Scrub Lots and Capital Gains

[John Ralls]

On Dec 10, 2011, at 10:38 AM, David T. wrote:

> Actually, John, the *sales* commission is NOT being included, resulting in the errors I saw. I apparently have used the term "net" incorrectly; I thought "net" meant the amount of a transaction minus any cost associated with the transaction ($1500-$50=$1450). However, Mike confirmed that there is an error in capital gains calculation, so there's not much to say about it, except to say that Gnucash gets it wrong.
> 
> As for your workaround, it feels a little too kludgey for my comfort. I'll consider it, although I'm not keen on it.
> 
> Ultimately, Mike's reply raises the question of how useful it is to have a scrub lots feature that doesn't calculate gains that mirror what the IRS calculates. Incorrectly entering capital gains can have implications down the road, and what is the point of using this feature if it isn't accurate? Moreover, the transactions I have worked on are pretty straightforward (buy some shares of stock, sell them a little later); if there actually *are* lots to manage, sorting out how to adjust the resulting (inaccurate) gains transactions gets hairy very quickly.
> 
> At this point, I believe I will go back to my old way of doing this, which is to wait for my broker's statement and use the information there to manually enter gains. It's not the ideal, but it will at least mean that my accounts will match what is getting reported to the IRS.

David,

You're right about what "net" is. What you got wrong is that capital gains (in the US) are calculated on net.

I'm not going to defend lot scrubbing. I didn't write it and I seldom use it. 

Regards,
John Ralls