Investing in stocks

[johl03]

I'm 18 and want to start investing. I don't have income and haven't began paying taxes yet. How much do I have to make in capital gains before I have to file taxes. Or do I have to report it all? If I have to report it all, what form would I use to do that?

[JohnB5677]

Here are some basics for Capital gains:

• The standard deduction for a single person is $12,400.  If you exceed that with any form of income you will have to file a tax return.
• If you have wages you may want to file a tax return to recover federal or state income taxes that were withheld.
• I will use the term stock generically to refer to multiple types of investments.
• You only have a taxable situation after you've sold a stock
• You will receive a 1099-B to report the sale of stocks.
• There are short term and long term sales.  Short term is one year or less.  Long Term is more than one year.
• Short term gains are taxed as regular income.
• Long term receive a beneficial tax rate.
• Taxable gains and losses are reported on tour individual tax return. Form 1040.
• Transactions are reported on Schedule D and Form 8949.  TurboTax takes care of posting all necessary forms.
• Capital losses are limited to $3,000.  You can subtract all of your gains from your losses, but then the maximum loss you can take is $3,000.  Excess losses will be carried over to the following year.

To post transactions in TurboTax

Income & Expenses

1. Scroll to Stocks, Mutual Funds, Bonds, Other
2. Answer Yes to Did you sell stocks, mutual funds, bonds, or other investments in 2020?
3. On the OK, what type of investments did you sell? screen, select Stock, Bonds, Mutual Funds. Then select Continue.
4. From here, you can import or manually enter your 1099-B.
5. Answer the questions about your sales. Choose to Enter sales one by one when asked.
6. On the Now, we'll enter one sale on your 1099-B screen, enter your info.