Stocks sales in Retirement Accounts

[David Carlson]

On 7/18/2014 8:57 PM, Quark Z. wrote:
> Wow!  That was quick.  Thanks for the clarification.  I have set that
> up now!
>
> Thanks!
>
> On 07/18/2014 09:50 PM, Robin Chattopadhyay wrote:
>> It's still a loss. Just (in the U.S. anyway) not a taxable loss. So I
>> have two separate Capital Gain accounts. One for taxable gains, one
>> for non-taxable gains.
>>
>> Also, there's no loss on the *purchase.* Only the sale.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 8:43 PM, Quark Z. <zquark32 at gmail.com
>> <mailto:zquark32 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Hi,
>>
>>     I'm am getting the hang of splitting up stock sales.  However, in
>>     a retirement account it is a little different because you don't
>>     track capital gains & losses the same.  I'm trying to enter a sale
>>     at a loss.  I have the following.
>>
>>     The Sell side is easy:
>>     Gross sale = $500
>>     Loss on sale = $60
>>
>>     The buy side is where I'm stuck:
>>     Assets:Retirement = $493
>>     Expense:Commission = $7
>>     Loss = $60
>>
>>     My question is where do I post the Loss to?  It's not an
>>     Expense:Capital Loss is it?
>>
>>     Thanks for the help!
>>
>>     Lou
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>
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Actually, you need to show the loss both in the security account and
also either in an income account as a negative gain or in an expense
account.  In either case, if it is in an American "Tax Qualified"
account it is not taxable.  You can follow the example in Table 8.3 of
the Tutorial and Concepts Guide.  It is a little tricky getting that
second security line with zero shares (Tab) zero Dollars (Tab) Loss
Dollars (Tab) to work without accidentally getting a non-zero price.  Do
not despair, it can be done, be sure to only use the Tab key to navigate
on that line.

The reason you need to do that is to get the overall value of the
security account back to zero when the last share is removed in order to
make the books balance at the end of the day.

Usually, in that type of account there is no explicit commission to
consider.

David C