Transfer shares between accounts?

[David Carlson]

On 2/19/2013 6:54 PM, Janice Forrester wrote:
> On 02/19/2013 01:48 PM, Derek Atkins wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Janice Forrester<j_forrester at verizon.net>  writes:
>>
>>> Hi all -
>>>
>>> Can Gnu Cash handle the transfer of stocks or mutual funds between
>>> accounts, while preserving the information on when each lot was
>>> purchased, the number of shares and the basis?
>>>
>>> This questions arises from our conversion of traditional contributory
>>> IRAs to Roth conversion IRAs.
>>>
>>> Many thanks,
>>>
>>> Jan
>>
>> Yes and no.  When you make a transfer from A to B, in B you will have
>> lost the historic context from A.  However, your 'A' history will
>> remain.
>>
>>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>
>> -derek
>>
>
> Thank you for your reply.  I am a newbie here, and do not really
> understand your reply.  What specifically happens to basis and trade
> date?  Another situation where this can arise if someone transfers a
> security between brokers, and wants to preserve basis and trade date
> for tax purposes.
>
> Am a Money Dance refugee.  MD does not allow this type of transfer.
>
> Thanks
>
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I am a user who just went through this.  In my case, accounts
transferred from one 401-K to another, but the principles are
identical.  Before the transfer all transactions for all securities
resided under a brokerage account in various security sub-accounts.  In
my case I could have simply changed the name of the brokerage account
because only one or two of the securities changed in any way.  I did not
do it the easy way because I have OCD.
The more general case is when the transfer would be documented by first
creating a new brokerage account and new security accounts.  Where the
same security appears in the new brokerage account, the new security
account would refer to the existing security in the price history, but
the historical transactions do not appear in the new account. 
The final step of the transfer is to "sell" each security in the old
accounts, including a pair of lines in the transaction record to
document the "Realized Capital Gain" which you need to correctly set the
cost basis when you "Buy" shares in the new accounts. 
As Derek states, the amounts and dates for purchases and sales from the
old accounts do not carry over to the new accounts, but they are still
in your data file under the old account names.
It can be tricky to get all the details correct partly because  the
documentation is a little thin in that area, but we have a thread in
this list about that. 

Generally, the new broker will get the cost basis and significant
capital gain details from the previous broker if they are available. 
For most U. S. "Qualified Plans" there is not much info needed.

David C

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