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Merging two Securities into one

rrh770

Quicken created a Security Name for employee purchase shares by appending ESPP to the symbol with the ESPP feature in 2016. In my case IBM ESPP. Employee Purchase Shares prior to that just had the base symbol. In my case IBM. I now have both IBM and IBM ESPP in my investment account that holds these shares. Both use the same ticker symbol IBM.

How can I merge the IBM ESPP shares with the IBM shares so I only have one item in my single Investment Account holdings?

I am using current version of Quicken Classic Premier for Windows.

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NotACPA

How about a Corporate Acquisition at 1 for 1?

mshiggins

Why would you want to merge regular and ESPP securities? Their tax treatment is completely different.

rrh770

@NotaCPA: The IBM ESPP security does not show up in the list. When I type it in it says "Corporate Acquisition can't be applied to an ESPP security type".

@MSHiggins: All of the stocks in this portfolio are ESPP shares. In 2016, Quicken provided the ESPP wizard. When you use that, the shares get ESPP added and are tracked separately. Prior to that, they are just normal IBM transactions. So the tax treatment in this account is the same.

mshiggins

The ESPP wizard has been around a lot longer than 2016.

How many lots of IBM do you have that are older than 2016? I would be inclined to delete those older Buys and replace them with ESPP Buys.

NotACPA

@rrh770 Are you saying that the ESPP securities show in the account register, but not in the Securities List (which shouldn't happen)?

BUT, if so, try checking the "Show Hidden Securities" box at the bottom of the securities list to see if that helps.

And if they're not showing in the Portfolio, click Customize, Securities and see if they're hidden there.

mshiggins

Dan, OP is trying to use Corporate Acquisition action to convert ESPP shares to regular shares. Corporate Acquisition action will not “see” ESPP security.

rrh770

Thanks for the input.

There way too many transactions to do manually.

What I've done is found the ESPP Security and changed from ESPP to Stock. Then the Corporate Acquisition approach seems to work.

Thanks again for the assist.

mshiggins

@rrh770 hopefully the brokerage that manages your ESPPs does better tax reporting than mine does. My ESPPs are managed by Fidelity and their reporting of the ordinary income and resulting adjusted cost basis when selling my ESPPs leaves a lot to be desired.

Thankfully the ESPP buys and sells in Quicken are rock solid accurate in reporting the ordinary income and adjusted cost basis.

q_lurker

Thankfully the ESPP buys and sells in Quicken are rock solid accurate in reporting the ordinary income and adjusted cost basis.

… if one keeps the Quicken info accurate, says Captain Obvious.

mshiggins

Yessir Captain Obvious, sir ;-).

I cross check Quicken against my home grown ESPP excel and against Fidelity’s less than perfect reporting. It also helps to have been buying and selling ESPPs for the last 27 years.

When my ESPPs were managed by eTrade, eTrade’s reporting was much better.

q_lurker

Actually @mshiggins, my comment was more directed toward @rrh770. I am not clear that his dissociation of the ESPP type and “merging” of the two securities would maintain the accuracy you encouraged. But since I’ve never dealt with ESPP situations, I can’t comment knowledgeably.

mshiggins

@q_lurker thanks for clarifying. Changing the security type from ESPP to regular shares will definitely break the Quicken ESPP tax tracking. Hopefully the OP has alternate means to get the tax tracking info.

rrh770

I have a financial advisor and a CPA that is responsible for the details and reporting. Also, the ESPP shares prior to the ESPP feature were not tracked as ESPP so the reporting was off anyway. I use Quicken to keep me close. I don't file taxes from Quicken. All the ESPP shares have completed the minimal holding period, so I understand that they are treated as normal shares at this point. The bigger issue I had was being unable to easily reconcile to my brokerage statement which holds all transactions under IBM, and as my advisor sells the shares, they see them all lots as one account of IBM stock. Appreciate all the input and ideas. Hopefully I didn't screw anything up too bad. Would have been nice if I could have restrospectively updated the shares prior to 2015 to ESPP without reentring 100's of transactions.

mshiggins

ESPP shares are never treated as just regular shares. ESPPs held 2 or more years since their grant date do get qualified disposition treatment when sold or gifted, but there will still be ordinary income and adjusted cost basis when you sell or gift the qualified ESPP shares.

For anyone wanting to learn more about ESPPs, RSUs, ISOs, and other stock options, the book Consider Your Options by Kaye A. Thomas is a great resource. The website MyStockOptions.com is also a great resource. The website has both free and paid premium content.

rrh770

@mshiggins: Thank you for the input. I'll look into it. At this time the shares are under the control of my financial advisor and held in a Schwab account. They have been advised these are ESPP shares and have acknowledged handling them as such. I have provided all of the purchase date, purchase price, and FMV details via reports from Quicken. So I hope they do this right. To make sure, I will check into the resources you've provided which will help me confirm they are doing it right. In the end, I use Quicken to track, but I do not file or report directly. I rely on paid professional help to make sure these are done right…but it never hurts to check and validate. People do make mistakes. Thanks for the input and guidance.