Re: "Gross Proceeds" tax column when selling short

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In Reply to: "Gross Proceeds" tax column when selling short posted by Jim on February 11, 2004 at 18:46:13:

: Mark,

: As a long term subscriber to your software, I did something new last year. I did some short selling, and I though I did a pretty good job following the advice that I found on your site regarding how to record short selling transactions.

: However, my accountant did not accept my Schedule D because the "Gross Proceeds" column from my broker's year-end tax statement did not match the number at the bottom of the "sell value" on the Fund Manager schedule D.

: It seems that on all the stocks I sold short, fund manager is reporting the correct value in the "cost basis" column instead of the "sell value" column.

: My broker suggested that on all of my shorts, that I go into fund manager and reverse the "sell short date" with the "buy to cover date".

: I could go back in and switch the dates........but is there a better way to fix whats been done, and should I do something different when I sell-short in the future?

: Thanks,
: Jim

Hi Jim,

As you've seen Fund Manager puts the amount you paid to cover your
short sell, as the "sell value". It is a negative number since you
paid it, instead of received it. This is the first time this
problem has been pointed out, and I can see that it would be better
reported in a way more consistent with what your broker would report.

I will plan on fixing this for our next major release, but for
now I can just suggest that you break your long/short reports
into 2 separate reports. That way, in the long report, you will
use the "sell value" towards the broker's "Gross Proceeds", and in
the short report, you would use the negative of the "cost basis", as
the "cost basis" will show up as a negative value for short sales.

Thanks for pointing this out, I do plan to fix it.

Thanks,
Mark
--
Mark Beiley

Fund Manager, portfolio management software for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/00/XP

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