Book clsoing [was: Re: Addition of HBCI support, Maturity of 1.7-branch, next stable release time frame?

Michael T. Garrison Stuber garrisonstuber@bellsouth.net
Tue, 16 Apr 2002 14:32:37 -0400


> That's the most useful thing I can think of.  It would allow a capital
> gains report to DTRT *if* lot identification was needed/useful (and it
> hardly ever is).
>

Lot identification often isn't useful because it's more of a pain to dig up 
the records, then to just sell whichever old shares and pay the taxes. 
That's why I use GnuCash rather than a filing cabinet or a shoebox.  Lot 
identification has some very valid uses as a tax management strategy. 
Let's say I know my income (and hence my taxes) is going to be abnormally 
high because of a large bonus, but I still need to cash out a portion of 
liquid investment because of some immediate cash requirements.  I'd like to 
sell the shares with the highest basis that still qualify for long term 
capital gains so that I minimize my tax burden.  (Remember, I'm selling 
because I've hit a cash crunch, not because I'm trying to take my profits 
and reinvest).  This sort of tedious recordkeeping is exactly the sort of 
thing that computers excell at.  GnuCash should make it easy so that lot 
identification can be useful.  I'm not expecting GnuCash to make 
recommendations on which lots to sell (if I wanted my financial program to 
talk down to me I'd use Quicken), but I would like to be able to use it to 
track which lots I sold.