The Money Mustache Community

Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: CCCA on October 23, 2014, 11:20:54 AM

Title: Tax lots reported by brokerage and lots reported to IRS
Post by: CCCA on October 23, 2014, 11:20:54 AM

Hi,
First time in this section of the forum.  I recently sold some AAPL on the recent run-up in the stock and mistakenly used the Fidelity app on my phone which doesn't allow you to select which specific shares you want to sell.  So it used the FIFO method which unfortunately meant that it sold some of the stock for a gain that was within 1 week of becoming a long term gain, but is currently reported by Fidelity as a short term gain.
Is there any way to reorganize the specific lots of stock sales to avoid this issue. If I can switch two specific stock sales as to which lot was sold when, I can effectively switch a significant amount ($>20K) from short term capital gains to long-term capital gains.

Given that I'm in the 15% tax bracket and thus 0% bracket for long-term capital gains, the difference is significant. 

I'm not sure what I'm suggesting is possible or if it is very strict that what Fidelity reports on my account is what needs to be reported to the IRS.  Does Fidelity transmit all of this tax lot specific shares sold information to the IRS?

thanks for your input.