if you carry on a business of share trading (rather than are an...

if you carry on a business of share trading (rather than are an investor on CGT account), then:

1. download your annual trading statement in Excel

2. sort buys & sells

3. add up your sells. this is business income

4. add up your buys. this is purchases

5. add up the shares you bought via DRP, SPP, IPO, etc. this is also purchases.

6. if you want to reduce your tax payable in the current year (which means your potentially increase your tax payable in the next year), value your closing stock at the lower of market price & cost price for each share

for example, BHP at 30 June is $35. your closing stock includes 500 BHP bought at $30 and 600 BHP bought at $40. you value 500 BHP at $30 (cost price) and 600 BHP at market price ($35)

7. if the current year is your 1st year as a share trader, your opening stock for the current year will be zero

8. your opening stock for the next year will be your closing stock for the next year

9. if you do not chose the lower of market or cost price for your closing stock then you can just chose the market price, which is the value of your portfolio at 30 June

10. if you decide to simply choose market price for your closing stock then completing your trading profit for the year should take around 5 minutes

11. add your expenses, such as phone, computer depreciation, etc

12. depreciation can be at simple prime cost method, depreciating cost price over number of years effective life

13. other wise, for more depreciation sooner, use diminishing value method, formula is:

days held/365 x 2 divided by effective life x cost

e.g. computer cost $2,000 bought on 6 July 2012

depreciation is 360/365 x 2 / 3 years x $2,000 = $1,315 in the 1st year

regards