How to enter ETF transactions into Q

Not in the US for most people... OK, you could claim it, but it would be subject to a threshold that makes it have no effect for most people.

That's messy. Enter a return of capital, plus a miscellaneous expense? No, that's not quite it. OK. Maybe do an appropriate split to give you a little more than you have now, and sell the extra for 30.87... that's in addition to the miscellaneous expense transaction.

I would be tempted to Sell that sucker, to avoid annual aggravation.

I will probably sell this position. If I do buy shares of this again, only in an IRA where I wouldn't have to worry about these consequences.

From what I've looked up, they sell gold in the fund each month to cover expenses.

They report the sale of gold as proceeds which you don't actually get since it's used to pay expenses.

I have to pay tax >

Yes, there's really no good way to deal with this unless you go back into Quicken and convert your shares into ounces of gold, which would have other ramifications when it came to daily pricing.

In the SPDR write-up

I haven't received any 1099 info on this but I've read that other folks who own GLD have received 1099's with each month's sale listed out as a transaction, meaning each one of those really should be entered in your tax return. What fun!

Yeah, these sort of things really should be inside an IRA.

Tom Young

Yes, there's really no good way to deal with this unless you go back into Quicken and convert your shares into ounces of gold, which would have other ramifications when it came to daily pricing.

In the SPDR write-up

I haven't received any 1099 info on this but I've read that other folks who own GLD have received 1099's with each month's sale listed out as a transaction, meaning each one of those really should be entered in your tax return. What fun!

Yeah, these sort of things really should be inside an IRA.

Tom Young

Here is what I came up with: (3 transactions)

1. Return of capital of 29.33 which reduces my Cost Basis.
2. Short term gain for 1.54 (Shows up with dividends though instead of the Capital Gains report)
3. Miscellaneous expense (Investment Expense) of 30.87.

I actually tried my suggestion - in a TEST file - of splitting shares into ounces, selling ounces, creating Investment Expense in the amount of the sale proceeds ($0 cash effect in account) and then converting back into shares. I did the first split on 12/30/2009, then entered the transactions, then did the reverse split on 12/31/2009. Also adjusted the GLD "share" price on 12/30/2009 to get back to the correct Market Value on that day. Everything came out OK, though I had to do a very small "added transaction", at $0 cost, to get back to the correct number of shares. Everything came out OK, proper gain on sale, proper basis adjustment, etc., but it sure seems like a lot of work for very little purpose.

Tom Young

Have you searched the IRS.GOV site to see how they recommend handling this? Then reproduce that in Quicken.

Good luck with *that*.

The SPDR Gold ETF site has the tax implications well laid out.

Tom Young