spinoffs in gnucash

[Stuart McGraw]

On 03/28/2012 04:16 AM, Dustin Henning wrote:
> Stuart, 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnucash-user-bounces+the00dustin=gmx.net at gnucash.org
> [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+the00dustin=gmx.net at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of
> Stuart McGraw
> Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 03:29
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: spinoffs in gnucash
> 
> (Actually, I think I can handle the spinoff proper but I an confused about
> the cash-in-lieu.  Since the SpinCo basis is $3/share, the .5 share is only
> $1.50.  So that leaves $8.50 of the cash-in-lieu as what?  Capital gains?
> 
> -----
> 
> I'm not sure I'd do this right in my personal books, and I don't have
> accounting experience, so I'm not going to sketch it out.  However, to
> answer your question regarding the $8.50, this would depend on your broker
> and/or the tax laws of you country.  For instance, assuming the broker
> properly reports your basis and gains to you, you might be able to check
> now, or at least at the end of the year.  Assuming the broker doesn't report
> this information to you, then you would have to talk to an accountant in
> your jurisdiction or read up on the relevant tax laws yourself. 

I'll do that at some point.  I should have said I am in 
the US.  In the meantime, understanding how to do this in 
any common case would be useful -- I can tweak the accounts
and amounts later.

> I would
> guess that either the $8.50 becomes cash, very slightly increasing your
> per-share cost basis (from it's divided by 4 amount [IOW, leaving the
> appropriate cost basis alone]), or it would be capital gains, and as such,
> very slightly decrease your per-share cost basis (from it's divided by 4
> amount [IOW, lowering the appropriate cost basis by $8.50]).

Thanks for feedback.

I will try combining the spinoff splits with the splits
described in "selling stock" description in the Gnucash
Help to hopefully end up with something sensible. 

> Unfortunately,
> this certainly isn't much help, but I wanted to point out that you are
> basically asking for tax advice from people who can't necessarily legally
> give it and may not necessarily give it to you for the correct jurisdiction
> even if they can legally give it.

I'm not sure about the legalities, but I think that between 
someone claiming they are a tax accountant and are giving 
professional advice and someone refusing to say anything 
touching on taxes there is room for discussion and opinion 
that comes with a disclaimer, explicit or implied (which I 
take as the case for anything posted in this list), that the 
opiner is not offering professional advice.