“Realized will generate a Schedule D for you whenever you want, so you can keep an eye on your short-term and long-term capital gains as the year progresses. The program displays your largest unrealized tax losses, which you can sell to offset your capital gains, minimizing your tax payments.”

Theresa has much more to say about Realized in her article.

Realized-app.com is now live and available to everyone. Today you can sign up for free and try it with your portfolios.

For our initial rollout, we focused on providing you a tool that fills some big gaps that other providers miss. The product tour shows a few details about what it can do for you now. While Realized already minimizes your capital gains tax and handles your Schedule D-1, we also expect to do much more.

After you try it out please share your feedback at our support center, or email us directly at support@newforge-tech.com.

As we wrap up the functional changes that we discovered during the Realized app beta testing, one new feature stands out. Early on, we saw that stock splits complicate the calculation of capital gains. One of the first features built into our automated tax lot setup included the handling of stock splits.

For any lot affected by a stock split, the Realized app will calculate the number of post-split shares. This requires no effort on the part of the user.

Mergers and tax lots needed a solution

During the beta test, we came across the merger of WYE (Wyeth) with PFE (Pfizer). The merger is actually a taxable acquisition using both PFE shares and cash boot.

We wondered how the thousands of WYE shareholders calculated the cost basis in their new PFE shares. Depending upon the cost basis for each of their pre-merger WYE tax lots, many had taxable capital gains, even though they sold no WYE stock. Some avoided the headache and passed the problem on to their tax accountants.

To provide our customers with full automation of the tax lot process, we went forward with adjusting tax lots for mergers. Going beyond the WYE/PFE merger, different merger types (either all stock, all cash or stock plus boot) require different handling. The end result: Realized will effortlessly maintain the cost basis for all tax lots, including stocks going through mergers.

No more headaches.

Public launch imminent

If all goes according to plan, next week we will begin a preview period during which anyone may setup a Realized account. To receive a notification when the preview begins, go to www.realized-app.com.

Before anything else, the Realized app must handle two aspects of a stock portfolio. One concerns the capital gains that have yet to be realized. The other involves reporting the realized gains for Schedule D.

For the unrealized gains, the app maintains the cost basis of stock holdings within tax lots. It also adjusts the basis of a lot after a corporate event such as a stock split.

To calculate a realized gain, the Realized app matches a sale with a tax lot. Properly gathering these gains for Schedule D-1 also requires the detection of any wash sales.

With the above features in place, we have reached the point where the app has a solid foundation. Our goal is to take the existing feature set to the next level with a minimum viable product.

If you would participate as beta tester and try out the latest, pre-launch version of the Realized app, go to www.realized-app.com/beta. Successful portfolio management involves a number of factors. With your help, we can make the best choices for the future development of Realized.