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This page applies to Australian tax residency portfolios.

Question

I've just started on the Starter plan so I can use the Capital Gains Tax Report. I'm using the First-in, First-out (FIFO) rule, which is great, and I follow the calculations — I've locked in last financial year. The problem is this: the capital gain shown in the Sold Securities Report for one of my stocks is wildly different to the same stock and period in the Capital Gains Tax Report. My guess is that the Sold Securities Report uses average cost and the Capital Gains Tax Report uses First-in, First-out, which is why I get different results. Is there a way to get the Sold Securities Report to match the First-in, First-out method (which would also let the average cost adjust)?

Answer

That's correct — the Sold Securities Report is based on the average cost method, and unfortunately there isn't an option to apply FIFO to the Sold Securities Report.

The Capital Gains Tax Report, however, does give you the option to apply a sale allocation method such as First-in, First-out. So if you need your gains calculated on a FIFO basis, use the CGT Report.

This difference is by design: the Sold Securities Report is focused on performance, while the Capital Gains Tax Report is focused on tax. Because they use different cost methods, the two reports can show different capital gain figures for the same holding over the same period.