of books, then create a "carry-overs" work area under equity << the accounts I described for a separate ledger are all o=f fundamental type equity >> But now you will not be able to use the standard reports. That probably makes no difference to YOU, just with stock trading carry-overs, but suppose you had carry-overs of all sorts to account for.
Michael D Novack _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
