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.