GOODS a question for you

[legion3pm]

You use scottrade and i was wondering if they do anything for you as far as paperwork for taxes when it comes to that time of year. If not i was wondering if you or whodi had any ideas to keep up with all your trades for when that time of the year comes. Do you pay taxes quarterly so it doesnt all hit you at one time? Do you have to pay taxes on any stock you buy and sell in the same day/week/month? If you dont withdraw money from your broker account do you still have to pay taxes on it even though the money isnt really in your hands? May think of some more things to ask but hopefully you can answer these.

[Goods]

Hey Legion,

For the most part, you add up all your gains then subtract your losses and commissions paid. Whatever's left over is capital gains income and the government wants their cut. Taxes on short term gains (held less than one year) are larger than those held for more than one year. Anytime you have a profit, whether you held the stock for an hour or a decade, you owe tax on the gain.

You don't pay taxes until you sell. For example, had I bought Google at $85 years ago but never sold it, I'd have huge unrealized gains. But they're not counted as realized profits until I sell and put the cash in hand. That's when the taxman cometh.

Regardless of where you keep your cash (bank, broker, mattress) after you sell, you owe tax on the profits. (The exception is when you're trading within certain IRA accounts where you don't get taxed on gains until retirement and start taking the money out.)

I pay taxes on gains within my regular 1040 at tax time. Scottrade allows my account to be directly transferred to TurboTax or TaxCut software. As well as Excel. Not sure about other software. It would be a monster punching in all those trades manually for sure.

Hope I covered everything. Think of anything else, just ask. I do taxes for a group of people every year.

[legion3pm]

so scottrade does keep up with everything for you and let you import everything when it does come tax time well that makes everything a little easier. i thought i was gonna have to put every trade i made in separately. i think you covered everything and made it plain and simple. thanks

[Goods]

No problem, anytime.