Turbotax says I have capitol gains, but my investments all lost money. How can this be?

[MayaD]

Did you have and capital gain distributions from 1099-DIV?

[Laureebner]

I did, but they were offset by losses.

How can I deduct my short term losses from my short term gains?

[AmyC]

There is a difference in capital gains the company distributed to you and your losing money in a fund. If you did not sell the fund, you would not recognize a loss. If you sold the fund, then you would recognize the loss on your taxes and you would have a 1099-B for the sale of the fund. The capital gains are on a1099-DIV and not related to a sale.

[mbold1213]

What if there was no distribution of gains?  The money 'gained' was reinvested.  I received nothing from the fund and the fund lost money over the past year. 

[AbrahamT]

A capital gains distribution is the investor's share of the proceeds of a fund's sale of  a "particular" stock and other assets. It has nothing to do with the amount of money the fund lost that year. It is two seperate categories. A fund can still lose money in its overall investing strategies by buying and selling from their pool of assets. Capital gains distributions may be made even when a fund's overall value has dropped during the year. That is, a fund may have sold some stocks that had appreciated in price, but these gains might be offset or even erased by other investments that lost money. In your case, it sounds like you did not have any capital gains distributions coming from a 1099DIV.