[GNC] Short-Term Capital Gains question - Entering Mutual Fund or EFT Distribution

[D.]

Art, 

I'm no accountant, and I'm only speaking from my own experience. 

I have similar holdings and reporting. For my purposes, I track dividends,  LTCG and STCG in separate accounts by brokerage.  That way, I can match my accounts against the EOY reports issued by the brokerages and track down my inevitable errors. 

So, essentially (my actual structure is different, but the principle holds) :
Income
- Broker A
- - Dividends
- - LTCG
- - STCG
- Broker B
- - Dividends
- - LTCG
- - STCG

etc. This works especially well for stock accounts, but also works for mutual funds and ETFs.

For tax purposes, you can assign different accounts to the same tax line as needed and then run the TXF report. The TXF report (without transaction detail) quickly shows me what I need for the IRS. 

This approach gives flexibility for tracking things while allowing summarization. 

HTH,
David T. 


-------- Original Message --------
From: Art Chimes <artsonline at gmail.com>
Sent: Fri Jan 21 13:42:42 EST 2022
To: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: [GNC] Short-Term Capital Gains question - Entering Mutual Fund or EFT Distribution

Most of my mutual funds and exchange-traded funds distribute earnings
in three categories — dividends, short-term capital gains, and
long-term capital gains.

In the U.S., LTCG are profits from the sale of securities one year or
more after purchase, and they are taxed at a favorable rate. STCG are
profits from securities held for a shorter period of time, and they are
taxed (usually? always?) at the higher ordinary income rate — same
as salary or dividends.

Statements from brokers and mutual fund companies carefully assign
distributions to one of these three categories.

This confuses many people because for tax purposes the STCG amounts are
lumped in with dividends on Schedule B, as opposed to Schedule D,
where LTCG (frequently referred to as just plain "capital gains") are reported.
There may be exceptions; I don't know.

Since STCG are combined with dividends at tax-reporting time, is
there any need to use a STCG-only Income account in Gnucash, or can
one safely put dividends and short-term capital gains in the same
"dividend" income account?

I suppose it might be considered poor accounting practice, but I'm
asking as a non-professional who just uses this software to keep track
of my personal finances and help me at tax time, which is
fast-approaching.

If there is a reason to maintain a separate STCG income accounts,
please enlighten me as to why and when it would be helpful.

If it matters, I use GnuCash 4.9 on Windows 10 Home.

Thanks to all in the GnuCash community

~Art~
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