[GNC] Carry over losses

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 12/1/2022 8:40 AM, Fred Tydeman wrote:
> As a USA taxpayer, how should I record long term and short term carryover
> losses from stock sales?
> And, how do I show that they get used up or added to?
> Are they a negative asset?

This isn't a gnucash question (not specific to gnucash). You'd be asking 
the sane question(s) were you keeping your books the old way pen and ink 
on paper. So you really should look up "accounting for short term and 
long term stock trade losses" in a US accounting text.

Personally, I would probably choose to track carry-overs (could be more 
sorts than from stock trading) outside of the general ledger. Remember, 
whether or not you claim on your tax filing has no effect on equity. I 
would probably use a subsidiary ledger (also under gnucash), A zero 
equity mini ledger with just account types income (total losses) and 
expenses (short term carry-over) (long term carry over) (shot term 
deducted) and (long term deducted).

When about to do taxes for yyyy enter transactions to bring data in from 
yyyy (the calendar year is now yyyy+1). You haven't used any of these so 
the credit side is losses not yet deducted and the debit side the carry 
overs. Now when doing taxes, know how much can transfer between the 
respective carry overs and deducteds (leaving the correct amount in the 
carry overs for next year).

If you insist on doing within main set of books, then create a 
"carry-overs" work area under equity << the accounts I described for a 
separate ledger are all o=f fundamental type equity >> But now you will 
not be able to use the standard reports. That probably makes no 
difference to YOU, just with stock trading carry-overs, but suppose you 
had carry-overs of all sorts to account for.

Michael D Novack