Advanced Portfolio Report

Richard Ullger rullger at gmail.com
Tue Jan 28 04:25:34 EST 2014


Hi Mike,

On 28/01/14 02:13, Mike Alexander wrote:
> Thanks for the report. See comments below.
> 
> --On January 28, 2014 12:33:09 AM +0000 Richard Ullger
> <rullger at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>
>> In previous versions of the report, brokerage was not taken into
>> account in the Realised Gain column. The 'Ignore brokerage fees when
>> calculating returns' setting determines whether the brokerage column
>> is displayed and the figure taken into account in the Total Return
>> column.
> 
> Let's see if I understand this correctly.  You would like brokerage fees
> to be always excluded from realized gains, but included in total return
> if the ignore option is not selected, is that right?  I wasn't aware
> that I had changed this, but perhaps I did accidentally.

Yes. Brokerage is taken into account in the Total Return column.

> 
> The ignore option removes them from both realized gains and (hence) from
> total return.  I think changing it the way you suggest would annoy US
> users since US tax law says that brokerage fees are added to your basis
> when calculating gain.  I guess I could add a new option to control
> this, but the report is complicated already.

In the UK under Self Assessment, a charge expense is not reportable to
HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs) until the shares are sold.

>> If income of say 374.92 is entered in the stock account with one blank
>> split line tying the income to the stock account, that income is
>> correctly recorded on the report. For example,
>>
>> Acc        Tot Buy        Tot Sell
>> Stock Account                    (Blank split)
>> Income            374.92
>> Cash        374.92
>>
>> If the income is entered as a split of a dividend reinvestment where
>> you have a stock purchase, the income recorded on the report is the
>> consideration of 366.95 instead of the actual income of 374.92. For
>> example,
>>
>> Acc        Tot Buy        Tot Sell
>> Stock Account    366.95
>> Commission    3.66
>> Stamp Duty    1.83
>> Cash                372.44
>> Income            374.92
>> Cash        374.92
>>
>> The reason I have been recording income as a split of the reinvestment
>> is because when I first started using the report some years ago, this
>> was the only way that income would be included on the report.
> 
> There is a bug in the way reinvested dividends are handled.  Someone
> else gave me a test file that demonstrates it and I'll try to fix it in
> the next day or two.
> 
> On the other hand, I'm not sure I understand that last transaction. What
> are the two cash splits for?  Are they in the same account?  I would
> have expected the stock buy to be for 369.43 (374.92-1.83-3.66). Somehow
> 2.48 disappeared into the cash account.  The changes I was planning to
> make would show this as 366,95 reinvested dividends and 2.48 other
> income.  Is this what you want?

One cash split (374.92) is for the cash dividend received into the cash
account. The other cash split (372.44) is the cost of purchasing the
shares including the charges.

The 2.48 is the dividend left over because you can only purchase whole
shares. Buying an extra share would have taken the total cost above the
actual dividend received. The 2.48 is still dividend income, it just
couldn't be used to buy any more whole shares and it is not necessary to
report it as other income. IMHO one income column would suffice.

As other replies have intimated, the cash receipt and the share purchase
could have been recorded as two separate transactions, as the purchase
does not usually take place on the same day that the dividend is
received into the account. On my account the share purchase takes place
on the next working day. But when I started using the report (many years
ago), the only way that income would be included on the report is if it
was entered as a split of the stock purchase transaction. If I entered
the income as a separate transaction in the stock account, it was not
being included on the report. The latest version of the report does
include this income and is working correctly.

Richard


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