Short Sales Missing from Realized Gains in Reports.

norman103

I did a Short Sale on Stock and Covered the Short a couple of days later, and the Realized Loss does not show up in the RlzdGain Category in Reports. I saw an old thread on this from 2013. 7 years later and this has not been fixed? If not, where is the Loss being recorded - I cannot find it anywhere.

NotACPA

Are you sure that you selected that security for inclusion in the report?  That you included that account?  That you used "Short Sale" and "Cover Short Sale" as the actions for these transactions?

And, what Q product are you running and what BUILD of that product?  Do HELP, About Quicken for this info.

norman103

Thank you for your reply. I'll try to answer your questions in order:

1. The Itemized Categories Report does not have a tab for customizing Securities. But the real puzzling part of this is that standard Stock Sales show up by default, so it seems Itemized Categories is unable to report Short Sales? If my conclusion is correct, is there a work around?

2. I am running Quicken Home, Business and Rental Property 2020, Version R28.18 and Build 27.1.28.18.

Jim_Harman

I think you will have better luck using the Tax > Capital Gains or one of the other Tax reports to see capital gains and losses.

norman103

Thank you for your reply - it shows up under Capital Gains, so that got me thinking the workaround was to make the account with the issue Tax Deferred, but no luck. It must know that shorting stock is not allowed in Tax Deferred Accounts. I should be able to tell it what category to put these transactions in - is there a way of doing that?

NotACPA

The issue MIGHT be that the Itemized Categories report shows Income & Expense transactions ... but a Short Sale and a Cover Short are NOT, by themselves, Income or Expense transactions.

In combination they are ... but not singly.

Besides a Tax report, an Investment Transactions report, filtered to just that security might do the trick.

norman103

So let me make sure I understand. You are saying that standard Stock Sales are treated as Income and Expense, but Short Stock Sales are not? It does not make any sense to me, but that seems to be the behavior.

Jim_Harman

Can you explain why you want to use the Itemized Categories report? Generally tax-related calculations are best handled by the Tax reports.

norman103

Most of my trading is in Tax Sheltered Accounts, so they do not show up in Tax Reports. This Short Trade in a standard margin account, so it only shows up under Capital Gains. I guess it is what it is .....

Jim_Harman

You can customize the Tax reports to include tax deferred accounts if you want, just remember not to use the numbers when preparing your taxes... 

q_lurker

A "Banking Transaction Report" subtotaled by Category will include the CvrShrt transaction as a realized gain.  So will an "Income/Expense by Category" report.  Such reports may need to be customized to include the investment account