Help - I'm trying to figure out the tax or income repercussions if I sell a non-retirement stock mutual fund. I've been investing in this fund since 1995. I have two questions.
1. I want to switch my money from a stock fund to a bond fund via an exchange. When I calculated my gain or loss using their calculator, with a first in, first out cost basis method, it returns $0 short or long term gain. Is this right? Does this mean I will not be reporting any income from this sale? Note--when I use another cost basis method, it does give me a short and a long term gain.
2. If I cash out and if the calculator is right--$0 short or long term gain, does that mean I received no income, therefore it will have no effect on my income for my filing my taxes? or is this sale or $$s reported in another area or line item on my tax form.
Thanks in advance.
I would urge you to check out any gain or loss with your financial institution since a zero result seems unusual for an investment held that length of time. The calculation can be complicated due to reinvested distributions. To your question, however, if you truly had no gain the sale would be reported on Sch D but there would be no tax liability.
forget about the calculator for a moment. your total gain should be total sales price less total cost. that total gain should be the same as the total for the long and short-term portions. it's unlikely to be zero.