This discusses identifying losers in taxable broker or fund accounts
where you can consider selling at a tax loss.
This is mainly written from a US and a Money Plus perspective, but it
could be similar for others. It presumes that your price quotes are
fairly up to date, perhaps because you are using PocketSense or hleOFXQuotes.
Some users will only be searching for short-term losses, and others
just need losses. Here is a summary of current US capital gains loss
effects:
a. First, long term losses offset long term capital gains, and
short term losses offset short term CG.
b. Any remaining capital loss will offset any capital gain after
all of the long term losses have been offset.
c. Remaining capital loss up to $3000 will offset regular income
4. Still-remaining capital loss will be carried forward to next year.
The quick and easy way, is to configure in the Appreciation column into your Portfolio view.
Choose GroupBy:AccountName. Sort by the Appreciation column, and look for the most
negative (red) numbers. This does not identify lots, nor does it identify whether the
sales would be long or short term losses.
Here is how to identify prospective tax loss sales with more precision:
1. If you have not yet done so, add the CapitalGains and Reports
icons at the top of your Microsoft Money screen by clicking Shortcuts.
2. See where you stand so far: Click Reports->CapitalGains
If you don't see CapitalGains under Taxes, switch to Advanced Reports
by clicking ChangeReportSettings in the left column.
2a. If the date range is not what you need, you can use the DateRange
drop-down list at the bottom.
2b. Look at the Total Short-Term Gains and Total Long-Term Gains
to see where you stand. Even if you don't plan to take losses, you
can use that information to predict your income tax effects.
3. Click CapitalGains->EstimateCaptialGainsTax
The unrealized gain column will have values without regard to
dividends. If you enter a proposed quantity to sell for various
stocks, Money will summarize the effect at the bottom.
3.To identify potential sales for loss,
3a. look in the UnrealizedGain column for negative numbers, which are
in parentheses. Clicking the [+] will identify long or short term.
3b. for those securities which say MultipleLots in the CostBasis
column, click the [+]. That will show the lots separately. To sell
specific lots, check your broker's documentation. They should have a
way to identify specific lots for sale. If you don't identify lots, the
default is that the shares you are selling are those who you bought first.
So, it is worth while learning how. If you don't see it, ask.
