Dividend Excel Spreadsheet

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Topic Author
minhnusa
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2014 2:18 pm

Dividend Excel Spreadsheet

Post by minhnusa »

How do you keep record of your fund dividend?
I'm thinking of making an excel spreadsheet for it.
If you have one already made and works well for you, please let me have a copy. Thank you.
cheesepep
Posts: 1295
Joined: Wed Feb 17, 2010 9:58 pm

Re: Dividend Excel Spreadsheet

Post by cheesepep »

I don't. I let my brokerage take care of it. If you bought a stock after Jan 1, 2012, your brokerage will calculate the cost basis for you without any input from you (but you can, at your own doing, request FIFO, LIFO).
Topic Author
minhnusa
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2014 2:18 pm

Re: Dividend Excel Spreadsheet

Post by minhnusa »

cheesepep wrote:I don't. I let my brokerage take care of it. If you bought a stock after Jan 1, 2012, your brokerage will calculate the cost basis for you without any input from you (but you can, at your own doing, request FIFO, LIFO).
Oh you dont? I've read some where in boglehead forum about keeping record of dividend & purchase forever.
Faith20879
Posts: 1242
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2007 9:16 am

Re: Dividend Excel Spreadsheet

Post by Faith20879 »

Hello minhnusa,

Are you referring to dividends paid out to you as cash or dividend re-investment? They are treated differently in my system.

If former, I treat it as interest from any bank account and no, I don't keep record for cost basis reason.
If latter, I use Gummy's (search Gummy) spreadsheet.
But cheesepep is right that your brokerage usually will keep tract of it for you if you are not particular about which cost basis reporting method they use.
dbr
Posts: 46181
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:50 am

Re: Dividend Excel Spreadsheet

Post by dbr »

minhnusa wrote:
cheesepep wrote:I don't. I let my brokerage take care of it. If you bought a stock after Jan 1, 2012, your brokerage will calculate the cost basis for you without any input from you (but you can, at your own doing, request FIFO, LIFO).
Oh you dont? I've read some where in boglehead forum about keeping record of dividend & purchase forever.
Brokerages being under the gun to keep cost basis correctly for the IRS is a new requirement beginning within the last couple of years. A lot of people learned in the past that they better have their own accounting. It remains to be seen what errors or disconnects may appear in the new systems. Certainly if your broker makes an error in reporting to the IRS it is even more important to have your own records. Eventually this may come down to the same issue as to whether or not one balances one's own checkbook or assumes the bank is always right, except the numbers are bigger. I am not sure your broker would tell you what would happen if you decided to change the basis method or how it would look in the future (short term becomes long term), so you would need to put the data somewhere that you could do calculations on it.
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