if it is your first year of share trading then your opening stock will be nil. if you held shares prior to 1 July as CGT assets which then became part of your business, then you include these shares in your purchases at their cost price. (there will also be a CGT event but because the shares are coverted from CGT assets to trading stock at their cost price, there is no CGT gain or loss that needs to be reported)
your purchases include all of the shares purchased during the financial year, regardless of whether they were sold or not
the gain or loss on your purchases that are not sold are accounted for in your closing stock
closing stock is your shares held at 30 June, at the end of the year. for best tax result, it is best to value each share at the lower of market price or cost price. this means the shares you have made a gain on you value at their cost price, which results in no assessable gain. however the shares you have made a loss on you value at market price, which means you get a tax deduction for their loss
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to complete your accounts you simply:
1. download your sharetrading account in Excel for the financial year
2. sort the buys and sells
3. add up the sells, which is your sales
4. add up the buys, which is your purchases. also, include any purchases from IPOs & SPPs given they will not appear in your on-line account
5. work out your closing stock, which may take the most time, about 30 minutes to 1 hour, dependent on the amount of closing stock. if you are lazy, you can simply use your portfolio value at 30 June which is at market price. however, this will result in a larger tax bill
with closing stock, if it is valued at its lowest in the current year and you make a profit in the next year, then you pay more tax in the next year
6. then work out your expenses, such as internet, computer depreciation, subscriptions, office furniture, telephone, etc
