Question about Lots and Capital Gains

[Rich Bloch]

Thanks for the info Charles.

I cannot repro the situation that you describe.

After entering a stock sale, and then scrubbing the equity account, I do not
see any changes made to that account. I see the list of lots in the dialog,
but nothing is altered in the equity account.

Perhaps there are some subtle account settings that need changing? What
version and what platform are you running?


On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 1:44 PM, Charles Day <cedayiv at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Quoting Rich Bloch <richbl at gmail.com>:
> >
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > I'm running 2.2.1, and I'm in the process of learning how to manage
> > stock
> > > purchases/sales. However, I'm having a difficult time understanding
> > how
> > > "lots" work.
> >
> > Unfortunately Lots are not fully implemented at this time.
> >
> > > There's a dialog accessed by View Lots off the main account window,
> > > which--not surprisingly--permits me to scrub and view stock lots.
> > However,
> > > this dialog doesn't appear to do much else (either that, or I'm just
> > not
> > > seeing any functional changes). So, here are my questions:
> > >
> > > --If I want to sell a stock, how does gnucash identify the stock
> > lot--and
> > > it's basis--to determine capital gains?
> >
> > It doesn't... Nor does it compute capital gains for you.
> >
>
> I found by accident yesterday that "View Lots" actually seems to do
> capital gains calculations:
> 1. Enter a sale of stock in the register without accounting for the
> capital gains.
> 2. Choose Actions->View Lots.
> 3. Click the "Scrub Account" button.
> 4. Capital gains get calculated and a new transaction is automatically
> created in the register to account for them.
>
> So there would seem to be more functionality behind the "View Lots" dialog
> than viewing alone.
>
> > --What accounting policy does gnucash use for determining capital gains?
> > I
> > > believe FIFO is most typically used, though LIFO is also legal, as is
> > lot
> > > selection.
> >
> > None.  See above.  But the partial implementation is FIFO, IIRC.
> >
>
> The "Scrub Account" button used FIFO in my experiments.
>
> -Charles
>
> > --Are there specific docs available that address how gnucash handles
> > lots
> > > (in 2.x)? I spent some time picking through notes and conversations on
> > > gnucash.org and the wiki, and haven't really found anything
> > definitive.
> >
> > There may be a lots.txt somewhere.  But the only definitive source
> > would be, um, the source.
> >
> > > Thanks much.
> > >
> > > --
> > > rich
> >
> > > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> > > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> >
> > -derek
> >
> > --
> >       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
> >       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
> >       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
> >       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
> >
> >


-- 
rich