My apologies, for what has likely been asked before ...
But when adjusting a downloaded transaction for example a stock trade, and I want Quicken to accurately reflect the view of my financial institution, should I allow Quicken to recalcuate the Price (as Quicken "recommends") or would it be better to allow Quicken to recalcuate the Commission/Fee? I know we're talking pennies, but where best to put those pennies?
" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
As has been explained here many times, the IRS is only interested in acquisition cost. Moreover, no one is really interested in what your price per share was. Therefore when you have a stock transaction, the only things that really matter is the number of shares (since it may affect dividend income) and the total cost of the transaction. If you weant to specify a commission fee, go ahead, but no one requires it.
In summary, I generally only fill out # shares and total cost, since most of my transactions have no commission. For the few that do, I enter the official commission as well, just for record keeping.
I believe Han is implicitly stating above that "total cost" will include commissions, even if you don't keep track of that separtely.
But to be clear here, however, remember that commissions (purchase and sale) are part of acquisition costs in terms of your basis when it is time to sell. So regardless of whether or not you keep track of them separately or not, be sure you understand where they fit in terms of the basis so that you deduct them prior to calculating net capital gain.
If I remember properly (I don't sell very often), one of the forms 1099B or
1040 Sch D (too lazy to look this up so early in the morning) has an indication on whether or not the sale includes commission fees, so be sure you know where that cost is reflected either not to be taxed too much or too little!
I always let it recalculate the share price, as Quicken recommends. Although I don't trade often, I do look at the Investing Center frequently and I do like to see how my purchase prices compare to current prices.
Bernie
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